Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-03-14-Speech-3-242"
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"en.20070314.19.3-242"2
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".
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, honourable Members, Europe’s continued industrial and technological performance in transport, communications, earth observation, security and defence is to a crucial degree attributable to its aerospace industry, for it is only that industry’s global competitiveness that will enable Europe to achieve its economic and political goals.
The EU is also, in its Seventh Framework Programme for Research, making considerable funds available for research and development in air transport and space research. All companies involved in such research work are being urged to submit proposals for shared-cost projects, which will be selected for funding on the basis of a competition.
I would like to highlight the outstanding significance of the ‘Clean Sky’ joint technology initiative in this respect, which will make it possible for the European aerospace industry to take up the challenge thrown down to it by the debate on climate change. I would like to take this opportunity to appeal, in forthright terms, to the European aircraft manufacturers and also to the airlines, who should be very concerned not to suffer the same damage to their image as that sustained by the European motor industry over recent weeks as a result of responding too late to the demands of our time. Modernity and innovation, research and development, are a matter of urgent necessity in this area, and, with ‘Clean Sky’, the European Union is offering an effective and strong platform for them.
The European aerospace industry is a world leader in several important market segments; it has in excess of a one-third share in the global market. In 2005 – the last year for which figures are available – it achieved a turnover of EUR 86 billion and gave work to 457 000 workers. The sector is continuing to grow despite recent difficulties, with a growing market for large civil aircraft in particular.
As Mr Hintze has just stressed, Airbus’ ability to deliver 434 new aircraft last year constitutes a record. Orders have been placed with it for over 2 500 of them, giving it work for over five years. With projected growth of 5% per annum in the transport of persons by air, and of 6% per annum in the airfreight sector, the next twenty years will see a demand for over 22 500 new large airliners, amounting to a total value of EUR 2 billion at present-day prices.
It has to be said, though, that, over recent weeks and months, Airbus has been making the sort of headlines it would probably rather not make. We would all rather read about more great successes on its part on the market than about losses and layoffs, but the fact is that the European aerospace industry operates on a global market characterised by sharp competition and has to cope with well-prepared competitors – Boeing, for example – in all its segments, so the industry needs constant investment and innovation if its products are to meet its customers’ requirements. Airbus is a major part of the European aerospace industry, a truly European enterprise with, at present 57 000 internal and 30 000 external workers, and drawing on many enterprises, both large and small, for the products and services that it uses.
Like any other enterprise, Airbus must adapt to changed conditions, adopting those procedures and structures that will enable it to produce the goods that the market demands as profitably as possible, and it does indeed make matters more difficult that Airbus has to sell its products in dollars, whilst bearing costs expressed in euros, the euro being the stronger of the two currencies. That makes it all the more important that Airbus should be able to take difficult business decisions rationally in order thereby to recover its position in the market.
It is an unfortunate fact that Airbus’ decision to improve its efficiency by means of a programme of cutbacks and restructuring, including the farming-out of some of its activities, will result in a reduction in the number of staff employed, something that is causing insecurity and prompting calls for political intervention.
While politicians cannot and are not meant to interfere in decisions taken by businesses in an attempt to restore their own competitive edge – for companies’ management decisions are not political matters – there are ways in which redundant workers can be helped, and, perhaps even a moral duty to help them, to get retrained and to find new work in other companies, possibly in other industries. For this purpose, for example, the Member States can get help from the European Social Fund.
The Commission notes with satisfaction that Airbus had already, some time prior to the restructuring currently in progress, involved workers’ representatives in the decisions that had to be taken. It is most especially worthy of note that the European workers’ representatives were fully consulted and that the effects of the restructuring on Airbus’ subcontractors were also discussed.
Considering the expected growth, which is the envy of many other industries, it is also important that steps should be taken today to secure, to the benefit of us all, the long-term success of the European aerospace industry. That is one reason why the Commission is taking action, wherever possible – by, for example, setting up a European space programme or creating a European armaments market and a single European airspace – in order to create conditions that are favourable to free competition."@en1
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