Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I have pleasure in presenting to the House the recommendation for second reading on the regulation concerning assistance and compensation to air passengers in the event of denied boarding, long delays and cancellations. I think it would be useful briefly to summarise the developments relating to this proposal since its presentation last year. The first reading was adopted in this House last year and it had already highlighted the weaknesses of the initial proposal by the Commission. The main objective of the 39 amendments adopted by Parliament was to bring the regulation into line with the real needs of passengers and to make it more practicable for airlines. Subsequently, the Council’s common position, although it significantly changed the initial form of the regulation, nevertheless incorporated a large number of concerns raised by Parliament: the Council has achieved a significant amount, but a few points remain unclear, particularly given the objective which we set ourselves, which is to draw up clear, transparent rules for passengers that are, at the same time, sustainable by airlines, which, as we all know, are passing through a very difficult period. Considering that perhaps the most thorny issue – the total amount of compensation – has been, we may say at this point, resolved to the satisfaction of almost all the Members, I will merely point out the issues that remain open which are the subject of this second recommendation. The first concerns tour operators and their right of redress. The outcome of the vote in the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism was not, in my view, completely satisfactory, and now we have a recommendation which is partly contradictory on the subject of tour operators. In fact, in my opinion, minimal changes are needed with regard to the definition of tourist operators and reciprocity of the right of redress – Amendments Nos 5 and 16 – but, on the whole, the Council's position has, from this point of view, put the problem in the right perspective, since it has placed overall, general responsibility on the carrier operating the service. It is for this reason, therefore, that I cannot support Amendments Nos 1 and 9, or the second part of Amendment No 17, for which a split vote has been requested. The second issue concerns the distance bands. At first reading Parliament opted for a single distance criterion, in other words division into three bands of distance expressed in kilometres for compensation, delay and the placing of passengers in a higher or lower class. In its common position, however, the Council adopted three different criteria for division, and even introduced a new criterion (inside or outside the European Union) with no clear justification. The disparity introduced does not serve to make the legislative text clearer and certainly does not help passengers to understand their exact rights. That is why, in this case too, we propose to combine in a single criterion these three different proposals from the Council: a single criterion, that is three distance bands for all cases. We then come to the subject of cancellations. I feel that the Council's proposal, which is the result of a laborious compromise, does not offer us the necessary clarity in this case either and runs the risk of considerably complicating communication with passengers. On this matter, I take the liberty of proposing a single compromise amendment to define clearly when passengers have the right to assistance, particularly with regard to cancellation, and to lay down a single time limit – five days before the expected departure – after which passengers may benefit from financial compensation. I would ask the House to support this position, which, as I said, attempts to make what we are trying to say clearer and easier to communicate to passengers and airlines too. As regards delays, it is necessary to guarantee immediate assistance in the event of long delays, namely information, assistance, refreshments and possibly accommodation, whereas we believe that re-routing and reimbursement of air fares – fully justified for cancellations and denied boarding – would represent an incredible complication in the case of delays and would set off a chain reaction of delays which would paralyse air traffic. Lastly, an amendment has been presented concerning the entry into force, which I think ought to be accepted because it makes sense: we give airlines time to get ready, and what we propose is 12 months. In conclusion, apart from a few other minor observations on amendments which are not significant, I believe that, at this point, if we succeed in adopting this proposal, the Council may adopt a rather more constructive attitude, and this makes me confident that it will be possible to bring this dossier to a close shortly, in the interests of passengers and of the air transport sector as well.

Political group: PPE-DE