COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT pursuant to the second subparagraph of Article 251(2) of the EC Treaty concerning the common position of the Council on the adoption of a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on statistical returns in respect of the carriage of passengers, freight and mail by air

1995/0232 (COD)

COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT pursuant to the second subparagraph of Article 251(2) of the EC Treaty concerning the common position of the Council on the adoption of a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on statistical returns in respect of the carriage of passengers, freight and mail by air

1. BACKGROUND

Date of adoption of the proposal and its transmission to the EP and Council (Document COM(1995) 353 final - 1995/0232(COD)): // 18.9.1995

Date of the opinion of the Economic and Social Committee: // 23.11.1995

Date of the opinion of the European Parliament at first reading:

Confirmation by the European Parliament of the opinion at first reading:

Date of the adoption of the common position by the Council: // 29.2.1996

16.9.1999

30.9.2002

2. purpose of the regulation

The purpose of this proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council is to provide the air transport industry with high-quality, comparable and timely data that yield an overall and detailed view (by airport and flight stage) of the carriage of passengers, freight and mail by air.

Although this mode of transport has seen very strong growth over the past few decades, with passenger numbers virtually doubling every ten years, it is highly susceptible to cyclical influences. The extremely rapid nature of developments in this sector poses ever more questions about the saturation of the skies, the capacity of airports, the quality of services (delays), environmental protection and, of course, safety. The data collected should make it easier to analyse all these topics.

3. the commission's comments

3.1. General comments

On 18 September 1995, the Commission sent the European Parliament and the Council a draft regulation on statistical data on the carriage of passengers, freight and mail by air (COM(1995) 353 final - 1995/0232(COD)).

On 23 November 1995, the Economic and Social Committee issued its opinion (OJ C/1996/39, p. 25).

On 29 February 1996, the European Parliament adopted the text with four amendments (separation of freight and mail, combination of the definitions of non-scheduled services and passenger services, and a change to passenger units). The Commission accepted the last proposed amendment.

The text was subsequently blocked in the Council by Spain and the United Kingdom as a result of the "Gibraltar airport clause".

Since 1999, with the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty (Article 285), statistical legislation has been subject to the co-decision procedure. In 1999, the draft was thus re-named as a "proposal for a Regulation of the Parliament and of the Council". The European Parliament then confirmed the opinion it expressed at the first reading (four amendments).

Following the agreement reached by the United Kingdom and Spain at the beginning of 2002 on Gibraltar airport, the proposal for a regulation was re-tabled for discussion by the Council. The text had to be brought up to date to take account of the latest legal provisions concerning European statistics.

Now that the Council has endorsed the general structure and main provisions of the proposal, the common position, which has been unanimously adopted, is basically consistent with the Commission's initial proposal. It also incorporates the only Parliament proposal for an amendment that was accepted by the Commission.

The main provision that prompted an amendment concerned the airline code, which is no longer obligatory in the detailed tables on carriage by flight stage. Instead, information of a more general nature may be supplied by the airline (to be defined in accordance with the committee procedure outlined in Article 11(2)).

3.2. Detailed comments on the European Parliament amendments

3.2.1. European Parliament amendment accepted by the Commission and incorporated into the common position

* Amendment 4 modifies the weight of freight and mail equivalent to one passenger unit (increase from 75 to 90 kg).

3.2.2. European Parliament amendments rejected by the Commission and not incorporated into the common position

* Amendments 1 and 2 concern the separation of freight and mail. Since there is no universally accepted definition that would allow a clear separation to be made between the two, the Commission thinks that the supply of separate statistics for these two concepts would prove too problematic.

* Amendment 3 concerns the combination of definitions of "non-scheduled services" and "passenger services". If the definitions given in Annex II and the data requested in Annex I are to remain clear, the Commission cannot accept this amendment.

3.3. New provisions introduced by the Council

The Council had to take account of a new feature - namely application of the co-decision procedure - and of the changes made to the legal framework governing Community statistics since 1995. The amendments and changes made by the Council affect the citations, recitals and some of the articles, particularly the following:

* Recital 9 and Article 11: brings the proposal into line with the new Council Decision (1999/468/EC) with the adoption of the regulation procedure rather than the management procedure;

* Recital 8 and Article 7: new reference to Regulation (EC) 322/97 governing Community statistics, including confidentiality;

* Recital 3: reference to the Community Statistical Programme 1998 to 2002;

* Recital 7: wording on subsidiarity improved;

* Recital 11 on the declaration of 2 December 1987 by the United Kingdom and Spain on Gibraltar airport added;

* Article 2 on scope and definitions: new text on the Gibraltar airport clause;

Modification of dates:

* Article 3(4): 1 January 2003 is now the starting date for the three-year transitional period applicable to the airports concerned;

* Article 3(5): 31 December 2003 is the finishing date for the transitional period applicable to the airports concerned.

Other changes:

* changes to table codes: table "1" is now "A1", table 2 "B1" and table 3 "C1";

* Article 3(2): reference to tables A1 and B1 has been deleted so that all the tables mentioned in Annex I can be collected for airports with traffic in excess of 150 000 passenger units per year. The previous version of the text required table C1 (airport traffic) for the smallest airports only. Since this table cannot be derived from A1 and B1, it is important that it also be supplied for the larger airports, so that the indicators provided by small airports can be compared with those supplied by large airports;

* Article 3(4): raising of the threshold from 300 000 to 1 500 000 passenger units below which an airport may benefit from a transitional period of three years before transmitting full data. The main reason for this is the rapid expansion of some airports due to the advent of low-cost airlines. Not all of these airports, which are generally below the threshold of 1 500 000 passenger units per year, form part of the main national statistical collection systems. Including them will take some time, hence the transitional period of three years.

Changes to Annex I:

In addition to a number of minor changes designed to clarify the text, more substantial changes have also been made:

* Table A1: the "airline code" field has been replaced by a field entitled "airline information", the aggregation and coding level of which will be defined in accordance with the committee procedure (Article 11(2)). Many countries consider the airline code to be highly sensitive from a commercial point of view, and thus an item of information that cannot be disclosed or even transmitted to Eurostat in the form of confidential data. A compromise was reached by making a higher level of aggregation obligatory, and this level will be determined in accordance with the committee procedure. A Commission declaration on this subject is annexed to the Council minutes (cf. point 5 below).

* Table B1: as for table A1, the "airline code" field has been replaced by a field entitled "airline information" - cf. above.

* Table C1: for the "total aircraft movements", "annual totals only" has been dropped to allow the countries that supply this table on a quarterly or monthly basis to supply this indicator too on a quarterly or monthly basis.

* Codes, airline code: the field name has been changed to "airline information", and the descriptive section of the coding used has been updated to make it clear that this coding will be decided on in accordance with the committee procedure.

Changes to Annex II (Definitions):

Only those formal changes acceptable to the Commission have been made to Annex II, the object being to make certain definitions clearer and prevent the same concept being defined more than once.

3.4. Problems encountered

The compulsory forwarding to the Commission of the airline code would have been very useful, as it would not just have made for accurate market monitoring (for negotiations with non-member countries, for example), but would also have allowed the quality of data to be analysed (in the case of discrepancies in mirror statistics declared by two partner countries, for instance, an airline-based comparison would readily identify the problem).

However, the Council's solution of using the committee procedure to determine the coding of the "airline information" field is acceptable to the Commission.

4. Conclusion

The Commission endorses the Council's unanimous common position.

5. Declaration

"COMMISSION DECLARATION ON ANNEX I

The Commission hereby confirms that, for the "airline information" coding in tables A1 and B1 of Annex I, it is not seeking to make transmission of the airline code obligatory. The "airline information" variable is designed for the collection of information at a higher level of aggregation, such as the country in which the airline is registered, or whether the airline is based in the EU or not".