Two Resolutions agreed by members of the European Regions Airline Association (ERA) at last Friday’s AGM (19 October 2007) in Athens have highlighted inconsistencies in the European Parliament’s law-making procedures. In the first Resolution, concerning the establishment of a European emissions trading regime for air transport, ERA calls upon MEPs to reject the recent amendments proposed by the Environment Committee (ENVI) which, according to the Association, would add €20 billion per year to the costs of European air transport, and to accept many of the amendments proposed by the Transport and Tourism Committee, which it says will improve the practical procedures to implement the European Commission’s original proposal.

While the Transport and Tourism Committee’s amendments were consistent with an independent impact assessment of the effects of emissions trading on European air transport, the effects of ENVI’s proposed amendments were not evaluated, a fact which the Association says displays unacceptable inconsistency in European law-making procedures.

ERA Director General, Mike Ambrose says: “MEPs are not experts in the operational intricacies and complexities of the industries on which they are required to regulate, and nor should they be. This is why impact assessments are a vital part of the regulatory process. However, to have one Parliamentary Committee base its amendments on an impact assessment, which is then ignored by another committee, creates a lack of confidence in the entire regulatory process, not to mention the impact on jobs and livelihoods of the citizens affected by such inconsistent approaches.”

In September 2006, ERA published a “Step by Step Guide to Better Regulation” which was adopted by the European Commission’s High Level Group in their report on future approaches to the regulation of the European air transport industry, published in June this year.

In the second Resolution agreed at the AGM, ERA calls upon the European Parliament to adhere to these principles, to ensure that the impact of any significant amendments are fully understood and are transparent through the publication of an independent regulatory impact assessment and to reject all significant amendments proposed by Members or Committees which are not accompanied by a regulatory impact assessment or where the regulatory impact assessment shows that the costs exceed the benefits.