Ms Violeta Bulc:

I thank members for their questions. There are a lot of them and as I only have ten minutes in which to reply, I may not be able to reply to all of them. I will try to deal with ones of a similar nature together and hope cover most of members' concerns.

On the last question about Ryanair and passenger rights, the European Union is the only political union in the world that has very clear passenger rights. We proposed improvements. As the Deputy pointed out, these got stuck because of the Gibraltar issue, but that does not mean that we do not have the rights; we do and all operators are obliged to follow them and it is up to national authorities to enforce them. We call on the Irish authorities to ensure passenger rights are well respected. The new guidelines have been published and we call on the Irish authorities to follow them. The Ryanair issue is unfortunate, but we need to follow the rules and take care of passengers.

The most common question was related to TEN-T. As members correctly noted, the TEN-T review is coming up in 2023. In other circumstances this would be the dynamic we would follow, but TEN-T has a special legal framework within which changes can take place; therefore, it is not up to the Commission to decide that there will be a change to the TEN-T network or funding. Extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinary actions. The conditions in which Ireland now finds itself and the challenges relating to the corridor with Great Britain qualify as extraordinary. That is why I have already invited all stakeholders today and will continue to do so to come up with proposals for how they may be readjusted in the future. We will talk about this issue. I ask members to, please, be active on it and make sure EU values are considered and that they provide something that will deal with the conditions we are all in.

Please also bear in mind that corridor logic involves many member states. Let us call a meeting as soon as possible. There are co-ordinators for each corridor in the European Union and a meeting should be called where the co-ordinators start to synchronise the activities on the corridor.

Regional airports are a special subject and one of the elements identified in the aviation strategy that was published by the European Union in 2015. We have addressed them already by the accreditation of state aid rules and how they can be applied to regional airports. I am fully aware of the case that Deputy Robert Troy raised as I have been informed about it. We are now taking a closer look at how we can address it in the spirit of Brexit. We will talk about it. I will also discuss the issue with my colleague, Commissioner Vestager, who is in charge of state aid rules, and I will try to explain the special conditions to which Ireland West Airport Knock is subject. However, now I cannot give Deputy Robert Troy a final answer.

Some member states had a very good capacity and tradition for using different mechanisms and picked up really quickly on the mechanism of the European Fund for Strategic Investment, EFSI. Other member states, all cohesion countries, have responded very poorly, or with zero projects. That is why we started with roadshows and special advisory boards that help to build the capacity either through a national promotional body or through the European Investment Advisory Hub. Things are improving. For the first time we have graduates coming on board and I hope Ireland will use this opportunity and also become more engaged, especially because everywhere one sees the revenue flows, this should be used. Please encourage stakeholders to use the EFSI mechanism. At the beginning, people were sceptical of PPPs but new forms of PPPs are emerging. One that we saw in transport was the revenue sharing model. It has nothing to do with ownership but is based on revenue sharing. That is an interesting one also, which we will also put in a bucket of different options.

I will say a few words about ownership, although I may not be the most appropriate Commissioner to discuss this. We really need to distinguish between privatisation and competition. We are very much pushing for competition because we see in a competitive environment that development is better and of higher quality and new opportunities can be implemented and used faster. We rarely interfere with the ownership structures, but sometimes we have ownership and control rules for aviation. It is clear that 49% of foreign capital is in aviation, but that is it. We do not say whether this should be private or public capital. The same thing has happened in the fourth railway passage. We said that we need to decouple infrastructure from services because it is hard to imagine that one could have many competitors in railway infrastructure. That is why we set rules as to how much profit the railway infrastructure can make in order to ensure there is fair competition on a service level. We are not saying, however, who has to own it. We are saying there must be competition in order that there can be German, French, Irish, Polish, Slovenian national operators who can bid for services. It is not about private or public ownership, it is about competition. This was the purpose of the fourth railway packageper se.

If members have more specific questions and have cases, as was mentioned previously, could they submit them in writing and we will go into more detail on the subject?

There are many questions about aviation. I am fully aware of the sensitivity of the topic in Ireland, as Ireland is the front runner in the transformation of European aviation and also the major winner of the Single European Sky. As I mentioned, there are three lead priorities that need to be resolved before we move forward: people, money and borders. Transport comes next and is the fourth priority. Within transport, aviation is the most sensitive and urgent issue because of the policy on a Single European Sky. One may ask whether I can predict anything. I cannot as I do not know how Brexit will evolve. We are getting ready for all scenarios: hard Brexit, soft Brexit, no Brexit. We need to work with Ireland on this issue and I hope it will be a very active member. I want any agreement that is put on the table to be as liberal as possible, because I am liberal, but we will have to deal with constraints within which we operate on this sensitive issue. I cannot predict anything more than that we will work hard to be prepared, that things will not surprise us, and that we will know what to do, based on the outcome of negotiations or based on the results we will get on 30 March 2018.

I am quite proud that we managed to resolve a couple of very heavy duty issues with the United States in a spirit of co-operation. One of them was potential laptop ban on all European carriers. It was a very sensitive issue. We engaged in a dialogue and very constructive negotiations. I am glad we came out with even stronger co-operation between the United States and the European Union, which resulted in a three-phase approach, where we join forces to improve the security and safety of our aviation at the same time, and here all EU member states acted as one together with the Commission. I was very proud of the way we demonstrated our unity and that is why we got a good deal. Technical negotiations and technical co-operation with the US Open Skies treaty is really on a high level. We meet periodically all the time regardless of the new sort of signals that are coming from the United States. At this point I cannot say that they treat us any differently, but one saw an announcement two days ago between Airbus and Bombardier. I think this is an incredible solution that came out of these completely new circumstances. I very much welcome moves of this type. We need to react with wisdom and new business models when new conditions occur. I met the CEO of Airbus, who reconfirmed the commitment to move on and this is a success story for him. He used the new conditions to his advantage.

I am never sceptical. Troubles appear, they are unpredictable, but the strengths we show are to resolve the problem, and so far I can only rely on successful negotiations that have got us out of critical situations. Have faith. If there is a problem, we will solve it. Sometimes it takes a little longer. The issue with Norwegian airlines is typical. We insisted and were insistent and there were numerous negotiations, but now we have a deal that enables Norwegian Air International to fly.

The outlook seems positive to me on this issue.