Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I am pleased to attend this meeting of the joint committee in advance of the Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council meeting in Luxembourg tomorrow morning. In the course of his presentation to the committee last week the Secretary General of my Department, Mr. Tom O'Mahony, briefed members on developments at European Union level since 2012, including developments in and progress on the Department's key dossiers during Ireland's EU Presidency. This included the key outcomes of the June and March Councils.

The running order of agenda items for tomorrow's Council meeting has changed since the version provided for the committee by the Department. For convenience, however, I will refer to the items according to the numbering in the circulated documentation. I do not propose to go over the same ground as Mr. O'Mahony last week; rather, I will focus on the agenda for tomorrow's meeting, going briefly through the main headed items and some of the important any other business items. I will be pleased thereafter to take questions from members.

The main agenda item for the meeting of the Council is an orientation debate on the Commission's proposal for a new regulation on air passenger rights. The new regulation will amend EU Regulation 261/2004 on compensation and assistance provided for passengers in the event of denial of boarding or cancellation or long delay of flights. EU Regulation 2027/97 on air carrier liability in respect of the carriage of passengers and their baggage by air will also be discussed. The proposal was published in March and my officials appeared before the committee to discuss it in May. It was formally presented by the Commission to Ministers at the last meeting of the Council during the Irish Presidency on 10 June.

This is very important legislation. Good connections for business and travel generally are essential. At the same time, however, the rights of passengers to proper treatment in the event of delay, cancellation and denial of boarding must be respected fairly and consistently throughout the European Union.

However, in meeting these obligations we must ensure the burden on carriers is not excessive, especially where delay, for example, is caused by factors outside their control. The Commission’s proposals aim to clarify a number of grey areas in the existing regulation that led to a significant number of cases being brought to the European courts. It also introduces the concept of burden sharing so that the cost of obligations does not fall on carriers alone when it comes to events outside their control.

The Presidency has tabled a number of specific questions to guide the orientation debate at the Council, focusing particularly on the provisions on missed connections in Article 6, how compensation for long delays should be regulated and whether compensation levels should be linked to ticket price. The Government has concerns about the proposals concerning missed connections in Article 6. Under the proposals as currently drafted, the smaller airlines in the EU that feed traffic into the main hubs will have to bear the entire cost of compensating passengers for the full journey in cases in which they miss their connecting flights. This has the potential to undermine interlining arrangements between carriers and could encourage carriers to take a much more conservative approach to connectivity. Such a conservative approach, if adopted by the airlines, would not be in the best interests of passengers. Our key concern is to ensure that passengers' rights are protected, that airlines comply with their obligations and that the system is fair and proportionate and reflects the protections offered in other modes of transfer. We are open to considering linking the levels of compensation to the ticket price in some way and will urge the Commission to do further work on examining this.

Agenda item 5 deals with a proposal to extend until 2024 the mandate of the European agency that is progressing the development of the technology side of the single European sky. The agency is called the SESAR Joint Undertaking and it is a public private partnership first established in 2007 whose mandate is due to cease in 2016. There is no particular delay in the work of the SESAR Joint Undertaking but, following a detailed examination, it is considered necessary to extend its remit in order to ensure continued effective co-ordination of research activities beyond 2016. To date, some €2 billion has been spent on research in the area and it is estimated that a further €1.5 billion will be spent in the period to the end of 2024. Ireland shares the view on the importance of ensuring good co-ordination of this considerable level of research activity to prevent duplication and overlap. Therefore, we will support the proposal for an extension.

Item 6 on the Council agenda deals with the fourth railway package. Ireland fully supports harmonisation of the EU rail network within reason. The proposal for a directive on railway safety, recast, provides for standardisation of the process of safety certification of railway undertakings and the safety authorisation of infrastructure managers. Ireland had reservations that the imposition of the model applicable to the continental European services would be disproportionate to our relatively small network. Trains from Great Britain and mainland Europe cannot cross the sea so it does not make sense to standardise everything just for the sake of it. We have settled on an amendment to Article 11 to better accommodate our position. Our reservations are being addressed in the draft of the directive that will be presented to the Council for agreement. The proposals contained in the directive will apply only to the rail service operated by Irish Rail. The EU proposals will not cover Luas or heritage railways. The process of safety certification of railway undertakings and the safety authorisation of infrastructure managers for such railways is overseen by the Railway Safety Commission under the Railway Safety Act 2005.

Agenda item 7 concerns a proposal to streamline the work of the European agency dealing with Galileo, Europe’s satellite navigation programme. Maintaining effective security of the Galileo system and its operation is one of the more important aspects of the work of this agency. There is, therefore, a need to ensure appropriate internal separation and independence of those activities within the agency from the other activities of the agency. Ireland agrees that the proposals will improve the governance of the agency and, accordingly, we have no difficulty in endorsing this proposal.

Likewise, Ireland has no difficulty with agenda item 8 on multi-annual funding for the European Maritime Safety Agency, EMSA. The objective of the current proposal is to renew the multi-annual pollution funding programme for the period 2014-20. An amount of €160.5 million has been proposed by the Commission.

Under agenda item 9(a), any other business, the Commissioner will report to Ministers on progress on the outcome of discussions at the triennial assembly of the International Civil Aviation Organisation, ICAO, in Montreal last week on tackling the environmental impact of global aviation. The EU brought aviation within the remit of its emissions trading system on 1 January 2012 but there has been significant opposition globally to the extraterritorial application of the EU’s scheme to airlines from outside the EU. The issue has been the subject of much debate in ICAO over recent years. The EU has been encouraging ICAO and its member states to adopt market-based mechanisms to tackle emissions from aviation on a global scale. The good news from the assembly is that the member states of ICAO have committed to developing a market-based mechanism by 2020. This is later than the EU would have wished. However, no consensus was reached on the measures to be applied prior to the application of a global scheme in 2020. The Commission must now assess the outcome of the ICAO assembly before deciding on the next steps with regard to its emissions trading scheme. I expect the Commissioner will provide us with an update of his initial thoughts on the matter at Council.

Agenda item 9(d), on monitoring, reporting and verification of greenhouse gas emissions from international maritime transport, is at an early stage in the legislative process. Ireland, along with many other member states, is very much at the point of seeking clarification from the Commission regarding definitions and implications.