Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)

On Monday, 19 April, EU transport ministers met via video conference. On the basis of a recommendation agreed unanimously by the national authorities of the 38 members of Eurocontrol, ministers agreed to new measures which would allow for the progressive and co-ordinated opening of European airspace with effect from Tuesday, 20 April. These measures involved the designation of zones based on ash concentration levels.

A further Council meeting was held yesterday in Brussels. Ministers agreed that the implementation of the second phase of the single European sky initiative should be accelerated including, in particular, the establishment of functional airspace blocks, also known as FABs, and the appointment of a network manager. The Ireland-UK FAB established in 2008, was the first in Europe. The appointment of a European network manager is expected to take place by the end of 2010, which will greatly improve co-ordination of European airspace.

On the question of the financial impact of the crisis, Commissioner Kallas recently gave his preliminary estimate of the financial impact across Europe, which was in the order of €2.5 billion. Aer Lingus and Ryanair have estimated their losses from the crisis to be €5 million and €6 million respectively per day.

During yesterday's discussions, Commissioner Kallas confirmed that member states could give financial aid to the industry. I have already publicly indicated that Ireland is not in a position to provide financial aid to the industry because of the state of the public finances.

The Council acknowledged that the current European rules on passenger rights must to be applied in full so as to guarantee rights of those stranded during the recent crisis, and that more work needed to be done to ensure entirely consistent application of the rules across all member states.

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