28 THE EU HANDLING DIRECTIVE What next?
Is it worth pursuing discussions on a new EU ground handling legislation, ponders our legal expert in Brussels, Bob Schmitz.
escribing fox hunting many decades ago, Oscar Wilde famously observed that it was a case of the unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible. The same could be said of the latest attempts to rationalise the 96/67/EC Handling Directive. In December last, EU Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas saved his face when the European Parliament agreed to send back for further consideration his proposal for a new EU Regulation on ground handling services, this despite 386 (against 272) Members of Parliament slamming the whole initiative. Work has resumed within the competent Transport Committee (TRAN), with Polish Rapporteur A Zasada attempting to gain a majority in favour of a more cautious further market opening. The target remains a minimum of
three suppliers for restricted services (ramp, baggage, fuel/oil and freight/ mail handling). This expansion from the current minimum of two (still used in German and Austrian airports) should apply only to airports with a minimum of 10m passengers per year instead of the 5m threshold proposed by the Commission. To reach an agreement on such an opening (subject to a rather long transitional period), it may be necessary to add some safeguards. The following, spelled out by the Luxembourg Parliament1
, echoes a
broadly supported stakeholder view (excepting that of the airlines). “A more individually focused approach could be taken, under which an independent national authority would carry out an overall assessment of the competition situation at a given airport, making it possible for account to be taken of the views of the local users committee and of the makeup of the market”. The reason is that “imposing the general requirement that there must be three third-party handling providers could be counter-productive in that two operators will be obliged to divide up the share of the market subject to competition after the largest operator has selected a groundhandling provider” and that “in view of this, two operators are likely to be operating at below critical mass, and this will result
1
Treaty, national parliaments have the right to express their concerns about any EU legislative initiative infringing
1
Under the Lisbon EU Treaty, national parliaments have the right to express their concerns about any EU legislative initiative infringing the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality.
Under the Lisbon EU
in highly variable market shares and make it extremely difficult to maintain suitable quality and pricing standards”. This warning reflects some past negative experiences (for instance, in Scandinavian and Greek airports). Conversely, for airlines lobbying in favour of an ultimate full market freedom, (‘it will help to drive down costs for operators and most importantly, increase the quality of services for our passengers”) it disregards the European political and social climate and is supported by only a few isolated MEPs. Airports driven essentially by German interests wish to “co-ordinate ground handling operators and steer the overall performance of ground operations including minimum training requirements”. They oppose minimum attempts to introduce fairer competition, especially through the imposition of a legal separation between airport handling and management functions. Rapporteur Zasada promotes a middle way by proposing a functional independence between these various airport activities. Influential MEPs are resisting, however, by limiting even for the future the existing compulsory separation of accounts to airports with a minimum of 5m passenger movements while proposing, though, that the absence of financial cross-subsidisation should be publicly confirmed at the close of each financial year by an independent auditor.
Independent handlers have been thanked by the Commission and Parliament for their constructive rôle during the difficult negotiations so far but doubt now that real progress can be achieved by a new EU Regulation. The Commission’s Impact Assessment of the current situation had “identified a series of factors creating an uneven level playing field between the different categories of service providers, thereby hampering the expansion of independent handlers”. No tangible measure is emerging, however, to help in the establishment of a level playing field between independent, airport and airline handler.
Last, but not least, social concerns by trade unions, vocally expressed
during some street and airport demonstrations, were taken up by 37 amendments adopted by Parliament’s Committee on Employment and Social Affairs. They would introduce a heavy burden to the industry as workers should be taken over without restrictions, in case one handler or self-handler ceases its activities at a given airport. No dismissals on economic, technical or organisational grounds should be permitted. Staff should voluntarily accept the job with the new supplier; if not, the costs of redundancy should be borne by airlines in proportion to their traffic share with the previous supplier. Trade unions are still unhappy and want even more guarantees in terms of collective labour agreements. Even if the Parliament Plenary were to confirm at first reading the EMPL amendments, together with amendments now being reconsidered by TRAN, it is highly unlikely that the Council of Ministers will accept most of these modifications, since it endorsed, more or less unchanged, the original Commission proposal. Given the sensitivity of this file and Parliament elections scheduled for 2014, it appears most likely that Parliament will finally reject at the second reading the whole proposal, meaning that Directive 96/67/EC will remain in place for some time. It may give an opportunity to the European Social Partners to draw relevant conclusions and prepare the ground for a revised, more balanced proposal in the near future. If nothing else, the Joint Statement of April 2011 from ACI Europe (airports), ETF (trade unions) and ASA Europe (representing the independent handlers) on the revision of the ground handling directive offers a helpful starting point. The hunt is on…
GROUND HANDLING INTERNATIONAL FEBRUARY 2013
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