Mar 26 - Labour MEPs Lead Efforts To Break Single European Sky Deadlock
Labour MEPs Clare Moody (MEP for Gibraltar and South West England) and Claude Moraes (Chair of Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee) have today set out a proposal that they say could unblock EU negotiations over revisions to the Single European Sky package.
The negotiations are currently in deadlock, as the Spanish government continues to insist that Gibraltar airport is excluded from any proposals.
In a letter to European Voice, the MEPs propose that the European Commission should separate out the issues at stake and that it must set aside the sovereignty dispute - over which it has no authority - if a package is to be agreed:
'The dispute over sovereignty is indeed a matter over which the Commission has no locus for involvement. However… the completion of the single market in air transport (and the rights of passengers therein) are issues which the Commission, as guardian of the Treaties, must confront.’
'By parking the sovereignty dispute in which it has no standing and by pursuing vigorously the issues of market organisation and free movement within its remit, we are convinced that progress could be made.'
Speaking from the European Parliament, Labour MEP for Gibraltar and the South West, Clare Moody, said:
“The Spanish government has frustrated these discussions for too long, to the detriment of air passengers across Europe.
“It is almost 15 years since the creation of a Single European Sky was agreed and the continued delay in implementation has had a significant cost: to passengers, to business and to the environment.
"It is not within the gift of the European Commission to settle any sovereignty dispute between Britain and Spain. Labour MEPs firmly believe that the Commission should focus instead on those things within its remit if we are to agree a package soon, including Gibraltar airport."
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