Airport security: Member States should bear cost of extra measures
05-May-2010 Aviation security measures that go beyond basic EU requirements - such as body scanners - should be paid for by Member States, rather than airlines or passengers, said Parliament on Wednesday when it approved with amendments a draft directive on aviation security charges.
As Member States in the Council are opposed to public funding of security charges, this law is likely to go to second reading.
MEPs say that Member States should remain free to decide how to share the cost of basic measures covered by existing EU rules (metal and explosive detectors, sniffer dogs, hand searches, liquid screeners) but should be required to foot the bill if they choose to introduce body scanners, for instance, which are not yet listed as a standard EU aviation security technique. These and other proposals are contained in amendments to a Commission draft directive adopted by Parliament on Wednesday.
Many EU governments are opposed to a directive that would require public financing of security charges, since they are currently free to apply their own rules: in most cases the airport authorities now pass on the security costs to airlines, which then pass them on to passengers.
Security charges should not exceed costs
A 2008 EU regulation already gives air passengers the right to have security costs shown separately in the final price. Now this draft directive says that "security charges shall be used exclusively to meet the security costs". MEPs add that the total revenue from these charges should not exceed the total cost of the security measures.
Security charges should be calculated on the basis of objective criteria, such as the number of passengers or aircraft maximum take-off weight, says one EP amendment. Moreover, such charges may not include any costs of "more general security functions performed by Member States such as general policing, intelligence gathering and national security".
Information between airports and airlines
The directive also stipulates which information airports should provide to airlines each year, and vice versa, so that the amount of security charges resulting from commercial agreements between them is justified and based on objective criteria. The information about the amount of security charges levied by particular airports and airlines should be publicly accessible, whereas all the other information "shall be regarded as confidential or economically sensitive and handled accordingly", says the EP amendment.
The resolution was adopted by 613 votes to 7, with 16 abstentions. As no first-reading agreement with the Council has been reached, the act is likely to go to the second reading.