On the opinion adopted by the European Economic and Social Committee members during its plenary session underlined that the Single European Sky II package must be implemented quickly, otherwise the air traffic management system in the EU risks falling behind in the global market.

The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) adopted an opinion at its plenary session that urges to implement faster the Single European Sky II package. The EESC members argued that without the implementation of this package, the air traffic management system in the EU risks falling behind in the global market, undermining the very future of the European aviation industry in an increasingly competitive environment.

In addition, the EESC members were agreed that the package is not implemented yet due to a low degree of commitment from Member States, but also because the European Commission has not shown sufficient leadership. The Single European Sky (SES) II package was adopted in 2009 as a recipe for greater flight safety and efficiency and greener flights with fewer delays. They also believe that the progress on the introduction of Functional Airspace Blocks (FABs), organised on the basis of performance targets regardless of state borders, it has been patchy and slow due to inefficient cooperation between different national air navigation service providers so far. For instance, the Member States from Central Europe signed an agreement to implemented recently. The SES II package introduced these blocks to help on the fragmentation of the European airspace and the subsequent inefficient air routing result in a yearly loss of nearly €5 billion and prevent a 12% reduction in CO2 emissions from being realised.

On the opinion, EESC members highlighted that cooperation between the different industry players has not been efficient enough to ensure a synchronised refurbishment of airborne and ground infrastructure as provided for under SES II. Therefore they call for active and significant support from public authorities and the European Investment Bank and other financial institutions to the project. The cost of non-SESAR would be substantial – SESAR is a technological project for modernising air-traffic management in Europe, adopted by the Commission in 2009. According to the EESC, a 10-year delay in the implementation may translate into a negative GDP impact of €150 billion for the EU and a loss of energy efficiency of over 150 million tons of CO2.