Air transport safety, civil aviation: prevention of accidents, collect and dissemination of information

The European Parliament adopted two amendments to the common position of the Council at second reading. The Commission accepts all the amendments proposed by the European Parliament. These : - reinstate the paragraph 3 of Article 8 of the Commission amended proposal which was deleted in the common position of the Council. This paragraph aims at protecting the reporter of an incident from sanctions, except in the case of gross negligence. In its communication to the European parliament on the common position, the Commission regretted the deletion of this paragraph which gave a clear political signal about the principle that the occurrence reporter should be regarded as conveying an important positive message for air safety and therefore encourage to do so without risking any counterproductive sanctions; - reinstate Article 9 of the Commission proposal which was deleted in the common position of the Council. This paragraph aims at establishing the legal framework to enable the setting up of voluntary confidential reporting systems. The Commission opposed the deletion of this article which would allows a better understanding of human factors involved in occurrences and accidents.�