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

The committee adopted the report by Gerard COLLINS (UEN, IRL) tabling two amendments to the common position under the second reading of the codecision procedure. Whereas the Council had deleted Article 9 of the Commission proposal (on confidential reporting), the committee said that this article should be reinstated due to the importance of confidential reports for a better understanding of human factors which may be involved in air accidents. The other amendment proposed adding a new paragraph to Article 8 of the common position (Protection of information), stipulating that Member States should not bring proceedings in respect of unpremeditated or inadvertent breaches of the law which come to their attention only because they have been reported under the mandatory occurrence-reporting scheme, except in cases of gross negligence. The wording of this paragraph corresponded to Article 8(3) of the Commission's amended proposal, which had taken up the amendment adopted at first reading by Parliament but which was radically modified by the Council.�