- Madam President, I would like to rise to the challenge issued by the Commissioner tonight when he invited this House to support the Commission's action. I believe that as Sir Leon Brittan has pointed out tonight, for once the European Parliament can indeed act as a catalyst for action which must be taken firmly by the national governments.

There is a great deal that we can do, acting in particular in concert with our colleagues from the national parliaments, to put pressure on governments first and foremost to increase their capital investment so as to make sure that for once there will actually be compatible equipment used by air traffic controllers. I would say in this regard that contrary to what Mrs Ewing might have indicated, the UK investment in air traffic control equipment is currently the highest in Europe and if privatization does go ahead it will in fact increase.

The Commissioner has rightly pointed out that the lack of political will on the part of the Member State governments is the area where action is currently urgently needed. We have congested infrastructure, there is no compatible equipment as yet, there is insufficient capital investment, there is competition between military and civilian air traffic corridors, there is also increased congestion during the summer months which this year led to industrial action. On top of that, hostilities in the former Yugoslavia closed down a corridor leading to alternative flight paths which actually increase the routes taken.

If you take as an example a route from any London airport to, say, a Greek island, eleven different air traffic control centres are passed just on that one route in one direction. So, Commissioner, we tonight bounce the initiative back to you and we ask you once again in the terms of this question why the Commission has still not used its right of initiative in this area. We in the European Parliament now actually have co-decision with the Council of Ministers and we aim to exercise that responsibly through the trans-European network scheme. We hope that we can achieve our elusive goal and bring about the creation of a unified European air traffic control system.

I ask you tonight, Commissioner, are you asking the European Parliament in future to take initiatives in this field or will the Commissioner continue to take initiatives where they are rightly due?