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    The Aviation Advocacy Blog

    A cornucopia of news, opinion, views, facts and quirky bits that need to be talked about. Join our community and join in the conversation on all matters aviation. The blog includes our weekly round-up of the bits of European aviation you may otherwise have missed – That Was The Week That Was

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Update: The New Leading Team of the European Commission

The nominees for the new European Commission were proposed by the president-elect, Jean-Claude Juncker on 10 September 2014. The confirmations followed this month, on 22 October, as a result of the votes held in the European Parliament that gave quite a noteworthy support to the new European Commission, with 432 votes in favour, 209 against and 67 abstentions. The new Commissioners who are designated from the 28 member countries, including the President and the vice-presidents will occupy their new positions as of 1 November 2014, for a 5-year term. Following the final decision, Juncker expressed his appreciation towards the democratic process that helped the team “cross the finish line”. The next step to be taken comes from the European Council that will formally appoint the European Commission. What we expect is to see a much more political orientation than in the previous Commission, as Juncker himself expressed that they are more than “just a bunch of technocrats”. But let’s get down to more dynamic subjects. The new team did not cross the finish line in the same formula they started the race. Alenka Bratušek originally proposed as the Vice-President for the Energy Union. That was not well appreciated.  Bratušek was the out-going PM of Slovakia, and showing all that is perceived to be wrong with the Europe project, self-nominated for the cushy EC role when she lost the election.  She was roundly rejected and Slovakia had no option but to withdraw her nomination, replacing her with Violeta Bulc. This nomination was considered rather unconventional- perhaps because she has a black belt in tae kwon do, and trained as a shaman. Therefore, although she could literally walk on fire, it was expected that she will have difficulties during the hearing for the Commissioner in the Energy Union. This might be why Juncker has thought of a strategic move that seemed to have worked! Slovak Maroš Šef?ovi? of Slovenia was promoted to the Energy Union from his original home at Transport and Space and Bulc presented herself at the hearing for the transport committee, where she successfully managed to make herself heard. She was able to win over irritated MEPs by promoting a green agenda supported by her knowledge in the sector, as she has been the owner of an engineering company. Based on this previous experience, she mentioned that she understands the importance of networks, but this only works with high quality infrastructure. She was a true advocate for transportation, insisting that transport is the backbone of the economy, which is sometimes taken for granted. She promoted herself as the one who will try to change this attitude and to collaborate with the Parliament to bring up the field of transport to the right footing. The principle that seemed to govern her priorities was interoperability, as transport should be connected at all levels; hence future plans in this area are foreseen. She emphasised a lot the importance of equal social conditions and the ageing factors and the load of female workers was discussed as well. Other important topics raised by her, included the transport networks (TEN-T and CEF), funding for the transport sector, social dumping in the social sector, road safety, the 4th Railway Package and inland waterways. What does all this mean? If she is true to her social dialogue rhetoric, there goes any hope of true reform for airlines, as any attempt to restructure will bog down in social dialogue and the selfish, expensive preservation of the status quo.  Even the legacy carriers, not famous for wanting change will be able to change that. On the other hand, we were hoping for more enthusiasm on the Single European Sky sector, but we only heard succinct information about this topic. Would this be explained by the fact that she actually had only four days to put her thoughts together, thus we should expect more? We definitely hope so.

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