9th parliamentary term Tilly METZ

. – The Covid-19 outbreak has dramatically decreased the passenger demand on air travel, causing airlines to fly empty planes, so called ‘ghost flights’, in order to use the required 80 percent of the slots at the airports to be able to keep the same number of slots the following year. Flying empty planes makes no sense and it has a great environmental and economic cost. Therefore, I voted in favour of the proposal to amend the Regulation (EC) No 95/93 on common rules for the allocation of slots at Community airports. This emergency proposal changes the Regulation temporarily so that slots allocated for the period from 1 March 2020 until 24 October 2020 shall be considered as having been operated by the air carrier to which they had initially been allocated. When this crisis is over we need a more comprehensive reform of the slot allocation regulation to avoid the absurd situation with ghost planes in the future and to start align the aviation sector with the European Green Deal and the climate objectives of the Paris agreement.

. – I voted in favour of the Commission’s proposal to establish a Coronavirus Response Investment Initiative (CRII). Covid-19 is putting a strain the Member States’ health systems and has severe societal and economic consequences. The CRII will allow for around EUR 8 billion of already distributed EU funds, which would have otherwise remained unused and returned to the EU budget, to be invested by Member States, which will in turn trigger the release and use of around EUR 29 billion of cohesion policy spending across the EU.
I am glad the expenditure will focus on health investment such as hospital equipment and inhalators; on the support of SMEs and on short-term employment schemes. The proposal might not be perfect, but it is a good solution to quickly provide access to resources and financial relief for our health care system and economy. However, once this crisis is overcome, we need to learn from the lessons it is teaching us: We need to turn our back to austerity and improve and invest in our health care systems. And we need a properly established EU competence for health-related matters and especially the management of public health emergencies.

. – I voted in favour of amending the European Union Solidarity Fund (EUSF). The extension of the scope of the EUSF will allow for financial assistance to be given to Member States and countries negotiating their accession to the Union seriously affected by a major public health emergency. The proposed amendment also increases the amount of advance payments from 10% to 25% of the expected EU contribution, in order to facilitate rapid availability of EU financial assistance. These amendments are a necessary part of a truly European response to the Covid-19 crisis and any future major public health emergency. It will be important to ensure there is a clear definition of which specific operations will be eligible for funding, as we need to make sure that the funds will be used where most needed, especially in our health care systems.