Councillor Firoux suddenly barged into the Council chamber with a hurried stride. Firoux was dressed in sweat-drenched gym attire, with a soaked towel slung over his shoulder and a venti iced coffee from Starbucks in his left hand.
“So sorry for being late,” Firoux apologized as he made his way down the Council chamber, hurriedly moving towards the Speaker’s seat. Firoux quickly plonked himself into the Speaker’s seat and pulled out some crumpled notes from his gym short pockets. Firoux then laid out his notes on the desk and leaned towards the microphone.
“Premier Stuart and I have been taking SoulCycle classes together, and let’s just say one of us took a little bit longer than usual today… I won’t say who, because I don’t want to be in the dog house again, but let’s just say it wasn’t me. SoulCycle is really fun though, I definitely recommend it to anyone that is interested in taking cycling more seriously. Premier Stuart and I go to the one on Centre Street, just up from the European Patent Office building. The Wednesday instructor, Nick, is really good. He’s helping Premier Stuart and I train for a small cycle tour we’re doing in Angleter later in August. I’m a little apprehensive of doing a cycle tour in Angleter, which should be understandable, but the Premier is really keen on it for whatever reason. I really think she wants her own Premier Lizcowsksi moment, to be kidnapped or something, but-” Firoux rambled before abruptly realising that literally nobody in the Council was interested in his story. “Fine,” Firoux murmured in an annoyed tone, “I guess you all care more about airspace legislation than my exciting morning. Whatever. It’s ok. It’s fine. I’m fine.”
Firoux then stood up, still leaning into the microphone, and began to talk more formally.
“It probably surprises nobody that I like this piece of legislation. Or rather, I like at least what I perceive one of this Act’s intentions to be. It’s kind of amazing to think that we haven’t cooperated on something like this before, as we have so much reason to cooperate on aviation standards, aviation safety and aviation communication. I am, however, extraordinarily apprehensive of the rights and freedoms of the air thing, but I’ll come to that later. I really do want this Act to pass, so I’ll give my recommendations and comments first, and then I will propose some amendments based on those comments. I want to make sure that this Act is the best piece of legislation that it can be before we vote on it. I just want to give it makeover, like a smokey eye or something, or maybe like some extra shine on the cheek, you know?
“Some advice for moving forward – please organize the bullet points under each section into subsections. It’s much easier to address Section I, Subsection IV, for instance, rather than Section I bullet point four. Just some friendly advice.
“Ok, let’s go through this section-by-section before I make my amendments. I’m going to give some small suggestions, as well as larger big-picture suggestions. Take it as you like. All grammatical or word fixes will be made in my proposed amendments.
“The preamble is pretty much fine, except bullet point three. The third bullet point is saying two very different things, leading me to think it was meant to be two separate bullet points. But I think the entire third bullet point is not needed anyway and should be removed in its entirety. The ‘clarifies and reaffirms that nations retain all sovereignty over all airspace their territories and waters’ part is mere lip service. Member states already reserve that type of sovereignty. Who says not? Oh right, Section III does, which is why we should get rid of it. You can’t have both this point in the preamble and still have Section III. They cancel each other out. Again, I will get to this later.
“Section I is also mostly good. Not sure why administration isn’t capitalised like the other sections. For bullet point three, I think we can get rid of the term length and term limit altogether. We already have so many EU agencies that don’t have directors, in part because they still need to be appointed by the Council or some Commissioner, and because very few public servants angle for these sort of positions, with many terms ending without being filled since. I’m fine with the IA Commissioner just appointing a director and then removing them if the director ever reveals themselves to be incompetent. I’m also not sure why the council is said to be advisory in bullet point four. Advisory to who? Don’t they make the decisions alongside the director? I think we should just call that body 'the EAA Council'. Bullet point six should be removed. Do we want a professional agency that makes the best informed decisions for aviation safety or do we not? If we do, then this agency should be able to make the rules without the Council putting its hands in the cookie jar. Why even have the EAA if we just want the Council to impose something? Then just let the EU Council draw up the rules and rights in the first place. If we create the EAA, then I suggest we should trust them to do their job, not us, ever. If the EAA is creating rules in a gross way, then we just shouldn’t have them. In my opinion, it’s either the EAA or the EU Council, not both. We really don’t need that much overlapping bureaucracy. Besides, I know nothing about aviation, so I trust the professionals. The last bullet point of this section is fine, but I hate both the sub-bullets. I recommend we remove them. We already have an excess surplus budget as it is, so we really don’t need to pass a one euro price down onto consumers. Please leave the consumers out of this, we can pay for this as it is.
Section II is also mostly good. This is more of the meat of the legislation. I recommend that you make this section go before the administrative section. It’s a bit difficult to understand what you’re administrating without knowing what the actual purpose or organization is. Hence, for the sake of logical reading, it makes sense to reverse the sections. Nevertheless. Again, bullet point three should be removed because Section III should be removed. Bullet point seven seems incredulous. Who and what are ‘less developed’ EU member states? Of course, no matter what, the EU should pay for it. If we recommend and require that they use English, then they will have to, and since the EU is paying for the EAA, as already stated in the administrative section, then we don’t need a bullet point for this.
Section III is a mess, in my opinion. So many of these rights can be exploited. What could be considered cargo in one country, for example, could be considered contraband or dangerous to another country. I also feel like we would need to define precisely what a ‘paying passenger’ is, and, again, what ‘cargo’ is. Just on the top of my head, I can already conjure up so many loopholes that can be exploited with this section. I really don’t want to lay them all out here. Besides, I also feel like the current situation concerning air freedoms are fine. Besides a Belgian airplane once getting shot out of the sky, everything has been fine. We don’t need to institutionalize rights and freedoms like this, because this will honestly only create problems, and it totally infringes upon national sovereignty in a very gross way.
Section IV needs some work in my opinion. If we get rid of the rights and freedoms of the air, as I recommend, that we should remove all the bullets and sub-bullets pertaining to that section. My main problem is with sub-bullet point one of bullet point two. I’m fine with EAA Director and Council hearing out disputes. But why should criminal activities go to another neutral court? We do not need a neutral court for this. We literally have the EAA Council. They should arbitrate criminal litigation as well. We don’t need bureaucracy for the case of bureaucracy.
Anyway, those are my points. Now, here are my four amendments for each section:
Amendment I
SECTION I. PREAMBLE
I. This act shall hereby establish the European Aviation Agency (EAA) to establish the standards and recommendations for civil aviation within the European Union in conjunction with national agencies.
II. Understanding the need for concise communication in the air and on the ground, English will be established as the recommended language for communications.
* This act will establish Rights and Freedoms of the Air, which will serve as the base line
Clarifies and reaffirms that nations retain all sovereignty over all airspace their territories and waters
Amendment II
SECTION II. DUTIES
I. The EAA shall set standards and recommendations for air navigation and communication, air emergency procedures, air traffic management practices, aircraft registration, and flight inspections.
II. Any standards and recommendations shall be made in conjunction with National civil aviation agencies.
III. The EAA shall work with national partners to harmonize cross-border border procedures in respects to civil aviation.
The EAA will ensure the Rights and Freedoms of the Air (as outlined in Section 3 of this Act) are respected by national * authorities and help resolve any disputes if requested by airlines or partner agencies.
IV. The EAA will rely on national agencies to implement the standards and regulations agreed upon to ensure a safe and efficient Europe.
V. The EAA will work with national agencies on ensuring there is no unlawful interference in civil aviation, and will investigate any complaints concerning unlawful interference made aware to the EAA.
VI. The EAA will assist in investigating ,if requested by a national agency involved in an accident, or required by the European Council, any aviation accidents that occur within the European Union.
VII. The EAA may make produce its own report on any incident it assists and or investigates. on, and may lead any investigation if requested by national agencies or required by the European Council.
VIII. The EAA will use and recommend the use of English as the regional language for civil aviation.
The EAA will work with national agencies on providing funding to help transition Air Traffic Controllers and Commercial Pilots to English if requested on a case by case basis for less developed EU Members.
IX. Newly designed airframes shall require EAA certification if they wish to be available for regional use and export. This shall not prevent national agencies from denying their own national certification for any airframe as it sees seen fit.
X. Certification standards for the EAA shall be agreed upon the advisory EAA Council and the EAA Director on an annual basis.
Amendment III
SECTION II - AdministrationSECTION III. ADMINISTRATION
I. The EAA will have its headquarters in the Free City of Europolis.
II. The EAA will be under the purview of the Commissioner for Internal Affairs.
III. The Commissioner for Internal Affairs will appoint a Director of the EAA.
The Director of the EAA will be responsible for the day-to-day administration of EAA and will work with alongside national agencies and the EAA Council as required.
IV. The EAA will have an advisory EAA Council. The EAA Council will be composed of one representative from each national agency in order to come to agreement on the nature of EAA regulations.
The European Council will retain the ability to remove, impose, or amend any provisions it sees fit in civil aviation procedures
V. The EAA will have an initial annual budget of 1.45 Billion Euros.
A one euro fee will be placed on airline tickets on international routes to help fund the EAA after its initial budget.
If the amount needed for the agency budget is exceeded, it will be posted as revenue towards the rest of the European Budget.
Amendment IV
SECTION 3- RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS OF THE AIR
The negotiated right to overfly over a foreign nation’s airspace from an airline’s home nation.
This does not restrict nations from imposing overflight and other fees as they see fit.
The right for a commercial flight to land in a foreign nation after leaving its home nation to refuel and address technical * issues’
The right for commercial airlines to transport paying passengers as well as cargo from their home nation to a foreign nation.
The right for commercial airlines to transport paying passengers as well as cargo from a foreign nation to their home nation.
The right for commercial airlines to transport passengers as well as cargo from their home nation, stop in a foreign nation to unload passengers and cargo; load additional passengers and cargo and continue onto other international destinations
The right for commercial airlines to begin flights in a foreign territory, bypass its home nation, and continue onto other international destinations
The right for commercial airlines to conduct “domestic” flights for another nation’s airline industry after arriving from its home nation, known as Point to Point.
The right for commercial airlines to make emergency landings in unplanned foreign airports without fee or tax from host nation
Amendment V
SECTION IV. ENFORCEMENT AND TIMELINES
I. The EAA shall be fully established with a Director and the Advisory Council within six months of the passage of this act.
II. Member States shall have one year to conform to initial EAA standards and recommendation.
Member states of the European Union will be required immediately to adhere to the Rights and Freedoms of the Air
III. The EAA Director and Advisory Council will first hear any disputes or arbitrate criminal activities involving member states or private parties such as airlines on matters within their jurisdiction.
IV. The EAA will have the ability to fine EU Membersmember national agencies and partners, impose fines on airlines and personnel, along with suspensions fromand suspend national aviation operations if need be. Criminal activities, if found by the EAA, will be referred to a neutral court with jurisdiction or if required the European Court of Justice.
V. The EAA may form additional forms of punishment for breaches of conduct~~, etc.~~ if approved by the Commissioner of Internal Affairs. These forms of punishment must be outlined in EAA regulations and cannot be applied retrospectively.
VI. Any administrative action may be appealed to the Commissioner for Internal Affairs.
Until the EAA is considered fully established and operational, the Commissioner of Internal Affairs shall hear disputes involving the Rights and Freedoms of the Air
The Kingdom of Spain
