EU assembly adopts new rules on aviation security

By Huw Jones

STRASBOURG, France (Reuters) - The European Parliament adopted new EU rules on Tuesday to make air travel safer from attack, but the finer points of who pays for tighter aviation security were left unresolved.

The rules harmonize in-flight security and cover areas such as the use of sky marshals and carriage of weapons on aircraft for the first time on a pan-EU level.

They also harmonize screening of passengers and cabin luggage, access control and security checks. The rules have already been approved by the 27 EU member states.

"Terrorism forces us to change the way we live our lives," Italian liberal lawmaker Paolo Costa told the assembly.

Lawmakers said the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, when aeroplanes were flown into the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington highlighted the need for tight security as the threat of attacks in the skies continued.

"In light of the ongoing terrorist threat, we believe clear rules on security and common implementation across European airlines are absolutely necessary," British centre right lawmaker Philip Bradbourn said.

Parliament and EU states could not agree on details of who should pay for what in aviation security and the bloc's executive European Commission will make separate proposals on this later in the year.

Each EU state determines how much of the cost it, the airports, carriers or users should bear for aviation security but further measures are envisaged to ensure that security charges are used only to meet security costs.

EU Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot told the assembly he planned to present the Commission a draft legislative proposal to share out the costs between users and taxpayers.

Flexibility in the new rules meant that as technology advances, changes could be introduced such as scaling back restrictions on carrying liquids on board.

"The new regulation will allow us to improve aviation security, reduce costs, streamline rules and protect civil aviation more efficiently in future," Barrot said.

National airports and carriers will have to ensure the common EU rules are applied.

EU states are free to introduce stricter rules but must show that doing so is "relevant, objective, non-discriminatory and proportional" to the risk, according to the regulation.

The rules provide a common EU approach to dealing with unruly passengers and access to the cockpit. They also allow individual EU states to introduce air marshals if they want to. However, when used, air marshals must be specially selected and trained.

Also under the new rules, passengers and their baggage on flights from third countries will not need to be re-screened if their country of origin has aviation security standards deemed equivalent to the European Union's.

(Reporting by Huw Jones, editing by David Brunnstrom/Elaine Hardcastle)