Speeches

Mr President, thank you very much. Although the pandemic has highlighted the problems of the aviation sector, social problems are anything but new. Since the 1990s, we have seen a serious deterioration in working conditions, through increased outsourcing and a growing proportion of non-standard forms of employment. An important principle of the European labour market is the principle of equal pay for equal work in the place where the work is carried out. This must also apply to the aviation sector. Temporary staff from another country shall not be paid lower salaries than local staff. It is also crucial that we define the concepts of home base and operational base. Workers must be covered by the wages, working conditions and social security in force in the country where they have their home base, not where the company is registered. An airline should not be able to register in a country where it does not have an operational base, simply to benefit from low taxes and weak labour laws. In this way, the EU becomes a threat to wage earners. The Swedish airlines are not without debt. In order to avoid re-employing its workers after the crisis, the airline BRA chose to set up a temporary work agency to circumvent its employer responsibilities. SAS has chosen to start a subsidiary in Ireland in order to compete with lower personnel costs. Its operational base is in London. Ireland is only here to avoid taxes and labour obligations. In some low-cost airlines, we know that not even half of the pilots have a job directly with the airline. We should not accept this type of business model in the European Union. However, it is not only the airlines that are responsible. The European Commission is also responsible for continuing to duck and delay the much-needed revision of the regulation on common rules for the operation of air services within the EU. So my call to the European Commission is to stop delaying this and present without further delay a revision of the regulation.