We were sad to learn about another bankruptcy in civil aviation today – UK’s regional airline Flybe. The spread of the COVID-19 has had an important impact in accelerating the process towards the bankruptcy of the airline, which represents just one of the symptoms of a Europe-wide crisis. Decisive action needs to be taken to keep Europe moving.

To prevent a complete collapse of the air transport networks in the immediate future, the EU, European countries and other key authorities such as EASA need to come up with a detailed, clear and effective contingency plan.

On 14 January, the European Commission launched First phase consultation of Social Partners on a possible action addressing the challenges related to fair minimum wages. While the ETF strongly believes that workers of Europe need a pay rise, we don’t support simplistic approaches and half-baked solutions that could endanger the autonomy of social partners around the continent. A simple prescriptive mechanism cannot solve wage stagnation – instead, we need to address the core causes of it, such as precarious work, anti-union measures, digitalisation, and austerity.

The European Transport Workers’ Federation acknowledges that an agreement was reached on the Mobility Package between the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament this morning, in trilogue. The agreement doesn’t include all elements the ETF has fought for but it does represent progress towards the declared goals and ambitions of the Package. 

Ursula von der Leyen has appointed Violeta Bulc’s successor and the European Commission for 2019-2024 is set to have Ms. Adina Vălean as Transport Commissioner. ETF calls on Ms. Vălean to take Transport Workers seriously.