PURPOSE: to repeal Council Directive 89/629/EEC on the limitation of noise emissions from civil subsonic jet aeroplanes.

PROPOSED ACT: Decision of the European Parliament and of the Council.

ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: the European Parliament decides in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure and on an equal footing with the Council.

BACKGROUND: Council Directive 89/629/EEC allowed the continued operation of certain aeroplanes exceeding relevant noise emission standards, provided that they had already been entered in a national register of a Member State. No new registrations of such aeroplanes were allowed after the entry into force of the Directive.

Directive 2006/93/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council introduced a complete phasing-out for all aeroplanes which did not meet the relevant noise emission standards, including those previously covered by Directive 89/629/EEC, regardless of whether they had already been registered or not. That has led to the situation where the aeroplanes concerned are no longer allowed to fly in the Union skies and have had to be removed from the Member States’ national registers.

As the 1989 rule allowing the registration of non-compliant aircraft already on a national register was replaced in 2006 by the approach of phasing out non-compliant aircraft from national registers, and as a result no non-compliant aircraft are allowed to fly in EU airspace, Council Directive 89/629/EEC has become obsolete.

CONTENT: The Commission proposes to repeal Directive 89/629/EEC .

The proposal is submitted under the Commission's REFIT programme and its commitment to better regulation. The aim is to provide a legislative framework that is fit for purpose and of high quality, as set out in the Interinstitutional Agreement between the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union and the European Commission on Better Law-Making.