Meeting of the BLUE MED Ministers of Transport , Rome, 4 November 2008

The Minister of Infrastructures and Transport Sen. Altero Matteoli met today the Ministers of Transport of Cyprus Nicos Nicolaides, of the Kingdom of Jordan Ala’a Batayneh, of Malta Austin Gatt, of Tunisia Abderrahim Zouari, the vice Minister Ernest Noka of Albania and, representing the Egyptian Minister, the NANSC CEO Saeed Ahmed Abdalla, and represening the Greek Minister the ambassador Charalambos Rokanas. Attending the meeting also the European Commissioner for Transport Antonio Tajani, Eurocontrol ATM Programmes Director Guido Kerkhofs and the President of ENAV Gen. Bruno Nieddu.

Scope of the meeting was the signature of the joint Declaration of the Blue Med Project, an international initiative that, in compliance with the Single European Sky (SES) regulation, has the purpose of establishing a Functional Airspace Block (FAB) in the Mediterranean area. This project will improve the management of air traffic control, further increasing the safety and efficiency levels of the service with valuable benefits for all the users.

BLUE MED is operationally coordinated by ENAV in partnership with the Air Navigation Service Providers of Cyprus (DCAC), Greece (HCAA), Malta (MATS), together with OACA (Tunisia), NANSC (Egypt) and NATA (Albania) as associated partners, and the ATS provider of the Kingdom of Jordan as an observer.

The project, that embraces the south-eastern area of the Mediterranean, is developed in three phases: Feasibility Study, Definition Phase and Implementation Phase. Today’s signatures put an end to the first phase, started in 2006, and launches the Definition Phase. In this phase all the Member States will use all the necessary resources and competences as requested from the Single European Sky regulation.

The Implementation Phase of the Functional Airspace Block (FAB) will start in 2012 and will create an historical change in the air navigation service provision in the Mediterranean, bringing competitive improvements for the area and important benefits for all the users in terms of service efficiency, delays reduction and costs containment.