European Union parliamentarians today voted for measures that could require member states to cover a larger share of airline security costs.
The European Parliament also said current rules limiting the amount of liquids passengers may bring on flights should expire after six months. Those rules ought to be extended only after an evaluation on security risks and costs, it said.
Fine Gael MEP Jim Higgins
The parliament also pushed for strict oversight of the use of armed sky marshals on planes, saying airlines must have approval to use such officers from departure and arrival countries and, in some cases, nations over which a plane flies.
The parliament and EU governments will now thrash out their differences over the regulation in a process known as conciliation.
Fine Gael MEP for the North West, Senator Jim Higgins welcomed today's vote in favour of a report on civil aviation security.
He said the aim of the regulation is to protect civil aviation from acts of unlawful interference "that jeopardise the security of civil aviation", such as terrorist acts, rather than other acts of unlawful interference such as theft or smuggling.
Speaking in the debate Mr Higgins said: "While there is a lot of huffing and puffing about aviation security and its restrictions on international travel and inconvenience to passengers, the reality is that there is a real international security problem.
"9/11 did happen; thousands of people died. The threat to British aviation was a real and not an imaginary threat. The people who perpetrated 9/11 as well as those responsible for the foiled attack on Britain are not only still in existence but they have also publicly stated that they intend continue their campaign of international terrorism."
He added: "Let us be real. The Committee on Transport and Tourism and the European Council have a common cause here. That is the protection of the aviation sector and the protection of the millions of passengers who travel annually."
"If there is to be conciliation, let us get on with it right away. What is needed is a civil aviation security agreement that guarantees security and safety. What is needed is a civil aviation security agreement that allows individual member states to decide to opt out of certain proposed measures such as the sky marshals.
"What is needed is a commonly agreed set of measures designed for passenger security which — and this is a crucially important point — firstly, will be subject to a review every six months, secondly, to see if they are successful, thirdly, if they need modification and fourthly, how much they cost."
Additional reporting: Reuters