The European Commission wants to ban an airline with a poor safety record even if the carrier has not been grounded by any EU state, an official said on Friday, urging tighter controls after a spate of crashes. France and Belgium have published a blacklist of airlines banned from their airports yesterday, pre-empting tougher EU rules to draw up a list of carriers banned across the 25-nation bloc and give it to passengers.

International airline safety has become a sensitive political issue following four fatal crashes in August in which more than 330 people have died. The EU executive Commission wants to have the final say on whether or not to ban an airline rather than persuading individual EU states to ground carriers with lax safety records.

“Does the Commission have... the power to decide to put a company on the blacklist?” an EU official asked. “We proposed that in the past. We were not given that power and now we’re making the proposal again,” he told a briefing on condition of anonymity.

The EU executive Commission also wants an airline ban in one country to apply across the bloc that is not automatic in the draft law. The Commission is urging the European Parliament to toughen the legislation, giving the EU executive more powers, when the 732-member assembly votes on it in the next few months.

But EU governments must agree to the new rules. They are dubious about drawing up a pan-EU list of banned airlines when there are no common guidelines for grounding an airline across the EU. EU airline safety experts from the 25-nation bloc and the European Commission will meet on Sept. 7 in Brussels to discuss drafting common standards for banning an aircraft. The EU executive hopes the airline blacklist can be available to passengers within six months.

French nationals made up most of the 160 people killed on Aug. 16 when a jet from Colombia’s West Caribbean airline crashed in Venezuela after apparently suffering engine failure. The jet had twice passed French air safety tests but a Colombian audit of West Caribbean had found a lack of crew training, incorrect use of flight logs and maintenance problems.

All 121 people on board a Helios Airways Boeing 737 flying from Cyprus to the Czech Republic died when it crashed into mountains near Athens in Greece on Aug. 14. Helios, owned by Libra Holidays Group, a British holiday tour operator, said the plane had a previous cabin pressure problem.