ONE OF THE GREAT ADVANTAGES of belonging to an international club like the European Union (EU) is the harmonisation of rules on matters such as aircraft safety and certification. Right? Wrong - or partly wrong. The problem is that the EU and some of its neighbours do have a common body called the Joint Airworthiness Authorities (JAA), which is meant to harmonise the rules and their interpretation. Unfortunately, the JAA's decisions are not binding on its member nations: it rules by consent, not by law.
Since 1991, European nations have indeed been working towards, and frequently applying, common standards for certification. So far so good, but this co-operation falls well short of creating a single unified aviation.
While the JAA organisation plays a key role in co-ordinating and promoting European-wide aircraft certifications, it does not, in law, certificate. That is still the preserve of the national airworthiness authorities.
If any individual European authority does not like some aspect of an aircraft or the method by which it was certificated, that authority can impose its own standards, regardless of any JAA recommendation. In other words the manufacturer still risks the possibility of multiple cerfications in Europe, even if the differences are niggling. That means that the cost to a manufacturer of certificating an aircraft in Europe is often much higher than it is elsewhere, and much higher than it need be.
Perhaps more important, Europe still has no clear, internationally recognised body to balance the power and influence which has been deservedly built up by the US Federal Aviation Administration. European manufacturers, feeling themselves disadvantaged, have been stepping up pressure for such a unified authority.
The root of the problem with the JAA is that it was set up as club of national authorities keen on setting uniform technical standards, but not so keen on ceding any of their national sovereignty. That structure may have been workable in the beginning, but, as the JAA has widened its role into operational standards, the basic weaknesses of its structure have been exposed. Even more so after the JAA's clumsy attempts during the last year, to set itself up as an autonomous authority.
The plain fact is that neither the JAA, nor its member authorities, have any legal authority to set up anything within Europe. Under European law, the only body allowed to propose regulations binding on all member states is the European Commission (EC), and the only body allowed to impose them, the council of the EU.
Now, the EC has thrown down the gauntlet. Effectively it is demanding that either the JAA comes under its authority or else it will set up an alternative body which does. Either way it is determined to create a Single European Authority (SEA) under its own control.
The single great advantage of establishing such a body is that the EU national authorities would no longer simply be voluntary members of a club. An SEA which could oblige member nations to comply with its regulations under EU law.
An SEA does pose its own problems. JAA membership, for example, goes well beyond the boundaries of the EU where the EC has no authority. These non-EU members, however, would probably be happy to accept the regulations on a voluntary basis, just as many of the world's aviation authorities already do for FAA rulings.
National authorities may argue that handing power over to the EC would simply risk bogging down the regulatory process with another layer of slow-moving Brussels bureaucracy. It need not be like that. The EC openly admits that while it may have the authority to enforce airworthiness regulations, it does not have the expertise. That would have to come from the national authorities, along, no doubt, with suggestions on how the new body should function.
The national authorities in any case may have little alternative but to throw in their lot with the EC. Not even the most fervent nationalist wants to return to the days of unco-ordinated national decisions and the JAA appears already to have gone as far as its present structure will allow. For manufacturers, operators and even national airworthiness authorities that is clearly not yet far enough.
Source: Flight International
