DAVID LEARMOUNT / LONDON
Only the UK has achieved full implementation; Greece and Portugal have hardly started
Greece and Portugal have failed to implement all but one of the groups of European Joint Aviation Requirements (JAR), the Joint Aviation Authorities has revealed. In a name-and-shame exercise it has listed the levels of compliance with the seven main airworthiness, maintenance, personnel licensing, and operations categories covered by JARs, and only one JAA state has implemented all of them - the UK.
Among the major JAA states, France and Germany have implemented all but one of the JARs, Italy all but two, and Spain all but three. Furthest behind of the JAA states are Greece, Portugal, and Turkey, which have implemented part of the maintenance JARs, but nothing else. Apart from the Czech Republic, which is fairly advanced, central or eastern European JAA members have complied less than the western European states.
Implementation of JARs for each JAA member state requires embodying them in national law, because otherwise they have no legal force. JAA secretary general Klaus Koplin says that although many of the states have not implemented JARs, they nevertheless practise most of them.
The bureaucratic and legal difficulty of implementation has been a disincentive for many of the non-compliant states. Koplin says "99% are using JARs even if they cannot be enforced". But lack of ability to enforce the requirements is bad for standardisation and safety, he says.
Meanwhile, the new European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) becomes an executive body on 28 September, with the legal authority to make certain JARs enforceable. From that date, Koplin explains, implementation through national law will no longer be necessary in the former JAR categories for which the EASA becomes responsible.
For the next few years, the EASA only takes responsibility for type certification and continued airworthiness, not for operations (JAR Ops) or personnel licensing. So JAR Ops compliance in the JAA states that have not implemented JARs will continue to be unenforceable.
Source: Flight International
