Laws defining how the Single European Sky works cannot be framed in a rush. Its service providers and users need sufficient time to comment.
The European Commission really wants to see the Single European Sky (SES) work. Since transport commissioner Loyola de Palacio was won over to the idea and began successfully pushing proposals through the political system in the last five years, the commission has been acting as if the SES is not only its baby but its favourite child.
This is all well and good - the SES concept makes consummate sense. Turning the SES into a fully functioning reality that fulfils all its potential, however, is a complex task, and whether this is successful depends largely on the suitability and effectiveness of the regulations that will define the entity and how it operates. These rules are being drawn up by the commission with input from Eurocontrol and the industry and made into SES law. Eurocontrol is not responsible as such for the law, but it will be responsible for enforcing it with states and airspace users.
In its enthusiasm to get the SES project airborne, the commission is trying to push a great deal of regulation through very fast. As a bald fact that sounds good - fast progress toward a desirable goal. The disadvantage of this haste is that complex regulations have to be drafted quickly, possibly with insufficient time for the experts to think it all through and - equally important - insufficient time for consultation with the industry.
This is definitely the case with the draft implementing rules on a common charging system for air navigation services [ANS]. It was finalised in July and presented to the industry just in time for the European summer holiday season, with the deadline for comment set for 17 September.
This is the document that will define the formulae by which ANS charges for all users of European en route and airport services will be calculated. It also defines the way air navigation service providers (ANSP) should operate their internal accounting systems. For example, income from one category of ANS users may not be used to cross-subsidise another. Neither can cross-subsidy take place between categories of what - in the draft regulation - has strangely been called "charging volumes of airspace" [CVA]. Also, although national governments are allowed to decide that certain industry categories or airspace sectors may be exempted from charges, governments must pay the ANSPs for service provision to the exempted categories. This almost guarantees that, especially with ANSPs looking progressively more likely to be detached from government where this has not already taken place, there will be no exempted categories because governments are unlikely - in the parliamentary rough and tumble - to be able successfully to win the budget for it.
One proposal that looks unquestionably good is that the whole system of individual ANSP accounting must be completely transparent, and that any given airspace user will be able to identify exactly why they are being charged what they are billed for. The problem with this is that the required breakdown of sectional costs within ANSPs would be extremely detailed and may take a great deal of time and money to carry out. Put another way, as presently drafted the system would create complex, costly bureaucracies, one section of which would be the proposed system for charging general aviation (GA) users.
Reading through the proposed regulation it is clear that a great deal of expertise has been at hand to advise those who drafted it. But the reader is still left with the indelible impression that the draft has been cobbled together in a rush without in-depth consideration, and drafted by people who are good at constructing laws but have no real knowledge of how an ANSP works, of the implications of its relationship with the government in its base state, and of how the International Civil Aviation Organisation's standards and recommended practices (SARPS) fit into the equation. In ICAO SARPS on ANS provision, safety is the paramount factor and the responsibility for delivering that safety rests with the state; the ANSP is merely the agent of the state. There is no question but that the charging system has the potential to influence the way the industry uses ANS, and it may therefore influence safety. It also has the potential, particularly in most of the GA sector, to make Europe unique in the world in charging GA operators for services many scarcely use or do not use at all. This would devastate Europe as a competitive force in the world GA industry and radically change one critical - if minority - part of its public transport system. This kind of legislation should not be rushed.
Source: Flight International
