David Learmount/LONDON
The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) will be set up in two stages, according to Joint Aviation Authorities legal co-ordinator Frank Manuhutu. European Union approval is expected by the end of the year, with EASA "Stage 1" in place a year later.
Manuhutu says that the two-stage system is proposed because the transition to a European central safety authority is so politically and administratively complex that getting the whole system off the ground at once is impractical.
EASA Stage 1 will regulate aircraft certification and maintenance issues, but not operations. This has been determined by the JAA and the European Commission (EC) as feasible, with the remainder following as the new agency gains credibility. Manuhutu believes, however, that the programme to get Stage 1 operational within a year of approval by the EU Council is "optimistic".
Implementation of Stage 1 would leave the Joint Aviation Requirements - Operations (JAR Ops) "in a legal limbo", says Manuhutu, speaking at last week's Flight International Crew Management Conference in London, UK. In practice, the current JAR Ops and JAR flight-crew licensing would continue to be administered by the national civil aviation authorities until they can be brought under the EASA umbrella.
To emphasise why a single authority is needed to ensure Europe-wide compliance with agreed standards, Manuhutu cites the fact that, although JAR Ops came into force last year, only nine of the 33 JAA states have implemented it in full so far.
The problem during Stage 1 is that, with the dismantling of the JAA, JAR Ops will become EC regulations, but will not have an agency to administer them and give them the force of law until the EASA can take them on.
Meanwhile, proposed amendments to JARs will technically have to go through the full procedures involving the European Parliament as if they were EC regulations.
Manuhutu says that this will not, in practice, be as convoluted as it sounds, because technical alterations do not require anymore than procedural consideration unless they affect the already defined social or economic rules.
Source: Flight International
