Mrs Landrichter (Head of the Austrian CAA), Mr Kessler (Head of the EASA Airport Section) and Mr Gruber (Vienna Airport) at the joint ACI EUROPE / EASA workshop in Vienna on 19-20 September 2013.
Following public consultation in November 2012, final observations by stakeholders and national authorities have been taken into consideration before issuing to the European Commission the EASA Opinion Nr. 1/2013, containing the proposed draft Regulation and Implementing Rules for aerodrome safety.
On the basis of the EASA Opinion the European Commission prepared its proposal for a Commission Regulation. This proposal was discussed and adopted by the EASA committee of the Council of Ministers in its April meeting. The new rules encompass a ‘hard law’ part – Cover Regulation and Implementing Rules (IR), and a ‘soft law’ part – Acceptable Means of Compliance (AMC), Certification Specification (CS) and Guidance Material (GM).
Scrutiny by the European Parliament
On 18 September the whole package, including a Croatian language version, was submitted to the European Parliament (EP), for the ‘3 month scrutiny period’. By ‘scrutiny’ is meant the necessary time in which the transport committee of the Parliament (the TRAN Committee), may react or not react to technical legislation that the Council of Ministers has adopted. In the case of aerodrome safety implementing rules the members of TRAN have neither seen the need to discuss the matter in its meetings nor to have the measure discussed by the full plenary. This means that the Commission Regulation on airport safety should be published in the Official Journal of the EU at the start of 2014. The new rules will enter into force 20 days after their publication.
Preparation of the ‘soft law’
While the ‘hard law’ was going through the European decision-making machinery (via the so-called Comitology process), the Agency staff dedicated to this project were finalising the ‘soft law’ part. Dedicated thematic meetings with operational stakeholders were held just before the summer break to agree on last necessary changes. The meetings involved representatives of the competent authorities, airports and aerodrome associations. During the thematic meetings some last reactions were discussed and some pending items leading to changes to the ‘soft law’ part were resolved.
ACI EUROPE / EASA regional workshops
Since the beginning of the summer ACI EUROPE and EASA have started to conduct joint workshops as a forum for exchange between all partners involved and an opportunity for in-depth discussions. By the end of the year, six regional events aimed at airport industry representatives and authorities will have been held. EASA representatives have made themselves available for questions and are presenting the new regulatory material at 2 day sessions in Lyon, Vienna, Warsaw, Tallinn and Turin, as well as Porto. The events are open to all partners involved and not confined to Member States where they are being held.
The year ahead
In 2014, the Airport section will continue to exchange with airports and Civil Aviation Authorities of the Member States in order to ease the implementation and transition to the new rules. The focus will be on exchange between all partners and feedback in the four-year transition phase, but EASA also plans to provide a Technical Training course as of 2014, aimed at the staff of the Civil Aviation Authorities. On top of these activities EASA’s Airport Section will update its dedicated webpage (http://www.easa.europa.eu/atm/) and the team is always open to bilateral talks and questions can be sent to the following email address: aerodromes@easa.europa.eu
