The long-awaited European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) will be formed in October, with the legal powers to set and enforce aviation safety rules throughout the European Union. This will complete the task begun by the Joint Aviation Authorities, which harmonised the aviation rules of all its member states but has no power to require or enforce compliance.
Approved by the European Parliament in June, EASA's constitution then had to be translated into all the European Union languages. The translations have just been signed off as complete and will be published this month, says Claude Probst, the head of aviation safety and industrial issues at the European Commission. The agency will then be given a year to set up its headquarters staff and establish modes of operation, becoming fully operational in October 2003. The location for its headquarters has not yet been decided, but Probst says if necessary the EASA could operate temporarily from Brussels using staff seconded from the JAA national agencies.
The EASA's first legislative tasks will involve only airworthiness and certification issues. But already, Probst says, his department has taken up the mandate to frame the agency's objectives for ruling on licensing and operations.
He expects the draft to be ready for submission to Parliament by "summer 2003", but it will then be subject to the normal processes for creating legislation which will take about a year.
Source: Flight International
