Patrick Goudou, Executive Director, EASA

Q: What will be the role of EASA in the ATM in SES 2?

PG: In details it’s clear that we have got the role of everything regarding safety and it’s important to know that because previously it was also EUROCONTROL which was taking care of safety, of ATM. Now this task has being transferred to the European Aviation Safety Agency. That’s why we have now under our umbrella all domains of aviation regarding safety.

Q: What would be the time frame that will give you all these responsibilities?

PG: Normally, the final date for implementing rules is the end of 2012 and then we will start working on real issues because we will have by then all the regulatory framework in place.

Q: That would be possible for the function of EASA that you have tutor responsibilities.

PG: We have responsibilities in terms of oversight of the whole spectrum of aviation. Of course as usual in the European system there is a split – a division of work - with the member states, they will have the oversight function vis-à-vis the ANSPs but we will have a global oversight activity regarding all the member states and not only the EU member states, but also all the member states of EUROCONTROL, with which we will have working arrangements, because, as I have mentioned, we have a paneuropean dimension now which is far beyond the community.

Q: That means that the advancement of expansion of EASA would be not just an EU organization but would have more members coming in?

PG: It’s already the case because we have also members which have agreements or treaties with the Community, like Iceland, Norway, Switzerland. We have also future States, those which have also an agreement or with the Community, the ECAA agreement and on top of these the working arrangements, we have all our member states like Turkey, Ukraine which are not of course members of the EU, which have no – for the time being – links with Union but with those working arrangements we can manage to work with them.

Q: But always we remain at the European level. That means that we don’t see any North African country being joining in?

PG: It could be, but for the time being no.

Q: In the past you have talked about the standardization of safety, how easy is it to do that? In the European environment that’s not very easy to do…

PG: Well, but it is essential to achieve it because due to the subsidiarity, in fact - as I’ve already mentioned - the Member States are the ones implementing the EU regulation and  we on behalf of the Commission are in charge of inspecting those member states to make sure that they implement correctly the regulation, but in fact it’s not only a policeman role, we want to promote and standardize safety in all the Member States. That’s why through this standardization inspection we also give advice; we are in fact increasing the level of safety in some Member States.

Q: You said harmonization. Do you plan to have harmonization with other countries, other blocks of countries around the globe?

PG: Well, of course we welcome harmonization with lot of big authorities like the FAA in US, but this is work which is ongoing for years and years and years because of course for the industry it is very important to have a single set of regulations all over the world. Aviation is a global business and all our airlines are operators flying to all parts of the world.

Q: Will the liberalized environment have any impact as a functioning or will make the function easier?

PG: No, I don’t see that the liberalisation will have an impact. It’s already done within the EU because as you know a lot of things are done in order to promote competition, so there are no borders, it is a global market, so we are just in the middle of this already.

Q: What can be the role of EASA regarding the environment? Will we see environmental issues that have been proven to be very “ à la mode”?

PG: It’s very “ à la mode” as you say. We have been already working on the environment domain, we are in fact active in ICAO in Montreal and in fact we promote our views towards ICAO and then in fact we are in charge of implementing in Europe the recommendations of ICAO. We work with ICAO already as a starting phase to that.

Q: The Black List that EU has elaborated is a help over that direction.

PG: The safety list is a help because it gives a kind of impulsion, a push to those States, which are now on the safety list in order to improve safety. So, of course it’s good.     

       Selman TENGÜZ

   Wednesday, May 18, 2011

       Talip BÖLÜKBAŞI

   Thursday, May 19, 2011