In September last year, an EC regulation (1592/2002) came into force in the 15 European Union States, creating a new European Aviation Safety Agency.The European Commission and the Directorate General Transport and Environment (DGTREN) have done a remarkable job in bringing about the regulation in two short years since the decision to create the agency. Because this is a regulation, it is now law in the 15 member states.

As far as I can see, the main imperative in creating the agency has been to bring force of law behind a European aviation safety organisation in contrast to the ‘gentlemen’s club’ that exists under the Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA).

This change brings about a number of difficulties. The JAA has nearly 40 member or candidate member states, whereas EASA only relates to 15 states at present. The JAA has a long experience of European civil aviation safety regulations, whereas EASA will need to be set up virtually from scratch.

The JAA requirements will have to be transposed into ‘EC speak’ and will become European Civil Airworthiness Requirements (ECARs), containing the essential requirements needed by the EASA regulation. Work is already well under way on airworthiness ECARs, such as design, production and aircraft maintenance. Oper-ations and licensing come next and there is even talk of requirements for air traffic in the future.

The geographical scope of EASA will expand as 10 new states join the EC and there is provision for ‘third countries’ outside the EC to subscribe to the agency. I understand that Switzerland, Norway and Iceland will be early candidates.

But what does all this mean for those of us in Europe’s business aviation industry? There will be no overnight changes but we can expect to see ECARs gradually taking over from JARs for those operating in states that will come under EASA.

From what I have seen, most JARs are being transposed without dramatic change and European manufacturers and commercial air transport operators may not see too much difference.

However, corporate operators come under private auspices and there are no harmonised requirements as yet. JAR OPS 2 is only just reaching its first consultation period and the regulation of maintenance for private aircraft is far from harmonised in Europe.

For corporate operations, the draft of JAR OPS 2 (and its accompanying JAR OPS General) is at an advanced and workable stage. There are alleviations for small operators and the regulatory style is light with emphasis on self-audit and registration (as opposed to certification) by the authority.

The only sticking point is the proposed applicability of the requirements to non-European registered aircraft based in Europe. For maintenance, the EC/JAA group looking at aircraft maintenance is proposing a European Civil Airworthiness Requirement Maintenance (ECAR-M), which could harmonise maintenance for both private and commercial aircraft.

Proposals so far suggest an unlimited certificate of airworth-iness with two yearly airworthiness review certificates issued in a variety of ways reflecting current practice in major EU states.

The creation of EASA is not the only dramatic new event to affect us. There is also a new EC regulation on civil aviation security (2320/2002) and a proposed EC regulation on insurance requirements for air carriers and aircraft operators (COM (2002) 521), the latter of which could well impose much higher (and possibly unaffordable) levels of liability insurance. A browse through the EUR-Lex section of the EU website will reveal all!

Never before, as an industry, have we needed to be so involved in European legislation. Here at GAMTA we co-operate closely with the European Business Aviation Association (EBAA) who represent us in Brussels on behalf of our operator members and we are equally dependant on the European Council of General Aviation Support (ECOGAS) for aircraft maintenance matters.

We must convince the EC to continue to consult us on the dramatic changes in legislation that are upon us and we must be able to contribute to those changes with reasonable, cohesive and structured argument. Then we can be sure of balanced regulations that do not inhibit the growth of our industry.

Graham Forbes, GAMTA chief executive, www.gamta.org