New civil aviation safety rules

Briefing 12-01-2017

Despite some recent high-profile disasters, flying remains one of the safest forms of transport and the EU's accident rate is lower than in the rest of the world. However, it cannot automatically be assumed that such performance will continue, as global air traffic is forecast to double over the next 20 years. In addition, new technologies, such as unmanned aircraft (drones), are also appearing in European skies, which require adaption of the current regulatory framework. In December 2015, the European Commission proposed to replace the current Regulation on civil aviation safety and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). The new proposal would introduce risk- and performance-based rules, close some safety gaps and interlinks safety more closely with other domains such as security and the environment. It proposes to strengthen EASA's role and take several measures to use existing resources more efficiently (e.g. sharing aviation inspectors). It also introduces essential requirements for drones. In November 2016, the European Parliament's Committee on Transport and Tourism generally backed the updated rules, in particular the idea of regulating drones at EU level. The report constitutes Parliament’s position for negotiations with the Council, which adopted its general approach for the negotiations with the Parliament on 1 December 2016. This updates an earlier edition, of January 2016: PE 573.933. "A more recent edition of this document is available. Find it by searching by the document title at this address: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/home.html"