Britain could be excluded from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) after it quits the EU, raising the prospect of increased certification costs for airlines and manufacturers and dashing hopes of the UK keeping its membership according to Reuters (HERE).
I note this item received no coverage in the mainstream press last week. The EU are preparing to exclude us from the EASA, because membership requires us to accept the jurisdiction of the ECJ. We heard last year that the American FAA was in this country telling us to remain in the EASA or get our own body set up in a few weeks.
The Reuters article says:
“UK membership of EASA is not possible,” the European Commission said in slides presented to member states last week which will inform its negotiating position for a transitional agreement and the future relationship with Britain.
Note this does not say it will be difficult, but explicitly it says impossible. This will be a huge problem for airlines and manufacturers who provide parts for the industry. Our own CAA have said the setting up of our own organisation is not possible and they have apparently avoided trying to do so for fear of giving the impression it is a viable solution.
Last December an article in Aviation News (HERE) said the FAA had warned the UK about leaving the EASA claiming that:
However The US FAA is telling British authorities that with some 50% of all European repair and maintenance functions in Britain, and with the UK providing some 40% of the workforce and expertise that maintains and operates the European ATC system, never mind a significant part of its budget, the FAA will need to start inspecting British facilities and airlines if they are to continue to fly to the US – and by the start of 2018.
It seems however that Britain is about to offer to stay in the EASA safety organisation, and in doing so it will have to accept the European Court of Justice as the final arbiter in high level disputes. This is one of those points British pro-Brexit politicians have nailed themselves to a cross over, and seem prepared to go to any lengths to prevent. The ECJ (ironically designed and created by British lawyers after WW2), is seen as interfering in domestic law.
It is a measure of the many Brexit problems to come that an issue so important is buried under an avalanche of stuff about internal Conservative party wrangling. They are fiddling while Rome burns.
And to finish I though the final paragraph in the Aviation News article was good:
Using the ECJ as an excuse isn’t a viable way forward and British negotiators must surely realise it even if the ultra-Brexiteers, who would rather see the country drifting in the mid Atlantic on a raft of economic ruins than stay in any part of the ECJ, try to force the issue their way.
