No C 159/28 Official Journal of the European Communities 17. 6. 91 
Opinion on the proposal for a Council Directive on the harmonization of technical require­
ments and procedures applicable to civil aircraft (l) 
(91/C 159/10) 
In a letter dated 26 October 1990, the Council asked, under Article 84, paragraph 2 of the 
Treaty, the Economic and Social Committee for an Opinion on the abovementioned proposal. 
The Section for Transport and Communications, which was responsible for the preparatory 
work, adopted its Opinion on 15 March 1991. The Rapporteur was Mr Mobbs. 
At its 286th plenary session (meeting of 24 April 1991) the Economic and Social Committee 
unanimously adopted the following Opinion. 
The Committee fully supports the Commission's pro­
posal subject to the comments below. 
1. Introduction 
1.1. This is a framework Directive and therefore the 
Committee has not become involved in the technical 
details. Instead it has concentrated most of its efforts 
into examining the background, the overall method of 
working and — in particular — the major parties 
involved. 
1.2. The free movement of aircraft, that is the trans­
fer of registration [as for ships in COM(90) 219 — CES 
949/90 fin] within the EC is currently restricted, mainly-
due to the lack of a common set of Technical Standards 
for aircraft certification, operation and maintenance. 
1.3. This results in many cases of time consuming 
and costly modifications when an aircraft is transferred 
between registers of Member States. Ordinary oper­
ational flying between countries is unaffected since once 
an aircraft is approved by a country, the rules of the 
International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) 
allow it to fly to other countries. 
1.4. Differences in technical standards may also 
result in variations of safety standards, whereby differ­
ences in costs may arise in respect of the construction, 
maintenance and operating of aircraft. 
1.5. This Directive addresses those aspects of civil 
aviation safety which relate to the airworthiness, oper­
ational approval and maintenance of aircraft, engines 
and other aircraft equipment and the organizations 
responsible for approving those who undertake these 
tasks. This Directive provides a framework to maintain 
the highest level of safety standards in the Member 
States, and to extend these through Europe, see Article 3 
and relevant parts of Article 7.1 of the ESC Opinion 
(') OJ No C 270, 26. 10. 1990, p. 3. on Development of Civil Aviation in the Community 
and Application of the Competition Rules to Air Trans­
port (Second phase of liberalization) (CES 214/90 — 
Rapporteur: Mr Kenna). 
1.6. All Member States are now involved in setting 
up the Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA) organization 
under the auspices of the European Civil Aviation Con­
ference (ECAC) to develop a unified European 
approach to aviation safety. This should be welcomed 
by: 
i) The Commission, as it will facilitate discussion 
between the EC and the European Free Trade 
Association (EFTA) on this topic. 
ii) By Denmark, since one set of rules can apply to 
the Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) currently 
frustrated by the need to abide by EC rules while 
jointly owned with Norway and Sweden. 
1.7. The JAA draws up technical codes and pro­
cedures [Joint Aviation Requirements (JARs)] appli­
cable to air transport in Europe. A number of these 
codes dealing mainly with the certification of aircraft, 
engines and other aviation products, are now complete 
and have been issued. Other codes concerning oper­
ation, maintenance and licensing aspects are being pre­
pared. 
1.8. The current effectiveness of the JAA could be 
limited by the fact that it is a purely voluntary arrange­
ment, lacking a legal framework. 
1.9. This Directive is intended to strengthen the JAA, 
making this voluntary arrangement binding by incorpo­
rating it into Community legislation. This would 
require the Member States to adopt common codes of 
technical requirements for aviation and to adhere to 
the administrative requirements and procedures of the 
JAA. Delays in incorporating JAR's into national legis-
17. 6. 91 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 159/29 
lation may lead to problems concerning the effective­
ness of these harmonization measures. To avoid this 
problem, the Committee recommends that the proposal 
takes the form of a Regulation rather than a Directive. 
1.10. The requirements and procedures covered by 
the Directive are listed in Annex 2 and will need to be 
regularly reviewed in the light of service experience and 
technical progress. To that end it is proposed that the 
Commission be empowered to adopt such amendments 
with assistance of a committee composed of representa­
tives of Member States who are well-versed in aviation 
matters. In the opinion of the Committee, these should 
be the national representatives of the JAA. 
1.11. It is relevant here to return to the document 
concerning A Competitive European Aeronautical 
Industry [SEC(90) 1456 of 23 July 1990], and summarize 
some of the comments therein: 
i) Cost; overruns arising from cases of duplicated 
efforts must be avoided. 
ii) Standardization and Certification; the American 
industry is not handicapped by different technical 
standards, nor should the Europeans. 
iii) Standardization; agreement between the European 
Association of Aerospace Manufactures (AECMA) 
and the European Committee for Standardization 
(CEN) is already yielding good results. 
iv) Certification; the Commission wishes to strenghten 
the work of the JAA. 
1.12. The need to avoid duplication of work is 
important due to the high safety standards demanded 
in aviation, which requires a substantial number of 
very skilled people, of which there is a shortage. It is 
therefore important that additional committees, study 
groups, etc. are not set up which might unnecessarily 
duplicate work already being efficiently undertaken. 
2. General Comments 
2.1. The Committee Status 
2.1.1. The Commission's preference for an advisory 
committee as stated in Article 11 can be understood 
within the general method of operation of the Com­
mission. However in view of the highly specialized 
technical nature of the proposed Directive, the Commit­
tee suggests that such a committee should be of a regulatory nature and that procedure Ilia of the 
Council's decision on commitology (87/373) should 
apply. According to this procedure, the qualified 
majority rules of Article 148.2 of the Treaty apply to 
the decision-making in the committee, and proposals 
approved under this procedure can be executed immedi­
ately. 
2.1.2. In case of the committee not approving the 
Commission's proposal with a qualified majority, the 
proposal is presented to the Council, which makes its 
decisions by qualified majority. Unless the Council with 
a qualified majority decides otherwise within 3 months, 
the proposals are automatically adopted by the Com­
mission. 
2.1.3. The membership of the committee is funda­
mental. Given the technical and safety nature of the 
subject, the committee should comprise the Member 
States' representatives of the JAA. 
2.2. International technical cooperation 
2.2.1. In order to facilitate the import and export of 
aircraft, close contact is maintained between inter­
national bodies; outside Europe, the international stan­
dard tends to be that set by the Federal Aviation Admin­
istration (FAA) in America. The long term aim is that 
all countries accept common technical standards. 
Manufacturers on both sides of the Atlantic and the 
JAA and the FAA are already working together in order 
to be able to sell and operate their aircraft to a common 
standard worldwide. 
2.2.2. The FAA does not make any charge for its 
services. This is seen by some European manufacturers 
as providing a cost advantage to USA manufacturers. 
The FAA Strategic Plan — August 1990, sets as an 
objective that 'the FAA be user financed', by some 
suitable means. 
2.2.3. It may therefore be considered that the treat­
ment of costs needs reviewing in order to achieve fair­
ness, initially in Europe, and later worldwide. 
2.3. The future 
2.3.1. The Commission refers page 4, item 7, para­
graph 3, of the explanatory memorandum, to a single 
European Aviation Authority. 
2.3.2. This is considered a worthy objective provid­
ing it is a regulatory body. However, it is recognized 
that such an achievement is not possible in the immedi­
ate future and that progress should be made on a step 
by step basis, in view of the important issue to be 
considered. Progress on this directive should not be 
held up by these considerations. 
No C 159/30 Official Journal of the European Communities 17. 6. 91 
2.3.3. Some aviation bodies would like to see a firm 
commitment now and a timetable set for the estab­
lishing of a single, European aviation authority. There­
fore, the following issues should be considered as part 
of a separate directive, so as not to hold up progress 
on the present one: 
— The role of a single authority — should it cover 
only the work of the JAA or the wider issues dealt 
with by European Civil Aviation Conference 
(ECAQ? 
— Treaty arrangements; 
— Participating States control over the body; 
— Legal Status (including product liability); 
— Working arrangements with other bodies — Euro-
control, the FAA, EFTA, Eastern European States. 
3. Specific comments 
3.1. Article 1 
The Committee thinks that the first indent as written 
will cause problems with aircraft required/operated 
under leasing arrangements. 
Therefore it asks to delete from first indent the words: 
'registered in the Member States of the Community' 
and replace with new wording: 
'used by operators licensed or authorized by the 
Member States.1 
3.2. Article! 
3.2.1. In view of the importance of the JAA (which 
body exists now), there should, therefore, be an 
additional definition: 
'«JAA» means the Joint Aviation Authorities 
covered by the « arrangements"'. 
3.3. Article 3 
3.3.1. In recognition of the fact that JAR-codes are 
subject to a continuous process of development and 
modification, this Article together with Articles 10 and 
11 provide the necessary flexibility to adopt these codes 
into Community legislation. 
3.4. Article 4 
3.4.1. The adherence to the arrangement documents 
now by all Member and EFTA States avoids problems with detailed wording of this clause since membership 
of the JAA is decided by the JAA based on its acceptance 
of its terms and conditions and not by Governements. 
3.4.2. The JAA say that their present workload pre­
cludes consideration of any other applications for the 
time being. The terms for additional admissions might 
best be left until later, especially since an enlarged JAA 
will include countries from outside EC/EFTA. By then 
there may be a time table and set of clear objectives for 
the establishment of a European Aviation Authority. 
3.4.2.1. Paragraph 2 
Replace existing wording by: 
'Member States will ensure that the existing 
relationship between the Commission and ECAC 
extends to the JAA (in order to avoid conflicts 
within the ECAC organization).' 
3.5. Article 7 
3.5.1. Amend line two to include ... and maintained 
'or body/authority or person licensed'. The reason is 
that there is a need to be able to take action against a 
wider range of approvals than solely products. 
3.5.2. The JAA presently operates a procedures by 
which the original Member State retains responsibility 
for ensuring that, when measures have been initiated, 
the Member State sees these through to a complete 
conclusion. This avoids a break or delay in the conti­
nuity of an action. 
3.5.2.1. Thus Paragraph 2 should be deleted and 
replaced with: 
New paragraph 2 
'The Member State shall also inform the other 
Member States and the JAA of these measures and 
indicate the reason for its decision. The Member 
State shall also ensure that consultation takes place 
within the JAA on the measures taken.' 
A new paragraph 3 will be required as a result of the 
foregoing changes. 
3.5.2.2. New paragraph 3 
'The Member State will report the results of the 
consultation, referred to in paragraph 2, to the 
Commission. Where the measure is attributed to 
shortcomings in the common requirements and pro­
cedures, the Commission shall ask the JAA to 
develop a new code or amendments to an existing 
code. A decision will be made using the procedures 
as laid down in Article 11.' 
(as amended by the Committee). 
17. 6. 91 Official Journal of the European Communities No C 159/31 
3.6. Article 9 
3.6.1. Insert in line one, after ... States shall 'through 
the JAA' ensure that ... (in order to avoid any go it 
alone action). 
3.6.2. Insert in line two, after ... amended 'JAA 
defined' requirements and procedures ... (in order to 
avoid any go it alone action). 
3.7. Article 11 
3.7.1. This Article should be amended, taking into 
account the propositions made by the Committee in 
earlier general comments, whereby the committee 
Done at Brussels, 24 April 1991. 
1. The Committee welcomes the consolidated ver­
sion of Regulation (EEC) 797/85 as amended (12 
amendments and one corrigendum), as consolidation 
helps make Community law clearer and more trans­
parent. 
2. A Commission decision of 1 April 1987 established 
the principle that a consolidated version of legislative should be regulatory and not advisory. This amendment 
should recognize the fact that the Commission represen­
tative, acting as Chairmain of the committee, should 
be non-voting. 
3.7.1.1. Annex 1 
Replace with the later version 'Cyprus, 11 September 
1990'. 
3.7.1.2. Annex 2 
It should be noted that Annex 2 will be updated on a 
regular basis, showing the implementation date of JAR-
codes as and when adopted into Community legislation 
through the committee. 
The Chairman 
of the Economic and Social Committee 
Francois STAEDELIN 
instruments should be produced no later than after 
their tenth amendment. Although this decision was not 
respected in the present case, the resulting consolidated 
version is in fact more complete, since it embraces the 
most recent measures reforming the structural funds. 
3. However, the Committee is concerned that certain 
measures are not included in the consolidated version, Opinion on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EEC) on improving the efficiency of 
agricultural structures 
(91/C 159/11) 
On 28 March 1991 the Council decided to consult the Economic and Social Committee, 
under Article 198 of the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community, on the 
abovementioned proposal. 
The Section for Agriculture and Fisheries, which was responsible for preparing the Commit­
tee's work on the subject, adopted its Opinion on 11 April 1991. The Rapporteur was 
Mr Charles Pelletier. 
At its 286th plenary session (meeting of 24 April 1991), the Economic and Social Committee 
unanimouslv adopted the following Opinion.