Proposal for a Council Decision on the position to be taken by the European Union within the EU-ICAO Joint Committee on the Decision on the adoption of an annex on Air Traffic Management to the Memorandum of Cooperation between the European Union and the International Civil Aviation Organization providing a framework for enhanced cooperation

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is a UN specialised agency acting as the global forum for civil aviation. ICAO works to achieve its vision of safe, secure and sustainable development of civil aviation through cooperation among its member states, of which there are currently 191. Its legal basis is the 1944 Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation.

The European Union works closely with ICAO, primarily because most aspects of the Chicago Convention come under Union competence - ICAO pursues policies in the fields of safety, security, environment and air traffic management (ATM). Secondly, ICAO standards and requirements form the basis for certain EU legislation. In addition, international standards, for example in the field of aviation security, are taken over in EU law. For the EU, it is therefore important to engage in ICAO's work and policy-making activities to contribute to sound global aviation policies. Also the competitiveness of the European civil aviation industry is at stake. Other global players are actively involved in ICAO activities for similar reasons.

The EU and ICAO have concluded a Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) that provides for an enhanced framework for cooperation. The MoC identifies ATM as one of the areas for cooperation, to be dealt with in further detail in a specific annex. The annex is to contribute to greater harmonisation of standards, global interoperability of new technologies and systems and closer coordination of ATM activities; to that end, it sets out areas for cooperation in the form, inter alia, of a regular exchange of relevant ATM data/information, the possible exchange of technical ATM experts and cooperation in the further development and implementation of the ICAO Global Air Navigation Plan (GANP).

Annexes on Aviation Safety and Aviation Security have already been developed, so the annex on Air Traffic Management is the third annex to the MoC. Its adoption is without prejudice to the rights and obligations of EU Member States under the Chicago Convention or to their relations with ICAO resulting from their membership of the organisation.

EUR-Lex: COM(2016)621: Follow the progress of this proposal through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2016:621:FIN

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