Proposal for a Council Decision on the position to be taken on behalf of the European Union, in respect of the decisions to be adopted by Eurocontrol’s Permanent Commission, on Centralised Services

The Council adopted on 8 December 2015 Decision (EU) 2015/2394 on the position to be taken by the Member States on behalf of the European Union, concerning the decisions to be adopted by the Permanent Commission of Eurocontrol, with regard to the roles and tasks of Eurocontrol and on centralised services. These decisions were planned to be taken by Eurocontrol's Permanent Commission on 9 December 2015 on Centralised Services, for Eurocontrol to develop financing, procurement arrangements and technical specifications in view of timely deploying new "European Air/Ground Data Communication Services" (EAGDCS).

The Council decided that the Union's position should be to postpone the adoption of a decision by Eurocontrol on centralised services, because there was insufficient information available to evaluate the substance of such a decision. In addition, such a decision might have prejudged future activity conducted by Eurocontrol in a manner that would have been detrimental to the Union’s activity in this field, notably as regards Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research (SESAR).

Since Eurocontrol is currently engaged in the development of 18 different Centralised Services, the Union's position covered not only EAGDCS but all Centralised Services potentially being developed for implementation, since all are similarly related to the Union’s activity in this field, notably as regards SESAR.

On 9 December 2015, due to the above Union position, Eurocontrol's Permanent Commission did not take a decision on EAGDCS. Instead, it was agreed that Eurocontrol should continue to work on a revised decision on Centralised Services in close cooperation with its stakeholders and should also provide an assessment of the economic impact of implementation and operation of EAGDCS.

On 9 February 2016, the Eurocontrol Agency and the industry stakeholders sent a jointly signed revised proposal for EAGDCS to the Commission, in which both parties indicated that the required economic impact assessment is available within the completed feasibility studies as delivered to the Innovation & Networks Executive Agency (INEA) in late 2015. However, those studies contain only superficial cost benefit analysis, and a full assessment of the economic impact of the centralisation of EAGDCS is still required. In addition, the Eurocontrol Agency may propose to the Permanent Commission of Eurocontrol to adopt this new decision on EAGDCS in a written procedure.

This proposal for a Council Decision refers to EAGDCS. It is proposed to support, as regards the development of a demonstrator, in principle the continuation of the collaboration between the Eurocontrol Agency and Air Navigation Service Providers of the Eurocontrol States, as well as with the Network Manager.

However, the proposal also defines three important conditions that such decision should contain:
- The first condition is that the development of the demonstrator must take full account of technical work performed by the SESAR Joint Undertaking (SJU). The intention is to avoid any misalignment between ongoing and possible future work of the two organisations in the development of the relevant Centralised Services.
- Secondly, the involvement of EASA needs to be assured, given that EASA will need to undertake the certification and oversight of any centrally provided service before it can enter into operation. This should avoid potential mismatches in this area and thus ensure that funds, coming from route charges, but also from Union support, are spent most efficiently.
- Finally, the terms of this decision should be such that it is without prejudice to any procurement, deployment and operations of such service in the internal market. The application of EU procurement rules in respect of such services, to be provided in the context of the European Single Sky (SES), should thereby be preserved, so as to maximise cost efficiency.

The conditions summarised above are considered essential. Given their nature and scope, they are likely to be relevant also for Union positions in respect of future Eurocontrol decisions in the area of Centralised Services. The Commission will look into these issues in detail each time the need for a new proposal arises.

EUR-Lex: COM(2016)226: Follow the progress of this proposal through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2016:226:FIN

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