Single sky reform: Council adopts first reading position to improve efficiency of air space management in the EU

With a view to improving the overall efficiency of the way in which European airspace is organised and managed, today the Council adopted its position at first reading on the reform of the Single European Sky.

The aim of the reform is to improve the performance, organisation, and management of airspaces in the EU and the provision of the air navigation services to increase capacity, lower costs, and increase the system’s adaptability, while also trying to reduce aviation’s impact on environment and climate. The Council’s position at first reading retains the key objectives of the Single European Sky: reinforce safety, respond to capacity needs, and help cut CO₂ emissions, while being cost-effective.

Main elements of the Council position

The Council’s position at first reading contains the following main elements in line with the provisional agreement between the co-legislators:

• regarding the scope of the new legislative framework, the application of the regulation is without prejudice to member states’ sovereignty over their airspace and to the requirements of the member states relating to public order, public security, and defence matters
• consequently, the new regulation does not cover military operations and training.

As far as the provision of air navigation and air traffic services and the organisation of their regulation are concerned:

• a national supervisory authority is designated by each member state to assess compliance of air navigation service providers with certain requirements, such as financial sustainability and organisational structure, in cooperation with the national competent authority in charge of the certification of air navigation service providers
• member states may decide to assign those tasks to one or the other authority
• the air navigation service providers and the national supervisory authority can be part of the same organisation provided they are functionally separated and meet independence requirements
• it will also be possible for member states to merge economic and safety oversight functions in the same administrative entity, as this solution cuts red tape and adapts to existing organisational models
• air traffic service providers may open certain air navigation services to market conditions on a voluntary basis and member states may decide to authorise the opening of air traffic services for aerodrome and/or approach control to market conditions
• national supervisory authorities and the Commission will together assess the performance of air navigation services, in accordance with the subsidiarity and proportionality principles
• the Commission is assisted in this process by an independent performance review board (PRB), which has an advisory role, is established as a stable and permanent entity, and will be funded by the EU budget.

Moreover, measures were introduced to reduce the aviation sector’s CO₂ footprint, mainly the possibility for a mandatory modulation of en route charges to encourage airspace users to support improvements in climate and environmental performance, such as the use of the most fuel-efficient available routing or increased use of alternative clean propulsion technologies. These would be subject to a feasibility study that will determine the contribution and the added value of such a modulation, and will assess its impact on air traffic, service provision, administrative costs, and stakeholders.

Finally, the network perspective is strengthened by adding new network functions and by giving the current network manager, Eurocontrol, additional, clearly delineated tasks so that it can better contribute to the sustainable and efficient use of the airspace, whereas member states shall be fully involved in decisions of strategic importance for the network.

Next steps

The Council’s position at first reading will be now transmitted to the European Parliament. Since the text fully reflects the compromise reached between the co-legislators on 6 March 2024, the European Parliament is expected to approve the Council position without amendments (a so-called early second reading agreement). Once approved, the draft legislative act will be submitted to a legal/linguistic review before being formally adopted by the co-legislators, published in the EU’s official journal, and entering into force 20 days after this publication.

Background

The Commission launched the Single European Sky (SES) initiative in 1999 to improve the performance of air traffic management and air navigation services through better integration of European airspace. The last major legislative initiative within the SES framework, SES 2, was concluded in 2009. An interim update of the SES rules, called SES 2+, was proposed by the Commission in 2013 but was never concluded. The Commission presented in September 2020 an update to its 2013 proposal on SES 2+ with two legislative proposals: an amended SES 2+ proposal (recast) defining the overall Single European Sky system and the proposal to amend EASA basic regulation entrusting EASA with the role of Performance Review Body. Following intense negotiations, the co-legislators reached a provisional agreement on the file during a trilogue on 6 March 2024 paving the way to an early second reading agreement.