Eurocontrol

EUROCONTROL or European Organization for the air safety is a European intergovernmental organization whose seat is located at Brussels.

Its mission is to harmonize and unify the management of the aerial navigation in Europe, by promoting a uniform system for the civil and military users, under maximum security conditions while minimizing the costs and the environmental impacts.

This mission recovers:

the management of the European network. It is about the research activities and development, of coordination of the development and investment plans of the Member States, of production of common technical standards. For this reason, EUROCONTROL takes part in project SESAR launched jointly with the European Union of which the goal is to define in co-operation with all the industry of air transport, the future network of management of the traffic by 2020.
the management of certain functions at the European level. The CFMU (Central Flow Management Links) centralizes the flight plans at the level of the continent and babbit metal the traffic with an aim of minimizing the delays and of guaranteeing the safety of the flights. The SCRR (Central service of royalties of road) collection a royalty of which the goal is to finance the whole of the management system of the aerial navigation of the Member States.
the management of the center of Maastricht which controls the higher airspace of the Bénélux and of part of the Germany. Another center was to open in Vienna and Budapest (the CEATS) but it seems that this project will not be born.
the customer support with the authorities of regulation. EUROCONTROL prepares the technical dossiers and the texts of the decisions and payments which are taken either by its supreme body, or by the European Union according to its own procedures.

The agency works for that in close cooperation with the Member States, the service providers of aerial navigation, the civil and military users of the airspace, the airports, the aerospace sector and the European institutions.

The EUROCONTROL Organization is made up of its Member States and an Agency, directed by a managing director. The Agency, located at Brussels, includes/understands antennas in Europe:

the CFMU (of which the IFPU1 - Flight Planning - which deals with the flight plans) and the SCRR with Brussels
an experimental Center and the IFPU2 (Flight Planning, part of the CFMU) with Brétigny-sur-Orge, France
an training institute with Luxembourg
a control center with Maastricht, Netherlands
of the teams with Vienna, Budapest, Karlsruhe, Rome.

EUROCONTROL is founded on an international treaty, EUROCONTROL Convention, and for the royalties of road, on a Multilateral agreement. The organization is financed by a contribution of the Member States, the SCRR for its part taking an administrative royalty on the royalties which it collects. Its supreme body is the Commission, which has the lawful capacity but without no legal mechanism making it possible to sanction this legislation.

A revised Convention is in the course of ratification and it was decided to partially apply it before its implementation. It brings the following principal changes:

the managing director has a right to take initiatives
the Provisional Council replaces the old Board of management which is in fact the true body décisionnaire of the Organization
the European Union, by the virtue of an additional protocol, becomes member of the Organization
a Board of examiners of the performances and a Commission of regulation of safety is installation. These two genitals are very respected and produce a work of high-quality.

EUROCONTROL was created in the beginning to unify under its aegis management of the air traffic in higher space. The Center of Maastricht is the witness of this ambition, quickly torpedoed by the Member States which preferred to keep the total control of the performance of service. The crisis of capacity of the years 1980-90 gave to EUROCONTROL the opportunity to develop its activities under the CFMU and the management of the Pan-European network. But the irruption of a new actor, European commission, and Single Ciel program upsets the missions of the Organization. The Commission created an Agency, the EASA, which in the long term should take again the functions of regulation of the aerial navigation in Europe. Revised Convention will undoubtedly not be ratified by all the States, because the movement of privatization of the national people receiving benefits of services of aerial navigation deeply calls into question the role of the Agency in management of the network, the Pan-European functions and in the management of the Center of Maastricht. Project SESAR makes of EUROCONTROL an actor among others in the strategic development and withdraws to him its function of leader of this coordination.

The Organization counts 38 Member States today.

Participants and dates of adhesion

The Member States of the European Union signed the October 8th 2002 a protocol on the adhesion of the Union to revised Eurocontrol Convention. This convention is already partially applied even if it is not ratified yet.

Internal bonds

Control of the air traffic
Management of the air traffic

External bonds

Headquarters : Sit of Eurocontrol (Belgium)
Experimental Center: Experimental center Eurocontrol (CEE), France
SESAR: Single project SESAR
Sky: Gate of the European Union
EASA: Site of the EASA, arranges European Union
EUROCONTROL Experimental Centers Coordinates:

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