A single, bilateral accord between the European Union’s EASA (European Aviation Safety Agency) and the U.S.’s federal authorities is seen as the means by which full harmonization will eventually be achieved over the matter of PMA parts (parts manufactured under FAA parts manufacturer approval regulations).

According to Eric Sivel, continuing airworthiness manager at EASA, this objective is being worked towards now. “Today EASA is still living with bilaterals that existed between some member-states and the United States. When EASA was created the regulations did not destroy all the existing bilaterals and they remain applicable until such time as we have negotiated new ones. Depending upon which country signed it, PMA parts are more or less accepted in Europe. The bilaterals allow for most things, so the situation at the moment is that EASA is helping the Commission, because the Commission signs the bilaterals and we cannot live with five or six or more bilaterals. So we are working towards having one bilateral and within it we will address the issue of PMA parts.”

The Commission is a body within the European Union that was earlier concerned with the affairs of its 12 member states. The 12 became 15 and then 25, and the Transport Directorate serving the Commission is now working towards enabling all member states to speak with one voice. This will take care of the gallimaufry of bilateral agreements that were drawn over the years between such bodies as the civil aviation authorities of the U.K., France, Germany, and so forth and the U.S. And in its role as the relatively new body charged with responsibility for the regulations covering the manufacture of aircraft and engine parts amongst European member-states, the European Aviation Safety Agency, or EASA, expects the PMA parts issue to be taken care of also.

On the matter of continuation of direct involvement by the national aviation authorities, Eric Sivel said: “National civil aviation authorities are no longer directly represented, but the member-states are part of the council. They are members of the EASA management board and do therefore take part in the management of EASA. They are also members of AGNA, the Advisory Group of National Authorities. So they are part of the system but they are not the prime negotiators any more.”

On the manufacturing of PMA parts in Europe and the future shape of such an industry, EASA is perplexed. Authority has existed for some time for the manufacture of PMA parts in Europe and since the time of JAR-21G, which vested design and manufacturing authority in MROs and others by the OEMs. This was replaced by IR-21, or implementing rule 21, on the formal constitution of EASA on September 28, 2003 (see Aviation Maintenance, August 2003) and this was expected to take things forward in this area, through full harmonization of the rules with the U.S. FAA.

“You can fabricate PMA parts in Europe but they are not called that, they are called EPA, for European Parts Approval,” Sivel continued. “The regulations are slightly different. In Europe we have design organization approvals, which are called DOAs, and we have production organization approvals, or POAs. People who want to manufacture or fabricate such parts have to have these two approvals. This is different to the FAA which has only one required approval.”

EASA’s mystification over the absence of a European EPA parts industry of any substance is strong enough to have led to the formation of a team to look into the matter. “We are not quite sure what the market is doing,” Sivel said. “The legal possibilities exist in Europe. In the U.S. originally the OEMs had to have subsidiaries to manufacture parts, so visibly the U.S. the system makes it easier to produce PMA parts than ours, but we don’t understand why, and we have a group working on it.”

No conclusions have been drawn, Sivel explained. “We have only been working on it for the past two months. We have several possibilities, one of them administrative, that is, is our regulation overly burdensome and therefore should we think about it? Or a second possibility may be that the U.S. PMA regulation is too open, too relaxed. We are fairly open on the issue, but we do want to know and to clearly understand.”

In any event this is not seen as a priority issue. “No, this is not a priority in the relationship with the United States,” Sivel continued. “Having one bilateral is our priority, and EASA is talking about this with the FAA at the moment. It is not an issue that is being ignored. It is one of the issues on the table. The big question is why is it that almost all PMA parts are fabricated in the United States and not in Europe when our regulations allow it?”