EUROPEAN CIVIL AVIATION CONFERENCE - CONFÉRENCE EUROPÉENNE DE L'AVIATION CIVILE

Snapshot of the 41st ICAO Assembly

Montreal, 27 September - 7 October 2022 — The 41st ICAO Assembly saw major advances on environment and other domains (aviation security, cyber security, safety and ATM, facilitation, economics), against the background of extended discussions, re-timetabling of meetings and newsworthy decisions. The Assembly, in an historic decision, adopted a collective long-term aspirational goal (LTAG) of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. It also completed the first review of the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) with a baseline reflecting the original ambitions of the scheme, with revised percentages for sectoral and individual growth factors that were acceptable to Europe.

All eight European candidates for the ICAO Council (Austria – representing the ABIS group, France, Germany, Iceland – representing NORDICAO, Italy, Romania – representing CERG, Spain and the United Kingdom) were elected.

Three ICAO Council papers on breaches of the Chicago Convention by the Russian Federation, Belarus and North Korea, to which European members of the Council had contributed greatly, were agreed.

European ambitions on security, facilitation, safety and ATM, and economics were achieved through the normal coordination process, with participation not only from those in Montreal but also experts in their capitals participating remotely. Cyber security became a coordinated domain in its own right for the first time.

In all, 18 working papers across the full range of domains were presented by European States and organisations. Two European Directors General of Civil Aviation were elected as officers of the Assembly – Raúl Medina Caballero (Spain) as chair of the Technical Commission, and Rannia Leontaridi (United Kingdom) as second vice-president of the Assembly – with Elisabeth Landrichter (Austria) also serving as first vice-chair of the Economic Commission and Susanna Metsälampi (Finland) as vice-chair of the Legal Commission.

The Assembly was also a good opportunity for outreach activities. The ECAC President, Alessio Quaranta, and the ECAC Executive Secretary, Patricia Reverdy, had bilateral meetings with the ICAO Council President, ICAO Secretary General, regional sister organisations ACAO, AFCAC and LACAC, and international Partner States such as the Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia and Singapore. The longstanding cooperation with ECAC partners was reconfirmed, and joint activities for the next triennium were discussed for a sustainable development of international civil aviation.