In meetings this week with Mrs. Violeta Bulc, European Commissioner for Transport, and Mr Henrik Hololei, European Commission Director General for Mobility and Transport, ICAO Secretary General Dr. Fang Liu provided an extended update of the current ICAO activities of interest to the EU.
Her talks centred mainly around the environment and the status of implementation of the CORSIA offsetting mechanism for global aviation, ICAO’s new Global Aviation Security Plan, capacity building under ICAO’s No Country Left Behind initiative and through its World Aviation Forums, the upcoming ICAO Global Summit for Next Generation Aviation Professionals, and emerging issues such as UAVs.
The European Commission updated ICAO on its main environmental activities, including its expectations on CORSIA. Also broached was its U-Space Blue Print concept for UAS operations, and various aviation security priorities.
It also reaffirmed the EU’s decision to continue funding ICAO AVSEC project work and its intention to fund a new project in aid of ICAO’s Africa/Indian Ocean and Asia-Pacific Regions. Also noted was its willingness to fund environment-related projects, and especially capacity building toward the CORSIA implementation, and its intention to continue seconding experts to ICAO.
During her mission Dr. Liu was accompanied and advised by the ICAO EUR/NAT Deputy Regional Director, Mr. George Firican.
