From 19 to 28 January 2015 the Committee Phase of the 204th Session of ICAO Council was held in Montreal at the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Headquarters. The meetings were attended by the Permanent Representative of the Republic of Poland in the ICAO Council.
On January 19, a meeting of EU coordination of European Council members was held. At the meeting, the results of the Directors-General (DGCA) meeting of 11 November 2014 was held including the results of the elections, in which the Ms. Ingrid Cherfils (Sweden) was elected for the post of President of the European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC) with effect from 1 January 2015. The representatives of the ECAC and the EC summed up the past ECAC DGCA meeting, including informing on the current arrangements for the election to the Council of ICAO, which will be held at the 39th Session of the ICAO Assembly in 2016. Then there has been discussed the issues of the next week of meetings of the Council members, including topics of committee meetings and briefings on the ICAO Data Management.
Another important point of discussion was the issue of High-Level Safety Conference (HLSC/2) to be held in February 2015. It has been reported that a particularly important day of the conference will be 2 February on which will be held the planned bilateral meetings of the EU-ICAO and ECAC-USA. Another point of the meeting referred to the work of the Environmental Advisory Group (EAG). The Polish delegate (alternate member of the ICAO Council) presented its comments on the work of the Committee on Environmental Protection in civil aviation (CAEP). Under this the participants were informed that on 21 January will be held the next coordination meeting of the European members of the Council of ICAO devoted exclusively on EAG matters and outcomes of the bilateral meetings between several countries that will take place on 20 January. Before the upcoming EAG meetings, the representatives of the European Commission, together with the European Council members held bilateral meetings with selected delegations of third countries. Some of the meetings were attended by the Polish delegate - an alternate member of the Council of ICAO.
On January 19 a meeting of the Committee on relations with the host country (RHCC) was held. The meeting concerned the organizational and administrative matters. The participants discussed the issues of a formal nature (including visa issues) relating to the members of the Council of ICAO, their deputies and families delegates. On January 20 an informal briefing for members of the Council on statistical data on air transport activities of the Member States and the work of ICAO were held. The representative of the Secretariat gave a presentation on the type of data collected, the challenges in this area and statistical tools that are currently available or are planned to be available in the near future for contractual countries and commercial entities for a fee. The representative of the Secretariat presented the report on the efficiency of data collection by Member States (on ICAO forms) with particular emphasis on forms of data needed to estimate the fuel efficiency of civil aviation. ICAO Secretariat also provided participants with the information about the completeness of the data by key statistical areas. In the case of the form used for aviation fuel consumption, according to the Secretariat, Poland was one of several countries, which forward them regularly to ICAO, since 2010.
On 21 January 2015 a meeting of the Air Transport Committee (ATC) was held. During the meeting several documents were presented. The first document concerned the meeting of 13. Air Transport Panel (ATRP/13). This document included a proposal to gather the panel at the headquarters of ICAO on 1-4 September, as well as a proposal for the agenda, the general points of the meeting, and the Member States of the panel. The Air Transport Panel is participated by Polish representative. The participants then consider the document entitled "Fifth Joint Meeting of the Airport Economics Panel and Air Navigation Services Economics Panel”. This document contains, inter alia, proposal to convene a meeting of AEP-ANSEP/5 which to be held on 19-21 May 2015 in accordance with the recommendations of the sixth conference of transport (ATConf/6). During the session the report from the eighth meeting of the Panel on Facilitation was presented. The meeting was held in Montreal from 24-27 November 2014. The report highlights the achieved goals and planned activities. These include, among others, changes to Annex 9 related to assistance to the victims of air accidents and their families and Machine Readable Travel Documents (MRTDs), to facilitate connection with the carriage of cargo and database of lost travel documents (SLTD). The panel has introduced a model program for facilitation (NATFP) which has been improved by the working group on development of guidance material (WGGM). The Group has also received new tasks for the development of guidance material on the self check-in procedure conducted by the passenger. The panel presented its findings and planned analysis concerning the standards contained in Annex 9. The Panel considered appropriate to establish a new working group which would provide the information about the databases of the passengers. The final document which was presented was the Committee's work plan for the 205th Session of the ICAO Council. All documents have been approved by the members of the ATC committee.
From 21 to 22 January 2015 a meeting of the Environmental Advisory Group was held. The EAG meeting was preceded by a European coordination. The representatives of the EC who chaired the meeting informed the participants about the results of bilateral discussions with third countries. Polish delegate with the status of observer, took part in a EAG meeting consisting of three sessions. The meeting was devoted to the presentation of analyzes carried out by the working groups of the Committee on Environmental Protection (CAEP) regarding the impact of the MBM mechanisms proposed in Strawman version 1.2 on aviation market and the proposed actions and scenarios in order to obtain the optimal solution. CAEP representatives also gave a presentation on the results of the analyzes for monitoring, reporting and verification of CO2 emissions (MRV).
In addition, countries of ECAC presented the European position on the proposed solutions, including notably the choice of approach of compensation of CO2 emissions from aviation. After each of the presentations, discussions of EAG members took place. Some countries have argued that in order for the system to be implemented, it will need to be significant changes in the national legal system. EAG asked the ICAO Secretariat for presentation in this area during the next session of the group. The last point of the meeting was to provide information on upcoming Global Aviation Dialogues (GLADs) regarding the implementation of GMBM. This is the kind of information conference aim to present the results of existing work on GMBM with obtaining an opinion on the proposed solutions. These meetings will take place in the spring of 2015 in all regions of the ICAO. The next meeting of the EAG has been scheduled for the first week of March.
On January 23 was held the Technical Cooperation Committee (TCC) meeting. The first part of the meeting has been combined with the Finance Committee (FIC). Firstly there was presented an oral report on the preliminary findings regarding the technical program for the previous year. During the discussion, France asked to take into account the list of sponsors of the aid program, which is implemented in Madagascar. Another issue discussed at the committee was a survey on customer satisfaction from aid programs. This survey is to be prepared by the McGill Institute of Air and Space Law. At the end of the session the program of work on the 205. Council session was approved. On January 23 was also held an informal briefing on the preparation of a safety conference in Montreal. The meeting was hosted head of the Air Navigation Bureau Ms. Nancy Graham and head of the Air Navigation Commission Mr. Farid Zizi. During the meeting there was held a discussion concerning inter alia issues of Search and Rescue (SAR). The President emphasized the important role of prevention to prevent air accidents. The main role was to formulate ICAO standards and recommended practices (SARPs) to create a secure operating system, and reduce the number of accidents and the need to use SAR. Also there were raised the issues on communication between the countries on safety matters. Mrs. Graham emphasized that she counts on the results of the conference and help of the Directors General in the development of the Conference conclusions.
On January 26 was held a coordination meeting of the EU, during which the participants discussed the agenda of the next week’s meetings and issues of preparation phase of the EU/ECAC meeting to be held at HLSC. On the same day there was a meeting of the Human Resources Committee. The task of the committee was to discuss the annual report of ethics officer and work program for 205. session of the Council. During the committee were also raised issues concerning so-called charter letter presented by the President of the Council on behalf of the Council to the Secretary General on the tasks of the new Secretary General. To achieve that the new group has been formed, consisting of members of the HRC Committee, ie. The United States of America, Venezuela, Russia and Portugal to work on the Charter. On January 26 was also held a briefing on the work of the ICAO audit (internal and external), ethics officer and an ombudsman. Most questions from members concerned the work of the Ombudsman and its role in the organization and current affairs which he is dealing with.
On January 27 a meeting of the Financial Committee (FIC) was held. During the committee there were discussed 7 documents. The documents concerned the changes to the financial regulation which led to a discussion on the impact of the proposed changes to the organization and the registers of risk. After that the document on evaluation of the internal auditor was presented. All of these documents have been approved by the Council.
On January 28 the Committee on Unlawful Interference (UIC) was held to discuss a report on the implementation of the security program, including training and sponsors of the project. The work program of the committee for the 205th session of the Council was adopted. The main discussion of participants of the meeting concerned the documents relating to the amendment of Annex 17.
