Unsurprisingly, Mrs May has expressed a preference for the
status quo, with the UK retaining its membership of EASA. But that cannot happen. The EU's agencies are servants of the Union, established to service the Member States under the aegis of the European Commission. Concessions are made to Efta States, but even they with a form of associate membership of the EU, have no voting rights.
But what can be readily established is that, outside Efta and the EEA, our target must be a bilateral agreement with the EU. These are highly formal and comprehensive arrangements which not only set up the areas of cooperation but also establish joint bodies which enable the agreements to be monitored, interpreted and developed.
In the case of the United States, there is the "Bilateral Oversight Board" (no one seems to want to call it "Bob"); Canada has a less formal Joint Committee and Brazil has a Joint Committee of the Parties as well as Joint Sectorial Committees on Certification and Maintenance.
The big problem we have at the moment is the same problem we have in agreeing a post-Brexit trade agreement with the EU. The aviation safety "bilaterals" are full-blown treaties so we cannot even begin to negotiate with the EU until after 29 March 2019, when we formally become a third country. Equally, we cannot enter into the less formal "working arrangement" type of relationship with EASA until we are a third country.
This is where the
ADS/GAMA letter to which I referred yesterday gets really interesting. These aviation bodies have become aware of the effects of Brexit and, in particular, the peril of withdrawing without a transition period. Ideally, they argue, the difficulties could be addressed by talks directly between EASA and the CAA, concluding a "separate aviation deal agreed prior to March 2019".
However, the very solution that the industry seeks cannot be achieved which means that, if there is a "no deal" Brexit, catastrophic disruption to the aviation industry is inevitable. In legal terms, there is simply no way round this.
What this effectively means is that – as I stated yesterday – "no deal" is not a serious option. The effect on the aviation sector alone is enough to rule it out. Factor in all the other problems, in other sectors, and no responsible government could allow it – and nor could MPs, individually or collectively, permit it.