Quite paco. CBA's and investment plans are often based on frameworks developed for other sectors as well and don't always compliment traditional aviation thinking. There is pressure to collaborate with other NAA's outside of Europe as well and again, just because it sounds like a good idea doesn't necessarily mean it will be suitable within the EU context; electronic FCL's (China) and CAT Multi-crew medical privilege's beyond 65 (NZ and Canada). Just sometimes it's good to have a sensible and proportionate competency based opinion on 'new' ideas and the UK staff are thought highly in this regard.
The Commission is similar although Policy Officers are rotated between units every so many years such that they never become overly (or in some cases slightly) familiar with a particular sector. This is also designed to protect them from corruption of course. It's not uncommon to find a policy officer or higher who has spent a three years at DG-MOVE in aviation and who has reached a level of understanding that is commensurate with industry expectations being moved to rail and conversely, succeeded by someone from renewable energy or maritime etc. this in itself could be positive but the resultant diversion of resources required for training is wasteful in my view. And guess where some of the seconded expertise comes from to deliver this training....
Last edited by Reverserbucket; 26th Mar 2019 at 17:08.