tecpilot,
What you have said is basically correct but I would characterise it slightly differently:
A few years ago the bureaucrats planned a JAR-OPS 4 with regulations for the points not described in JAR-OPS 3. Sling load was a part of it. Due to the common chaos in our European aviation authorities this OPS 4 was cancelled. Therefore we have a lot of national regulations.
JAR-OPS 4 - Aerial Work, was requested by Authorities and Industry. It really had nothing to do with JAR-OPS 3 (Commercial Air Transport (CAT)) but was concerned with Aerial Work.
When looked at conceptually (as it was in this exercise), it was clear that we in the JAA had provided regulations for Fixed Wing and Helicopter CAT without a foundation regulation. The two reasons for this were that: (1) the aviation community were primarily interested in CAT cross border operations i.e. a level playing field across Europe; and (2) ICAO compliance was seen as the bottom line and Annex 6 is basically a CAT document (Annex 6 does not describe AW, skirts around International GA and has no model for vanilla GA). Clearly, if we were to provide a 'light touch' regulation for AW (and in fact for Business/Corporate Aviation) we would have to be more sophisticated than just providing JAR-OPS 4 (and JAR-OPS 2). We had to also provide the foundation document for General Avation (GA) - i.e. JAR-OPS 0.
After the concept was described, with diagrams and a narrative, it was tested on the JAA Operations Committee and, eventually, all the way up to the board. Once the go ahead was given, we prototyped the regulations and tested it on other parties until we thought we had arrived at the best solution. At that stage, it was populated with text and went out to A-NPA and was extensively commented.
Around this time, it was clear that EASA was coming to fruition and it was thought that completion of such a large project might not be possible before EASA's introduction -it was therefore allowed to sit on the shelf for several years. Now that EASA is about to take responsibility for Operations and Licencing, it has reappeared to provide the basis for their regulations.
Thanks for being patient up to now: there is no widespread scheme in Europe that is similar to the US (and other States) - i.e. qualification by licence endorsement. If the regulations remain as envisaged, it will still be the responsibility of the operator (AW operator in this case) to provide training and recency for AW tasks. Only that way are the risks assessed and appropriate measures put in place to control them.
Jim