Of course it's not a hoax. Here's the
press release for the
treaty.
The BASA is a framework for agreement in a variety of areas, currently (Art 2B):
a) airworthiness approvals and monitoring of civil aeronautical products;
b) environmental testing and approvals of civil aeronautical products; and
c) approvals and monitoring of maintenance facilities.
The details are in Annexes 1 (airworthiness and environmental) and 2 (maintenance).
Arts 2B and 5B open the door for further areas to be added as Annexes. Most importantly, Art 3 establishes a Bilateral Oversight Board (the FAA and EASA) responsible for, inter alia, "as appropriate, adopting additional Annexes" and Art 19C allows these to come into force by an executive/administrative act of the Board, not a legislative act.
This is critical, because it means that the introduction of implementation procedures for licensing are in the hands of the FAA and EASA, not the governments.
Like Mike, I'm somewhat surprised by the lack of comment on this from the N-reg fraternity, because
now (or possibly, when the agreement comes into force on 1 May) is the time to make sure that (a) EASA gets on with this and (b) its standards for reciprocal acceptance are reasonable.