Establishment

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is an agency of the European Union established in 2002 by Regulation (EC) No 216/2008 of the European parliament and the Council in order to ensure a high and uniform level of safety in civil aviation, by the implementation of common safety rules and measures.

EASA has taken over the responsibilities of the former Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA) system which ceased on 30 June 2009. However, it is not a successor agency in legal terms since it functions directly under EU statute. The main difference between EASA and the JAA is that EASA is Regulatory Authority which uses NAAs to implement its Regulations whereas the JAA relied upon the participating NAAs to apply its harmonised codes without having any force of law at source. Since it is self evidently impossible to create a new Regulatory System 'overnight' EASA has had to accept large parts of the JAA system as its own whilst it develops the new harmonised system required under EU statute.