European Commission
European Commission

According to Regulation (EC) No 549/2004 (the framework Regulation), interoperability means a set of functional, technical and operational properties required of systems and constituents of the European air traffic management network (EATMN) and of the procedures for its operation, in order to enable its safe, seamless and efficient operation. Interoperability is achieved by making the systems and constituents compliant with the essential requirements.

Regulation (EC) No 552/2004 (the interoperability Regulation) is focused on the interoperability of systems, constituents and associated procedures of the EATMN. It aims to ensure that new validated concepts and technologies can be introduced timely and efficiently. The following eight domains are addressed :

• aeronautical information services,
• airspace management,
• air traffic flow management,
• air traffic services,
• communications,
• navigation,
• surveillance, and
• meteorological information.

According to the interoperability Regulation, the regulatory materials are organised in three layers :

• the Essential Requirements (ER) are part of the interoperability Regulation itself, that is the highest level of legislation,
• the Implementing Rules (IR). The aim of an IR is :
  • to complement or to refine the Essential Requirements,
  • to give a reference which systems, constituents and associated procedures shall comply with the requirements,
  • those rules shall facilitate the coordinated introduction of new, agreed and validated concepts of operation and technologies.
• the Community Specifications (CS). This third layer is outside the mandatory part of the regulatory material. Application of Community Specifications or other technical specifications remains voluntary, and manufacturers and air navigation service providers are free to choose any technical solution that provides compliance with the essential requirements. However, compliance with the Essential Requirements and/or the Implementing Rules for interoperability shall be presumed for systems, together with the associated procedures, or constituents that meet the relevant Community Specifications and whose reference numbers have been published in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU).

The below diagram depicts the overall architecture of the regulatory materials, from the highest level objectives to the detailed operational and technical specifications :

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In general, a Community Specification may either be :

• a standard for systems or constituents and is drawn up by the European standardisation organisations (CEN, CENELEC, ETSI) in cooperation with EUROCAE on a mandate from the European Commission, or
• specifications on matters of operational coordination between ANSPs drawn up by EUROCONTROL on request of the European Commission.

So far, EUROCONTROL has received requests to develop specifications for the following areas :

• Air Traffic Services Data Exchange Presentation (ADEXP)
• Air Traffic Services Message Handling System (AMHS)
• Flexible Use of Airspace (FUA)
• Integrated Initial Flight Plan Processing System (IFPS) Users Manual
• On-Line Data Interchange (OLDI).

CEN/CENELEC/ETSI have been asked to produce European standards for the following aspects :

• Software Assurance Levels (SWAL)
• Airport - Collaborative Decision Making (A-CDM)
• Advanced Surface Movement Guidance and Control Systems (A-SMGCS)
• Interoperability of Flights Data Processing
• Ground Based Augmentation System (GBAS) Cat. I precision approach operations
• Approach Procedures with Vertical Guidance (APV)

The below table provides status information on the development of Community specification by the different organisations:

Title	Mandate	Organisation	Status	OJEU	Remarks
DLS (ground part) EN 303 214 V1.1.1		ETSI	Completed	2011/C 183/06
On-Line Data Interchange (OLDI)Edition 4.2		Eurocontrol	Completed	2011/C 146/05	Replaces OLDI Edition 4.1 for which the presumption of conformity should cease on 14 November 2012
A-SMGCS EN 303 213 Part 4.2 V1.1.1 Part 4.1 V1.1.1 Part 3 V1.1.1 Part 2 V1.1.1 Part 1 V1.2.1		ETSI	Completed	2010/C 330/02
Airport CDM EN 303 212 V1.1.1		ETSI	Completed	2010/C 168/04
Air Traffic Services Message Handling System(AMHS) Edition 2.0		Eurocontrol	Completed	2009/C 323/06 Corrigendum 2010/C 18/16
Flexible Use of Airspace(FUA) Edition 1.1		Eurocontrol	Completed	2009/C 196/05
Air Traffic Services Data Exchange Presentation(ADEXP) Edition 3.0		Eurocontrol	Completed	2008/C 68/03
Integrated Initial Flight Plan Processing System Users Manual(IFPS) Edition 1.0		Eurocontrol	Completed	2007/C 290/06
Flight Message Transfer Protocol(FMTP) Edition 2.0		Eurocontrol	Completed	2007/C 188/03
FDP Interoperability (ATC-ATC) – CEN TS 16071		CEN	Completed		CEN publication of a technical specification (TS), due to its level of detail an EN was not created and hence no publication in the OJEU as community specification was done
Software Assurance Levels prEN 16154	M390 [49 KB]	CEN	Ongoing
GBAS Cat I	M408 [48 KB]	ETSI	Ongoing
APV-BaroVNAV	M408 [48 KB]	CEN	Ongoing
APV-SBAS (LPV)	M408 [48 KB]	CEN	Ongoing