EUROCONTROL’s Network Manager’s role reinforced with the approval of the Network Strategy Plan

On 19 December 2012, the European Commission (EC) formally approved the Network Strategy Plan (NSP) for the period 2012-2019. On the same day, the EC also appointed the chairperson and voting members of the Network Management Board.

The Network Manager, a function carried out by EUROCONTROL, is responsible for developing, maintaining and implementing the NSP.

The aim of the NSP is to set objectives for all actors in the network, which will ensure that the performance targets defined in EU Regulation 691/2010 can be achieved. All stakeholders are required to put in place concrete actions to implement the objectives set out in the NSP.

“The NSP provides the means to define the essential measures that will help the performance of the European ATM network. With its approval, the NSP has become a formal document which defines the objectives which must be implemented by all actors through concrete actions”, says Mr Dopagne, Director Network Management at EUROCONTROL.

The NSP, which is consistent with the European ATM Master Plan, defines strategic objectives to be achieved during the 1st reference period 2012-2014 (RP1). It also sets out operational drivers for the 2nd reference period, 2015-2019 (RP2).

The NSP is supported by an Annex divided into two main parts, one giving details on the strategic objectives, describing the consistency with the Master Plan and providing a summary development and deployment roadmap of network oriented activities. As for the 2nd part, it gives specific details on the Network Manager’s expected contribution to performance.

The NSP will be updated by the end of 2013 to take account of technological, institutional and economic developments where appropriate and once the performance objectives of RP2 are known.

EUROCONTROL was nominated as ATM network manager for the Single European Sky programme, which is designed to establish a safe and efficient air traffic management system at European level on the basis of a legal framework adopted in 2004 and 2009. A dedicated EUROCONTROL Directorate was established on 1st January 2011 to carry out the network manager function.

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