Brussels, Belgium – Mr Camille Grand, Assistant Secretary General for Defence Investment of NATO and Mr Eamonn Brennan, Director General of EUROCONTROL want to intensify the collaboration between NATO and EUROCONTROL to master current and future challenges for civil and military aviation.
Today they agreed to work closer together to enhance flight efficiency, airspace capacity and military mission effectiveness, while having due regard on a proper balance between economic needs and security and defence requirements.
Amongst others, a major challenge is facilitating the ever-growing civil traffic and mitigating its resulting delay situation, while at the same time accommodating new military airspace needs stemming from 5th generation fighter aircraft entering into service, rapid military air mobility across Europe and military HALE/MALE RPAS operations.
In addition, ATM security is facing new threats emerging from an increased need for data-exchange and automation, which can be best mitigated in a joint civil-military approach, as applied in NEASCOG (NATO-EUROCONTROL ATM Security Coordination Group).
Building on the Memorandum of Cooperation signed between NATO and EUROCONTROL in 2003 and the related practical working arrangements agreed in 2014, Camille Grand and Eamonn Brennan consider civil-military cooperation as a key enabler to master the aviation challenges, especially by enhancing Flexible Use of Airspace and civil-military ATM/CNS interoperability.