(1)

Directive 2003/42/EC requires national occurrence reporting systems to be established, in order to ensure that relevant information on air safety is reported, collected, stored, protected and disseminated with the only objective of preventing accidents and incidents, excluding as a consequence the attribution of blame or liability.

(2)

This Regulation should apply to information exchanged by Member States pursuant to Article 6(1) of Directive 2003/42/EC. Information concerning national occurrences, stored in the national databases, should be subject to national regulations governing the release of aviation safety information.

(3)

Interested parties, for the purposes of this Regulation, should be defined as any person that is in a position to participate in the improvement of civil aviation safety by making good use of the safety related information collected under Directive 2003/42/EC.

(4)

National points of contacts have the best knowledge of interested parties established in their own Member State. In order to deal with information requests in the safest and most efficient manner, each national point of contact should deal with requests from interested parties established in the territory of that Member State while requests from interested parties from third countries or from international organisations should be dealt with by the Commission.

(5)

The Commission may decide at a later stage to entrust an entity with the management of exchanged information in accordance with Article 6 of Directive 2003/42/EC and to deal with requests from interested parties from third countries or from international organisations.

(6)

A list of points of contacts should be established by the Commission and should be publicly available.

(7)

In order to prevent abuse of the system, the contact point receiving a request for information should check that the requestor is an interested party and the request should be evaluated, before the amount and the level of information to be supplied is defined.

(8)

The national points of contact should obtain enough information to proceed to validation and evaluation of requests. For that purpose they should use a form containing relevant information on the requestor and the intended purpose of the request.

(9)

When certain interested parties regularly need information relating to their own activities, it should be possible to adopt a general decision to supply information in respect of those parties.

(10)

A requestor should ensure that the confidentiality of the system is protected, and should limit the use of the information received to the purpose specified in the request, which should be compatible with the objectives of Directive 2003/42/EC.

(11)

All points of contact should be able to monitor that a request they have turned down is not reintroduced through the authority of another Member State. They should also be able to take example from the best practices of other points of contact. They should therefore have access to the records of the requests for information and decisions adopted in respect of such requests.

(12)

Modern technology should be used for the transfer of data, while at the same time ensuring the protection of the entire database.

(13)

In order to enable the Commission to prepare the appropriate measures for exchange of information between Member States and the Commission, as required by Article 6.4 of Directive 2003/42/EC, this Regulation shall apply six months after its entry into force.

(14)

The measures provided for in this Regulation are in accordance with the Opinion of the Air Safety Committee established by Article 12 of Council Regulation (EEC) No 3922/91 of 16 December 1991 on the harmonisation of technical requirements and administrative procedures in the field of civil aviation (2),