Aviation Industry Declares Commitment to Future Clean Aviation Partnership

Paris Air Show, Le Bourget, 19 June 2019

Twenty-three Aeronautics Industry leaders, Research Organisations and university Associations across Europe signed today a Joint Declaration of European Aviation Research Stakeholders Related to Clean Aviation in Horizon Europe, to express their strong commitment to a future European partnership that can lead the way towards a deep decarbonisation of aviation by 2050. The partnership should build on the progress made under the Clean Sky programmes, and develop further-reaching innovations and concrete roadmaps for their implementation in a new breed of aircraft from 2030 and beyond.
Signatory parties included Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury, Safran CEO Philippe Petitcolin, Rolls-Royce CEO Warren East and Leonardo CEO Alessandro Profumo.

The Joint Declaration signed today acknowledges that the Paris Agreement goals with respect to limiting climate change will require a strong and urgent response from the aviation sector in terms of a reduction of its emissions contributing to global warming, in particular CO2.  

The Signatory Organisations commit to:

• Develop and foster a shared vision for the Partnership that recognises the scale and the urgency of the challenge of a deep decarbonisation of aviation, as well as of all emissions type significant reduction by 2050, while ensuring the safety, security, European leadership and competitiveness of the European aviation sector and the sustained societal value it provides;
• Commonly and collectively, together with the European Commission, work on the programming for the Partnership and to complete a technical roadmap by the end of 2019, building on technologies developed and matured under the previous Clean Sky partnership activities and other research initiatives to date, and expanding into new technology frontiers where needed;
• Support a Clean Aviation partnership with the most competent and committed partners within the current Clean Sky community and beyond in an open and competitive scheme on the basis of excellence; enabling the boundaries of technology to be expanded;
• Allocate the required efforts, in a balanced way, to achieve the goals to be set for the Partnership;
• Support the coordination with National and Regional Innovation programmes and other EU instruments to achieve important synergies and maximum efficiencies.

The Joint Declaration was handed over to Jean-Eric Paquet, Director-General for Research and Innovation, European Commission, at the event today.

The Signatory Organisations call upon the European Commission, European Parliament and Council of the EU to (1) ensure a timely finalisation and adoption of the regulatory framework for the Partnership with suitable lean and efficient operating principles, and (2) to allocate and sustain ambitious funding in order to be able to develop, mature and demonstrate the required technologies needed to meet the challenges to be set, including adequate and suitable funding and mechanisms for exploratory upstream research.

Signatory Organisations