Ref. Ares(2020)4765217 - 11/09/2020
Teleconference with Safran 6/5/2020
Participants :
SAFRAN:
DG DEFIS :
Timo Pesonnen
highlighted the fol owing:
The impact of the crisis:
• The aeronautics industry is one of the sectors most affected by the crisis due to the collapse
of air traffic (Europe is the most affected continent with a 90% reduction)
What is needed:
1. Enable airlines to resume their activities (domestic traffic is expected to restart first, but this
represents a higher chal enge for Europe than in other parts of the world due to internal
bordures)
2. Ensure a level playing field (US and China support strongly their industry with recovery
measures already effective; recovery funds must be available as soon as possible)
3. Compensate for the drop in R&D investments capability of the industry (Safran is already
working at national level to ensure increase of R&D funding; at EU level, there is a need to
ensure the funding of the Clean Aviation partnership at the level and funding rate proposed)
DG Pesonen:
• confirmed that the need to support quickly the aeronautics industry, including the supply
chain, is understood
• highlighted the importance of industry engaging with capitals to get support for
Commission recovery plan proposal (considering in particular that the aeronautics industry is
very much concentrated in a few MS)
Safran reported the progress on Clean Aviation partnership:
• there will be no new aircraft within the next 5 years, the objective is to deliver a new
generation of greener aircraft in 2030, the next 5years are key to achieve this objective
• the proposal for the partnership made by industry is entirely devoted to greening with only a
strong focus on a few technologies (gaz turbines +SAF/hydrogen)
• further reduction of the scope and/or the budget would make the program inefficient
(helicopters and business jets have already been removed from the proposal)
• the funding rate foreseen by RTD is also an issue (50% of eligible costs results for big
companies like Safran to an actual 30% funding rate; MS envisage raising the funding rate of
national programs up to 70%)
• DG RTD is facing budgetary constraints with a huge competition between partnerships and a
50% capping (maximum budget devoted to partnership per cluster)
DG Pesonen confirmed again its support and its intention to work together with the concerned
DGs (MOVE and RTD)