EU Commission publishes Drone Strategy 2.0

Initiative to shape drone traffic towards 2030 offers perspectives for the drone economy and highlights the important role of cities and regions

Last week, the EU Commission published the "Drone Strategy 2.0 for a Smart and Sustainable Unmanned Aircraft Eco-System in Europe" at the Drone Days in Brussels. The framework sets out the European vision for safe, accepted and environmentally friendly drone applications and technologies in 2030. The 19 measures are designed to set the European drone industry on a path towards regulated and widespread drone traffic in Europe.

Building on the EU safety framework for drone operations and technical requirements, the strategy aims to create a large-scale drone economy. A focus of the intitiative is to acknowledge the prominent role of SMEs and start-ups. Through our European network EACP (European Aviation Cluster Partnership) and the UAS Working Group led by Daniela Richter from the Windrove team, Hamburg Aviation contributed to the hearings during the development of the strategy. One of the core tasks of the EACP is to point out the relevance of SMEs at EU level. This view is shared by the Commission, which sees the issue in a similar light and has taken up some of the proposals of the UAS Working Group.

The document also states that acceptance in society and the consideration of public needs are indispensable for the adoption of new technologies. This places an onus on cities and regions, who play an important role in involving citizens and in planning and implementing drone traffic. They provide a forum for public concerns about safety, noise and data protection.

As one of the first members of the European UIC2 initiative, Hamburg is among the global frontrunners named in the document. An important part of the context for the new initiative is the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP). Together with partners from Poland, Greece and France, Hamburg 2021 produced the first "Practitioner Briefing Urban Air mobility and sustainable urban mobility planning".

The new paper picks uposhows a strong continuation of efforts building on work drone experts in Hamburg been heavily involved in since 2018. Many of the fields of action identified by the strategy offer points of contact for the work of Windrove, Hamburg Aviation's dedicated UAM team.