UAV rules approved by European Parliament
Nothing is final yet – but almost done

EU-wide rules have been approved by the European Parliament on Tuesday with 558 votes in favour, 71 against votes and 48 abstentions were given. This was the next step of the lifecycle of UAV rules in the legislation process. The EU ministers will approve (or refuse) these rules in the following step. Then the final proposal modified by ministers has to be backed again by Brussels. According to this process the new rules can enter in force by next year earliest.

A brief is published by European Parliament yesterday, however it doesn't cover everything, it's more marketing than facts by our opinion. Therefore we are in the middle of a deeper invetsigation now.

These rules are in the least certain state at the moment in theory, but they will not change too much probably. Therefore it's worth to look after this new legal framework how we can be affected in the future. First and most important: even Brexit will not affect the application of this regulation, because this is more European than EU regulation and these rules will be applied in Norway, Switzerland and in few other non EU member countries as well. But this is still a proposal, and anything can be worse or better.

Just to clarify – even our title is incorrect – the approved bill is a much bigger framework than simple UAV regulations. Among others this bill gives the authority to EASA to rule UAVs across Europe. As it’s known EASA is not authorised to rule anything below 150 kg apparently. This agency will get the power to control and regulate any aircrafts above 80j kinetic energy. This means even a smaller multicopter, a smaller helicopter can fall into the effect of these rules.

Many things already declared by these rules, like technical requirements to be applied on UAVs, registration and identification requirements, but many others will be regulated by EASA or national states.

The approved proposal is available in all EU official languages. We try to get through and to understand what’s written down, but it’s really complicated and full of references, cross-links, it takes time to get it done. As soon as possible we will return with more information about this process.