EU adopts Amsterdam Declaration for common European drone services

The European Commission (EC), the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management and the EC’s National Authorities have adopted the ‘Amsterdam Declaration’ to support the establishment of a common European drone services market.

The declaration was adopted at the end of the two-day EASA High-Level Conference on Drones , which saw discussions of the agency’s proposed rules on the use of drones among the participants of the aviation industry.

EASA executive director Patrick Ky said: “We need to regulate differently on drones, faster and better, encouraging innovation while ensuring safe, secure and socially acceptable operations.

“The drone community has a key role in providing feedback to the regulators, which we use to identify the areas that the European Institutions and industry need to focus on. This paves the way to make areas such as urban mobility integrated into a multimodal transport system a reality.”

The Amsterdam Declaration calls upon the European institutions and industry to continue to work for establishing a common European drone services market by following seven priorities.

These include supporting the EU member states to implement European drone regulations and creating an institutional framework for a competitive U-space services market as well as how drones operate in the Single European Sky in collaboration with the member states and all stakeholders.

The development of European product standards for drones, in addition to other standards in line with the European and global performance requirements is also one of the priorities.

The other priorities include supporting cities to help develop innovative multimodal solutions and investing in research and development activities for the growth of safe, green drone operations in the region.