Harmonising Drone Regulations Across the EU and Challenges Ahead

The development of unmanned aviation is constantly accelerating and is currently in a situation where it is necessary to pay very close attention to the harmonization of regulations across countries to achieve a unified environment as is already known worldwide from manned aviation. The aim of this paper is to highlight the challenges facing the harmonisation of the operational environment of unmanned aircraft systems in the European Union and the needs that are constantly emerging. Thus, the approaches of individual Member States and Associated States, the level of implementation of harmonised regulations and their national deviations are being analysed. Based on this analysis, the different diverging requirements and approaches are identified and the challenges to be met in the coming years are defined, to consider the EU environment as harmonized also for UAS operations.