Abstract This paper examines the regulatory challenges and opportunities surrounding the introduction of autonomous inland shipping in Europe. As regulators navigate this shift, they must strike a balance between innovation, safety, legal certainty and private actors’ interests. Drawing on principles guiding innovation, such as outcome-based, risk-based and adaptive regulation, as well as the precautionary, proportionality and technological neutrality principles, the paper proposes a framework for developing regulatory responses. It also analyses the relevance of EU horizontal digital regulations, including the AI Act and the Data Act, in shaping the governance of autonomous systems in inland waterways. The paper explores how the existing divisions of regulatory competence between European institutions and river commissions may hinder harmonisation, and proposes mechanisms to improve regulatory and judicial coherence in a multilevel governance context.
Sophie C. Orzechowski (Mon,) studied this question.
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