European Drones Regulation: Today’s Legal Challenges

Abstract

The drone legal framework represents a multilevel and complex field of EU law. The new 2018 Regulation sets up a centralized system, in which the main ruling powers are devolved to the European Commission and EASA. Still, the provisions of the EU regulation have to be complemented with further legal fields, which regard public security legislations, telecommunication law, rules on product liability, criminal and insurance law, up to privacy and data protection, and their harmonization. Whilst the European Commission shall complement the provisions of the regulation with a set of implementing and delegated acts, the paper suggests that a number of key issues are fated to remain open. They regard different kinds of concerns related to the collection and use of drone data, much as problems related to privacy safeguards, telecommunications and cyber-security breaches, registration and identification of both UAVs, and their pilots and operators, down to matters of liability and the enforcement of the new provisions. Article 140 of the Regulation has established the time within which the whole legal framework for the use of drones within the Single European Sky strategy shall be at full speed: 12 September 2023. This means, depending on the viewpoints, too much or too few time. In any event, a lot of work is waiting for us.