Tag: Europe

European use of military drones expanding

Chris Cole

European-ReaperTwo weeks ago a new coalition of European civil society groups (including Drone Wars UK) launched a Call to Action on Armed Drones at a meeting in Brussels attended by, amongst others, US drone whistleblowers Cian Westmoreland and Lisa Ling.

The European Forum on Armed Drones (EFAD) launch was on the eve of an important European Parliament meeting, jointly organised by the subcommittee on Human Rights and the Subcommittee on Security and Security and Defence, focusing on the human rights impact of armed drones in counter-terrorism operations.   A video of the meeting, including inputs from Jennifer Gibson of Reprieve and Radhya Almutawakel of the Yemeni Mwatana Organisation for Human Rights is available here. Read more →

Drones and the EU: a ‘solution’ looking for a problem

aguestcontributor

Guest post by Ben Hayes and Chris Jones.

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Today the Transnational Institute and Statewatch are jointly publishing a new report on the European Union and drones, entitled Eurodrones Inc.  Our report examines the considerable economic and political support given to the drone industry by the European Union, which has now reached a level at which we can speak of an emerging EU drone policy based on two interlinked principles. First, an urgent need to develop and use drones in Europe for a wide and as yet unlimited range of purposes. Second, the various barriers – chiefly regulatory and technical – to the introduction and routine use of drones in EU airspace must be overcome. Read more →

Europe presses US on drones – not to cease but to share

Chris Cole

EuropeFlagsEuropean countries are piling more pressure on the US to allow them to buy armed Predator and Reaper drones.  As we have previously reported Germany wants to buy armed Reaper drones from the US and France too has reported this week that it ‘expects’ the US to allow it to acquire unarmed Reapers as a step towards it aim of acquiring armed drone capability.

Italy meanwhile is getting frustrated with a lack of response from the US to its request to arm the unarmed Reaper that it currently operates. Read more →

Europe to open skies to drones by 2016 says Commission document

Chris Cole

In an obscure working document, the European Commission has announced it is working on plans to open European civil airspace to unmanned drones by 2016.  This follows the signing by President Obama earlier this year of the FAA Appropriations bill which mandated that US airspace must be opened to drones by 2015. 

The European Commission (EC) plan was revealed in a Staff Working Paper published on September 4th 2012 entitled  “Towards a European strategy for the development of civil applications of Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems”.

The document  summaries the conclusions of the year-long European Unmanned Air Systems Panel which began meeting in July 2011and recommends setting up a European RPAS [Remotely Piloted Air Systems] Steering Group (ERSG).  The aim of the ERSG, writes Peter van Blyenburgh, President of UVS International, (the main European drone lobby group) on the UAVS Vision website is to “foster the development of civil RPAS by planning and coordinating all the activities necessary to achieve the safe and incremental integration of RPAS into European air traffic by 2016”.

Surprisingly – or not depending on your view of the inner workings of the EC – membership of the ERSG has already been decided and it has already met to begin its work before its existence was announced.  The group is co-chaired by the EC’s Directorate-General Enterprise & Industry and Directorate-General Mobility & Transport.  Other members include representatives of other EC directorates plus what it calls a whole range of “stakeholders”.  These include industry bodies including UVS International, the main drone lobby group.

The ERSG has established three working groups and is planning to publish by December 2012 a “comprehensive roadmap” towards the integration of civil drones into European airspace by 2016.