AME input to the review of the EU Drone Strategy 2.0

In 2026, the European Commission will review its EU Drone Strategy 2.0, published back in 2022. We very much welcome this revision. In our position paper “A Renewed European Roadmap for Scalable Drone Deployment”, we advocate introducing a single European Deployment Roadmap, aligning regulatory, operational, industrial and funding efforts under a shared objective: scaling drone operations across Europe in a consistent, predictable and interoperable way.

The EU Drone Strategy 2.0 has played a key role in positioning Europe as a global leader in the development and safe integration of drone technologies. Through forward-looking regulation, sustained investment in research and innovation, and large-scale demonstrators, Europe has successfully validated the potential of drones across multiple use cases.

However, a shift is now needed.

The challenge is no longer technological validation, but enabling real, repeatable and scalable deployment of drone and Innovative Air Mobility (IAM) operations across Europe, in a homogeneous, interoperable and standardised way. Ensuring this transition is essential for Europe to maintain its global leadership in the sector.

Despite Europe’s leadership in regulation and innovation, deployment remains uneven and limited across Member States. This is not due to a lack of solutions, but due to systemic challenges that affect the entire ecosystem:

1) Lack of EU-wide harmonisation and uneven authority capacity at EU, national, and local levels
2) Gaps in funding between innovation and deployment
3) Fragmentation between civil, security and defence domains
4) Fragmented governance and lack of multi-stakeholder integration
5) An overly complex U-space framework, coupled with a slow roll-out
6) Lack of full alignment in standards development

Addressing these challenges requires a shift from fragmented initiatives to a coordinated European approach focused on execution, scale and market uptake.

Our position paper outlines proposals on how to tackle these challenges. We look forward to discussing them with the European institutions and the whole community, supporting the development of a coherent and deployment-oriented renewed EU Drone Strategy.