The fate of the European Commission’s/European Union Aviation Safety Agency’s (EASA) “U-Space Light” proposal hangs in the balance.
At a consultation meeting held online on 15 July 2026, EASA met with EU Member States, drone operator associations and others to discuss the feedback it had received from industry, governments and national regulators. While much of the feedback was positive, according to attendees who have spoken to Unmanned Airspace, there were also several outstanding concerns from at least one trade association and several member states as to whether the proposal will really provide the balance required to accelerate the approvals process for more complex drone flights while retaining the appropriate level of regulatory oversight.
According to one of the attendees: “Concerns over the regulatory amendments have been raised by industry associations and range from the incredibly tight timelines of one week to review such important changes, the possible impact the amendments could have depending on the Acceptable Means of Compliance and Guidance Material (AMC/GM) that will support them, the restriction to U-Space Level 1 only being available in uncontrolled airspace and not in controlled airspace, unjustified “remain well clear” criteria without a definition or taking technological advances into account, U-Space level 1 appearing to be mandatory if there is more than one BVLOS operator in an operational volume without allowing for any other SORA mitigations or solutions to name a few of the concerns.”
A final decision will be made next week after drone operator/manufacturer trade associations have made their final submissions.
For industry, a priority action is that Phase 1A and 1B (one frequent BVLOS, occasional VLOS operations in an airspace volume in both controlled and controlled airspace) of the proposed “Pre U-space” category is implemented as quickly as possible to enable initial, limited BVLOS
operations.
“There is significant industry support for the proposal if these concerns are addressed, so the next week will be the decider,” said the attendee.