The developments in the drone industry are so fast that the national and international authorities are struggling to keep up with it. In just a few years it evolved from being a niche hobby to becoming a part of regular aviation operations.

Currently, the drone law in EU is not uniformed with different countries having different standards. Fragmented regulations across the EU states are causing a headache for manufacturers and complicates cross-border cooperation. It makes much more difficult to offer international drone mapping services but more importantly it doesn’t improve the overall sky safety above Europe.

Last week the Transport Committee of the European Parliament adopted the new common rules in the field of civil aviation, which means that a mandate was given during the vote to enter into negotiations with European Council. Although it sounds like a lot of bureaucracy (welcome to EU!) in fact it’s the first step towards getting it implemented across the continent. The idea is to specify basic safety and privacy rules for civil drones weighing less than 150kg as well as mandatory registration of drones that weigh more 250 grams.

Romanian EU Parliament member Marian-Jean Marinescu, responsible for steering the new rules through Parliament, explained after the committee vote why new legislation was needed: “Drones are more and more visible in our daily lives. They create all kinds of new opportunities for people and businesses. However, it also means that accidents can happen or drones can be used to cause harm. We are therefore strongly in favour of new rules that make registration mandatory above 250 grams and that requires operations to have the necessary skills to fly a drone in public spaces. This will not affect the vast majority of the ‘toy’ drones that people use now.”

The announcement came out with this handy infographic: