Yesterday, in reply to its petition, UVS International received a letter from Mr Siim Kallas, Vice-President of the European Commission, and Responsible for Transport, in which Mr Kallas indicated that he fully shared the views of UVS International. In addition, in reference to the European Commission’s High Level Group, which is being constituted “to develop a single European Roadmap dealing with the structural, institutional and regulatory measures that need to be tackled”, Mr Kallas indicated “Without wanting to pre-empt any decisions that will be taken in this regard, I am confident that the close involvement of UVS International to this work will be ensured”.
In December 2010, UVS International submitted a petition to the European Commission. This petition was signed by 112 organizations (5 governmental; 10 industry; 6 institutions; 2 international associations; 5 national associations; 67 SMEs; 17 academic institutions) in 25 countries (20 European: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Rep., Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom; 5 Non-European: Brazil, Canada, Israel, Russian Fed., USA), and 1 multi-national governmental working group; the aforementioned 112 organizations represented a total of 2046 companies and governmental entities.
In the petition cover letter, UVS International indicated its confidence that the documents sent would contribute to motivating the European Commission to:
- recognise the strategic value of the UAS-related technologies for Europe;
- recognise the importance of the societal benefits that UAS can bring to Europe;
- play an active role to enable the early insertion of UAS into non-segregated airspace and thereby open up the European UAS market;
- provide the European UAS community with the necessary support, which will permit it to position itself favorably in an international context.