European Commission UAS Panel Final Report to be Presented at RPAS 2012
On the first day of UVS International’s RPAS 2012 Conference in Paris on June 5 – 7, Matthew Baldwin, European Commission, DG Mobility & transport (MOVE), Europe will present the Final Report from the European Commission on the UAS Panel.
Matthew Baldwin is currently Director for Air Aviation and International Transport Policy in DG MOVE at the European Commission in Brussels. He is responsible for:
- coordination of international transport policy
- the EU’s international aviation negotiations
- aviation single market
- developing the Single European Sky reforms for Europe’s air traffic control system
- air safety issues
- aviation and the environment
- airports and infrastructure
He leads a closely integrated team of 100 staff. Before joining DG MOVE, he was a trade negotiator. He was most recently Director in DG Trade in charge of market access and industry matters, but before that, he was deputy chief of staff for five years in Commissioner Lamy’s cabinet, covering all trade issues, notably the launch of the Doha Round and China’s accession to the WTO. He was also Head of Unit for market access and subsequently Head of Unit for WTO matters in DG Trade. From 2007-10, he served in President Barroso’s cabinet as advisor for all issues relating to trade, energy, development and climate change. Before joining the Commission in 1999, he worked for the British Government in a variety of posts in London, Brussels and Washington (where he was seconded to the European Commission’s Dele- gation). He worked on a range of issues such as US trade policy, competition, the Single Market, and energy. He was born in 1963 in the UK and was educated at Oxford and Harvard Universities. He is married to Emanuela Silvestri with two sons, Lorenzo and Federico.
ABSTRACT
On 1st July 2010, the European Commission and the European Defence Agency jointly organized a High Level Conference on UAS. About 450 participants from all over the world discussed issues such as how UAS can support European policies, the different uses of UAS, and institutional and infrastructure measures to allow UAS to fly in non-segregated airspace. The conclusions of that important event clearly indicated the need for an EU lead initiatives aimed at supporting the industrial and customer aspirations to develop a robust European UAS market. After this successful event, the Euro- pean Commission felt the need to take stock of all the elements collected, while looking ahead to understand whether an overarching initiative, led by the European Commission, was effectively required. It was immediately clear that the many initiatives undertaken in Europe in support of the UAS sector were fragmented, and that there was no coherent approach toward a common EU objective. Moreover, the need to clearly identify which obstacles are hampering a full exploitation of civil UAS, and how to remove them, was considered an important prerequisite for any further actions. To this end, on 23 June 2011, at the Paris International Air Show, the European Commission launched a new initiative aimed at providing the Commission with the necessary background information to prepare a strategy paper for the future of UAS in the European Union. This initiative called «UAS panel» was composed of five thematic workshops, the last one held in February 2012.
The conclusions of this complex exercise are still being drafted. They will be presented together with some thoughts from the European Commission on the way ahead.
