During Fall 2025, multiple European states were alarmed by drones around airports and military areas. Joining Denmark and Norway, Belgium recently also reported drones around prohibited areas. This sparked important debates on European security leading to a national drone ban and recent plans around a ‘Drone Wall’ to secure the Eastern borders of the European Union (EU).

Yet, there is nothing new about drones circling prohibited areas. Similar incidents have occurred before such as the famous Gatwick airport closure of 2018, the 2020 drone sighting around Frankfurt airport, and drones around the off-shore oil platforms of Norway in 2022. In fact, the EU also wants drones (in an even larger sum) to fill the skies – just not in the way it is currently happening. The push for drone integration has been on the rise and drone sightings bring attention to serious deficiencies in that plan.

European droning

Imagine receiving groceries or, in case of an emergency, a life-saving defibrillator at your doorstep. How about transportation through air taxis? The EU plans to make these, and many other civilian uses, possible in a ‘safe’ manner. To this end, the EU Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) dominates the space with a regular production of rules and guidelines on matters like operations, design, and traffic management of drones. Perceived more as an opportunity than a security threat, relentless efforts are at play to normalise drones in European skies.

These integration efforts spanning many years are, however, fraught with serious weaknesses. And incidents like recent drone sightings signal two of them. First, a stark reminder that the current approach – strongly influenced by aviation safety – is unviable for drones. Second, the current reliance of law on automation to reduce safety threats – ironically – falls short against other threats. This calls for more holistic efforts on matters beyond aviation safety.

Dominance of (aviation) safety

The tone of current efforts is heavily informed by aviation safety. This is important but so are other aspects. A limitation of aviation ‘safety’ is that it generally aims to deter unintentional harm. Contrastingly, ‘security’ deals with intentional harm. This is not just about semantics; it carries real implications. Security prompts actions from different institutions than pure safety harm which is a domain of civil aviation authorities. In drone incidents, the safety and security aspects do overlap. Firstly, because the intent behind a drone incident is not readily obvious. Just this year in Norway, out of 490 drone sighting reports, police could not identify the operator in the majority of cases. Secondly, weak cybersecurity can allow drone hacking, leading also to safety issues. Such cases invite action from both security and safety fronts.

Recognising this overlap, safety rules do target (cyber) security requirements. But more needs to be done at the institutional level; European institutions working on security, law enforcement, and defense need to work alongside their counterparts working on aviation safety. Broader collaboration is also important to deal with a complex web of jurisdictions at national level. For example, different actors (not a single body) holding varied authorities to tackle an unwanted drone emerged as a challenge for Norway in 2022 when drones were sighted around its critical infrastructure.

Do note that in late 2022, the European Commission passed Drone Strategy 2.0 calling for more concerted efforts. The much-needed policy outlined action points on various aspects of drone integration including the civil-military nexus. Ironically, the strategy – preaching consistency – already displays inconsistency with EASA’s vision on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Such is the complex state of EU drone plans where harmonisation demands greater and continuous attention.

The cure of automation

One of the innovations of EU drone law is that it requires high automation. The ‘U-Space’ – a traffic management system for drones – is case in point. Unlike traditional air traffic systems where human controllers communicate with pilots for traffic safety, the U-Space will run through automatic means. It is a cure for human limitation when it comes to providing traffic services like flight authorisation, geo-awareness, or weather information to a large number of drones. Utopian or dystopian, this endeavor is not centrally concerned with unauthorised drones. Again, this has to do with the general limits of aviation safety which tend to steer clear from the security dimension.

Yet, malicious operators behind drone sightings, for instance, will threaten the safe flow of drone traffic. U-Space, alone, cannot guarantee protection against that. Here, counter-drone technology is essential to deal with unwanted drones but it has remained a challenge to find an ideal solution especially for urban settings. Indeed, the war in Ukraine has accelerated the development of such measures through AI powered turrets and interceptor drones. While more suitable for a battlefield, some of these measures like radio jamming can cause serious unwanted disruption in a city. Efforts for U-Space styled automation, therefore, seem out of sync with current reality where unauthorised drones tend to be unstoppable. What’s more, in automated environments meaningful human involvement remains an important concern. This is in addition to the challenge of defining technical concepts in law. The European rules on U-Space and drone operations fail to capture technological complexity while dealing with these issues.

Breaking silos and aligning efforts

The past and present of drones is fraught with military action. What does it take to introduce such a technology for large-scale civilian use? The answer does not only lie in technical guardrails under safety rules but also in the broader social and technical context. That context tells us that drone safety demands involvement of a broader set of stakeholders; that empty European skies are far from an ideal place for automation. For instance, the airspace still remains vulnerable to malicious intrusion. It also draws attention to the complex human-machine interface that can help in better regulating human oversight. The sociotechnical context also puts to question civilian participation in these endeavors. Interesting results might surface if we ask how many European readers of this piece feel that they get to participate in (or are meaningfully informed about) drone integration plans. The bottom line is that the vision of safe drone integration cannot truly materialise through siloed efforts. As cliched as ‘breaking silos’ may sound, it is painfully needed in the EU’s drone integration plans where, at least, parallel political actions on integration and deterrence should converge.