UAS manufacturers, innovative aerial service operators, and flight-test centers have decided to join forces to give voice to the drone sector in Spain and Europe. They have created a new association, named ECUAS, that seeks to elevate the technical level, simplify regulation, and facilitate the expansion of companies in Europe to be more competitive. The organization aims to become the primary interlocutor with the Administration and with the rest of the sector.
Moreover, the association is founded with the objective of filling a clear gap currently present in Spain’s sector. There are other associations that focus on safety and defense or on innovative aerial mobility, but to date there had been no one that concretely represented the professional drone sector. In fact, Spain is one of the few relevant European countries in the sector that did not have such an association.
ECUAS also arises with the goal of giving visibility and institutional weight to the sector at a moment particularly relevant both nationally and at the European level, where drone development and counter-drone systems are being advanced. In this sense, there is a significant uptick in registered operators in our country, more than 150,000 by 2025, according to AESA, while applications are multiplying in areas such as infrastructure inspection, agriculture, environmental monitoring, logistics, security, defense, civil protection, and Earth observation.
Common Regulatory Framework and Streamlined Procedures
The organization faces several challenges, though two stand out above the rest. One is to scale the sector, simplify procedures, harmonize the application of European regulations, and empower the sector to carry out more complex and higher-value-added operations.
The second major challenge is to strengthen the professionalization of the ecosystem, raise the technical and documentary quality of operations, and contribute to a more mature model, prepared to undertake missions of greater complexity with full guarantees.
To achieve this challenge, we must address the European regulatory framework, which, although already defined, now has to face effective implementation and harmonization across the different European countries where it applies. And it is precisely in this arena where differences in the application of the regulation hinder the scalability of operations and limit the competitiveness of Spanish companies in the European market.
For example, it may occur that a company can obtain authorization in Spain and, when attempting to operate in another European country, encounter additional requirements or divergent interpretations. There is a mechanism, called cross-border, for such situations, but in many cases national authorities take advantage of local considerations to request requirements that slow down or complicate the process.
Finally, the association will also focus on the so-called innovative aerial services, which include applications such as infrastructure inspection, environmental monitoring, precision agriculture, specialized logistics, or civil protection. These are areas with high economic and social potential, but their development largely depends on the sector’s ability to operate in medium-risk scenarios with greater agility.
According to Marta García, president of ECUAS and UAS project manager at Telespazio Ibérica, “Spain has companies, technology, and talent to position itself among the most advanced countries in the drone field, but to achieve this we need a more agile, homogeneous, and predictable regulatory framework that allows our companies to grow and operate in Europe with fewer frictions. ECUAS is founded to raise the technical level of the sector, organize dialogue with the Administration, and defend an application of the regulations that accompanies innovation.”
