EU Commission to take steps to improve drone detection capabilities

BRUSSELS, Feb 11 (Reuters) - The European Commission will work to improve Europe’s drone detection capabilities and propose ensuring registration and identification requirements, the bloc’s executive said in a new action plan published Wednesday.

The plan, which focuses on supporting and encouraging member states to act together, comes after drone sightings last year fuelled security concerns and caused disruptions, including at airports in Copenhagen, Munich and Brussels.

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Those incidents followed the incursion of some 20 Russian drones into Polish airspace in September.

“This malicious or irresponsible use of drones affects the protection of critical infrastructure, also our external borders, ports, transport hubs and public spaces,” European Commission Executive Vice President Henna Virkkunen told reporters, adding that Europe must adapt rules so that drones can be identified and tracked.

The plan envisions strengthening counter-drone testing capacity, creating an “EU Trusted Drone” label to identify secure equipment and launching a call for interested countries to team up on public procurement of counter-drone systems, the Commission said in a statement.

“Malicious drones connected to our 5G network should be quickly identified, tracked and disrupted. And not connected drones can be detected with cellular sensing,” Virkkunen said.

Reporting by Lili Bayer and Andrew Gray; Editing by Benoit Van Overstraeten

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