Within the EU EASA is the agency with the responsibility for the safety regulation of aviation within the EU’s jurisdiction. EUROCONTROL is the agency which focuses mainly on the management of air traffic within the EU’s jurisdiction.
European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA)
The purpose of EASA is to ensure the highest common level of safety protection for EU citizens and highest common level of environmental protection, to act as single regulatory and certification process among Member States, to facilitate the internal aviation single market & create a level playing field and to work with other international aviation organisations & regulators
It does so by drafting implementing rules in all fields pertinent to the EASA mission, certifying and approving products and organisations (where EASA has exclusive competence such as airworthiness), providing oversight and support to Member States in fields where EASA has shared competence (e.g. Air Operations , Air Traffic Management), promoting the use of European and worldwide standards and cooperating with international stakeholders in order to achieve the highest safety level for EU citizens globally (e.g. EU safety list, Third Country Operators authorisations).
EASA has done and continues to do a great deal of work to enable the routine use of RPAS in non-segregated airspace. There is a lot of useful information at:
https://www.easa.europa.eu/domains/civil-drones-rpas
EUROCONTROL
EUROCONTROL’s purpose is to support European aviation by delivering technical excellence and civil-military expertise across the full spectrum of air traffic management, raising the key issues proposing how EUROCONTROL can help dealing with these challenges.
EUROCONTROL’s activities involve operations, service provision, concept development, research, Europe-wide project implementation, performance improvements, coordination with key aviation stakeholders at various levels as well as providing support to the future of aviation.
EUROCONTROL has played and continues to play a central role in the development of arrangements to enable RPAS to fly routinely in non-segregated airspace. Much useful information can be found at:
https://www.eurocontrol.int/unmanned-aircraft-systems