(Reuters) – European states took a first step on Tuesday towards developing a drone that could challenge U.S. dominance of the unmanned aircraft sector.

Defense ministers meeting in Brussels instructed the European Defense Agency (EDA), the European Union’s Defense arm, to start studying the military requirements and costs of a future EU surveillance drone that could be produced after 2020.

The United States has used drones to kill suspected militants in countries such as Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan, causing intense controversy about sovereignty and civilian casualties. But drones also have a wide range of civilian uses, including border control, fire fighting and disaster monitoring.

A factsheet from EDA, which groups all 28 EU states apart from Denmark, said “beyond 2020” seemed a reasonable timeframe to produce a European medium altitude, long endurance drone.

“This is the starting pistol for us to be able to start work on a European RPAS (remotely piloted aircraft system) project,” EDA Capabilities Director Peter Round told a news conference.

Eight European countries, including Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, signed an agreement to invest jointly in research into various drone components, including collision avoidance technology and automatic take-off and landing.

The United States and Israel are leaders in the drone market and some European government fear being left behind. Military operations in Libya and Mali have highlighted a shortage of European reconnaissance capacity.

Britain operates Reaper drones, built by privately owned U.S. firm General Atomics, and France has also ordered Reapers.

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