Brussels, 06/07/2011 (Agence Europe) - A legal battle kicked off at the Court of Justice of the European Union on Tuesday 5 July, over the inclusion of aviation in the system for greenhouse gas emission allowance trading. The Air Transport Association of America (ATA) is contesting the system. The opinion of the American airlines is also shared by their European counterparts of the Association of European Airlines (AEA) and the Airbus group, which see the obligation as an additional tax.
In January 2012, with a view to fighting climate change, airlines landing or taking off in the territory of the Union must buy “licences to pollute”. Even third-country airlines will have to pay for their CO2 emissions, to which the airlines from the other side of the Atlantic are objecting. In December 2009, the ATA brought a case before the Court of Justice of the EU to cancel this provision in the United Kingdom. The first hearing was held on Tuesday 5 July and the counsel for the ATA, Mr D. Wyatt, based his argument on the fact that “the EU has no competence to govern the conduct of airlines from third countries”, and that international obligations of this kind should be governed by consensus in the framework of the International Civil Aviation Organisation.
The Association Transport & Environnement, which appeared in the case alongside other environmental groups, laments the fact that the American strategy is, in its view, once again seeking to disturb the ambition to cut emissions: “this legal case is another cynical attempt to derail a modest and cost effective climate initiative that would add little more than €6 to the price of a transatlantic flight”, the organisation states. (Cor/transl.fl).