Dublin, 22/04/2013 (Agence Europe) - The commercial war on the ETS, between the EU and third countries, has been called off. On Monday 22 April, the Council of the EU definitively adopted the decision which will give intercontinental flights (whether operated by EU or third country airlines) taking off from and landing at EU airports a one-year derogation to the EU directive on the emissions quota trading system (Directive 2003/87/EC, known as the ETS directive).
By virtue of the ETS directive, all airlines would have been obliged to pay for 15% of the quotas allocated to them. As this temporary derogation, which is applicable for the year 2012, stops the clock of the ETS, it is designed to smooth things over with opponents of the ETS from third countries and aims to promote a substantial international agreement on reducing the CO2 emissions of the aviation sector at the general meeting of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) in September of this year. In other words, the EU hopes that this step will help to maintain the impetus which has appeared within ICAO to set in place a global market mechanism likely to reduce the sector's greenhouse gas emissions.
The European Parliament had already approved this decision at first reading in Strasbourg on 16 April (see EUROPE 10829). The Council's final decision was adopted without debate by qualified majority, on the sidelines of the Agriculture Council in Luxembourg.
The temporary derogation to be enjoyed by intercontinental flights will apply only to 2012 emissions for which certificates should have been notified by 30 April 2013. Airlines will be exempted from their obligation to declare their emissions for flights between EU airports and with third country airports. No sanctions will therefore be imposed upon them in the event that they fail to make these declarations. The ETS directive will continue to apply in full to intra-EU flights and to flights between the EU and a number of areas and territories closely associated with the Union.
The Council's decision, which will be applicable from the time of its adoption, will come into force once it has been published in the Official Journal of the EU, before the deadline of 30 April. (AN/transl.fl)