Brussels, 15/11/2013 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission was strongly criticised by the European Parliament's transport committee on Thursday 14 November for its handling of the carbon-trading scheme, ETS. The Commission was setting out for to the committee the “transition phase” in which ETS will from now on only apply to flights between airports within European airspace, while awaiting global agreement in 2016 on a carbon trading system to cut CO2 emissions from aircraft and which is due to come into force in 2020 (see EUROPE 10936). EP rapporteur Mathieu Grosch (EPP, Belgium) (opinion passed in January) was not so hostile, simply recommending that the transition phase was not enough and what has to be done for 2016 needs to be announced. Jacqueline Foster (ECR, United Kingdom) argued that the transition phase made the EU look ridiculous and lost it all credibility. German Green Michel Cramer regretted that the Commission had not prepared to be followed by other countries and had no Plan B, such as a tax on aircraft fuel. Dieter-Lebrecht Koch (EPP, Germany) said there was no need for a bureaucratic, dangerous and cumbersome transitional solution. On behalf of the Socialists, Saïd El Khadraoui (Belgium) argued that the transition phase was not so very different from the regional solution that the EP's transport committee had suggested at the start. (MD/transl.fl)