Brussels, 05/03/2014 (Agence Europe) - In the evening of Tuesday 4 March in Brussels, the negotiators of the European Parliament and the Council reached a compromise on the European Commission's proposal to apply the ETS Directive (2008/101/EC) only to the European regional airspace, to cover all flights made between airports of the European Economic Area, pending the entry into force, in 2020, of the agreement on a global market instrument promised by the International Civil Aviation Authority (ICAO) to reduce the CO2 emissions from the sector (see EUROPE 11022).
Exclusion of intercontinental flights from the ETS until the end of 2016, requirements to cut emissions for the international agreement pledged by ICAO, return to the application of the initial ETS if ICAO does not keep its word and increased transparency regarding the allocation of the revenue from the auctions by the member states of the EU are the main elements of this compromise. The European Parliament's aim was to keep up the maximum pressure on ICAO to ensure that an agreement on a global market instrument to enter into force in 2020 is indeed finalised in September 2016, in order to reduce CO2 emissions from a sector which has remained on the sidelines of the fight against climate change. It has had to scale down its ambitions in view of the intransigence of the Council, which wanted to keep the “stop the clock” system (covering only intra-Community flights) in place until 2016, although this has already been extended by the Commission for one year - 2013.
Two trialogue meetings were enough to reach this result, but the compromise has still to be confirmed by the political groups of the Parliament. “We do not know whether we will have a majority. And we are still under time pressure. If we do not have the majority, the initial ETS legislation will apply”, Matthias Groote (S&D, Germany), president of the committee on the environment and rapporteur for the opinion on this text for his group, warned on Wednesday 5 March.
“The negotiations were extremely tough. They had to be interrupted several times. It is an acceptable compromise, not perfect, but we can defend it. It offers a long-term solution pending the finalisation of the ICAO agreement. We will have 18 months after the ICAO General Assembly to look at the consequences of the agreement”, rapporteur Peter Liese (EPP, Germany), who has not given up hope of winning over the members of his group, told the press. T he Liberals and the Greens have already announced their opposition to the compromise. Uncertainty remains over the position of the GUE and S&D Groups, and the ECR still has no position. The committee on the environment of the European Parliament will take position on 19 March. “This is the best possible compromise. If there is no majority, the trialogue is dead in the water. If there is a majority, the text will be put to the vote at the plenary in Brussels on 3 April”, said the rapporteur, calling on the environment committee to support the compromise.
Scope of application. Under the compromise, the current “stop the clock” system, which restricts the application of the ETS Directive to intra-European flights by virtue of a temporary derogation granted to intercontinental flights until April 2014, will be extended until the end of 2016, as the Council wishes. Then, either there will be a satisfactory agreement on an international market instrument, and the EU will modify its ETS legislation accordingly, or ICAO will not have finalised a satisfactory agreement and, if this is the case, the initial ETS Directive will apply, to cover all flights from and to airports of the European Union. As the payments to be made by the airlines for 15% of the quotas allocated to them have to be made on 30 April of each year for the previous year, the airlines will have to pay for the year 2017 on 30 April 2018. The period between September 2016 (date of the ICAO General Assembly) and 30 April 2018 will be used by the EU to assess whether the ICAO agreement is satisfactory and non-discriminatory.
ICAO agreement. Precisely what the EU expects from an ICAO agreement has been tightened up: “it must be an agreement which aims to reduce emissions from civil aviation and a non-discriminatory agreement for EU flights”, said Peter Liese.
Allocation of revenue. The member states will have to report to the European Commission on how they implement the recommendations made to them to allocate this revenue to the fight against climate change, and the Commission will in turn report to the Council and the Parliament.
The Greens/EFA feel this compromise is unacceptable, because it is tantamount to keeping international aviation out of the ETS for an extra four years. “This deal is a cop-out which would let the international aviation sector off the hook for its growing climate change impact in exchange for the vague hope of future global action. Excluding international civil aviation from the ETS for another four years will mean another four years of growth in aviation emissions without check, undermining the emissions reductions from most other EU sectors”, observes Satu Hassi (Greens/EFA, Finland), the spokesperson for her group on climate change issues. (AN)