On Tuesday 12 December, the EU took another step towards recognising the political agreement reached with the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) on a global market measure (CORSIA) to tackle CO2 emissions in the sector.
The European Parliament endorsed the inter-institutional agreement of principle by a large majority (544 votes for, 54 against with 31 abstentions) reached on 18 October by negotiators from Parliament and the Estonian Presidency of the Council on the extension until 31 December 2023 of the derogation to the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) for inter-continental flights (see EUROPE 11887).
Given the fact that this derogation expired at the end of December 2016 (the end of the second ETS exchange period), the challenge involved reaching a swift agreement on modalities for the third exchange period (2017-2020) to therefore prevent a legal void arising for 2017.
The conditions are now in place for the final adoption of the text. This will happen without debate during a session of the Council of the EU this month. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)