Karima Delli (Greens/EFA, France), Chair of the Transport Committee (TRAN) in the European Parliament, announced that she had questioned the European Commission, on Friday 24 April, about State Aid granted to airlines in the context of the COVID-19 crisis.
On her initiative, a letter, co-signed by all the Green Party MEPs of the TRAN Committee, was sent to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and to the Executive Vice-President responsible for Competition, Margrethe Vestager.
The ten signatories underline “the transport sector’s growing impact on the climate” and require that airlines can only benefit from state aid under certain conditions.
They propose, for example, that airlines commit to reducing their emissions, paying a tax on kerosene or “compliance with the passengers’ rights and protection of jobs”.
Ms Delli stressed that this was not the right time to “provide the industries which pollute and offer precarious contracts with blank cheques”.
According to the latest version of the ‘Airline bailout tracker’, published by the organisations Greenpeace, Transport & Environment (T&E) and Carbon Market Watch (see EUROPE 12472/23), European airlines have requested €12.8 billion in State Aid since the beginning of the crisis. The allocation of €7 billion to Air France-KLM was also later confirmed.
To consult the letter: https://bit.ly/3cQ4NOj (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)