Negotiators from the Council of the EU and the European Parliament met on Thursday 13 October to try to reach compromises on the main outstanding issues concerning sustainable aviation fuels (‘ReFuelEU Aviation’) (see EUROPE 13017/10).
In detail, the positions of the EU Council and the European Parliament remain far apart on a number of issues. On the one hand, the European Parliament would like to extend the scope to all EU airports, except those located in the outermost regions.
The EU Council, on the other hand, would like to keep the scope proposed by the European Commission, which provides for the exclusion of airports with less than one million passengers or less than 100,000 tonnes of cargo.
However, Member States could apply this regulation to airports that are not covered by the scope.
In this respect, the solution could be to lower the threshold for passenger traffic - and possibly freight - as much as possible, while limiting the number of new airports included in the scope.
In addition, solutions will have to be found with regard to the scope of aircraft operators. For the European Parliament, the commercial operation of 52 flights should be sufficient to be covered by the regulation. The Council of the EU wanted the threshold to be set at 500 flights, as opposed to 729 in the Commission’s original proposal.
Several options are on the table for negotiators, such as reducing the threshold for all-cargo flights and possibly introducing an ’opt-in’ clause for aircraft operators who would request to be considered as such without meeting the criteria.
In addition, discussions will still have to be held on the national mandates of the Member States, and also on the role of the competent authorities and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)