2023-09-15 08:49:25
Yesterday the European Parliament gave its final approval to the new regulation on fuels in commercial aviation. A new regulation that requires airlines to use airports located in community territory the use of at least 2% biofuels, or synthetic fuel s(SAF), from 2025. However, the European Parliament text exempts this issue until 2030. obligation to flights that take off or land from the aerodromes of the Outermost Regions (ORP), Therefore, the measure, in principle, will not affect the Archipelago. Of course: we must emphasize the principle, since the regulation gives the Member States the power to enforce this measure in airports exempt from its application without the need for prior consultation with the European authorities. In other words: Spain will have free rein to lift the exception in any of the island aerodromes if it so considers.
The new regulations also leave smaller aerodromes out of application.
The long-term objective of the EU is that in 2050, within 27 years, there will be at least 70% sustainable fuel in the tanks of airplanes operating in community territory. It is one of the major measures of the ambitious green roadmap that Brussels has imposed on itself, a plan that also includes the inclusion of commercial aviation in the emission rights market and the kerosene tax or tax, popularized as the green tax. Measures that, ultimately, will increase airline costs – the companies have been warning that there is still not enough biofuel supply to follow the pace at which Brussels intends to decarbonize the sector – and Ultimately they will make tickets more expensive. An unaffordable risk for a Canary Islands where full internal mobility is only possible by plane and whose economy, that is, thousands of companies and tens of thousands of jobs, depend on tourists, the vast majority of whom come to the Islands precisely by plane. .
Mato asks for a unique treatment for the ORs also in the ‘green rate’ and the emissions market
The exemption from the minimum use of biofuel in favor of the ORs thus represents a small relief, although the largest game that the Autonomous Community plays is that of the kerosene tax. For now, as for the ecological fuel loading refers, the European Parliament regulations It affects any airport in the Union that moves more than 800,000 passengers or more than 100,000 tons of goods “and that is not located in any of the Outermost Regions.” Not in vain, the text admits that it is “essential” that the ORs are not harmed by the application of the new rules, which does not prevent, “in order to achieve a higher level of ambition”, so that the States may decide to lift this exemption.
The Canarian MEP Gabriel Mato, of the PP, He intervened before the plenary session of the Community Legislature to assess this “good news” for the ORs and took the opportunity to insist on the concern generated in the Islands by the emission rights market and the green tax. The Canary Islands and the other ORs, Mato stressed, “must have differentiated treatment.”
Island ports also demand exemptions
The Government of the Canary Islands, the two port authorities of the Islands and businessmen will prepare a joint proposal to request the European Commission to adapt the new regulation on carbon border adjustment to prevent it from harming the outermost regions (ORP). The Ministry of Public Works, Housing and Mobility evaluates different proposals that take into account the specificities and singularities of the Archipelago, to minimize the consequences that this measure would have for the movement of goods by sea and the island economy, as it is an instrument to tax the EU borders the import of products whose manufacturing generates more CO2 than allowed within. With the entry into force of this regulation in October and the proximity of port infrastructures that are exempt from compliance, the port system in the Canary Islands could be left at a competitive disadvantage. The Canary Islands will defend the exemptions, without ignoring its strategy of sustainability and the fight against climate change. | Efe
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