During the EU Environment Council held yesterday in Luxembourg, which concluded its work today in the early hours of the morning, the revision of the Directive on greenhouse gas emission allowance trading scheme for aviation (ETS Aviation) was discussed in the context of the Fit-for-55 legislative package.
Due to the importance of the issue for Cyprus, the Minister of Agriculture, Rural Development and Environment, Mr Kostas Kadis, and the Minister of Transport, Communications and Works, Mr Yannis Karousos, participated in the debate. The following is a written statement by the Minister of Transport on the results of the Council in relation to aviation issues. At the initiative of Cyprus, the SAF Allowance Mechanism was included in the text of the Directive, a mechanism that will help mitigate the increase in fuel costs initially seen with the use of sustainable aviation fuels.
20 million free greenhouse gas emission allowances will be allocated to assist the use of sustainable aviation fuels in order to cover the 70% increase in costs compared to conventional fuels. With this mechanism, the European aviation sector, including Cyprus, will benefit substantially, amounting to around €1.1 billion.
In addition, we were able to highlight the disproportionate impact on EU island Member States of the new provisions in ETS Aviation and thus a specific reference to island States smaller than 10,000km² for which the difference in fuel costs will be covered at 100% has been included in the text of the Directive. In this way, a subsidy pool of up to EUR 500 million is created, to which Cyprus will also have access.
Our main objective in the negotiations was to ensure that Cyprus would not be negatively affected. Therefore, we insisted on the need to carry out a study to measure the consequences of the implementation of this Directive in relation to the competitiveness of our economy and our connectivity, which we managed to do and this was included in the Directive.
When a small country like Cyprus proposes solutions and tools that are adopted at European level, we can only feel proud. We took initiatives at European level, starting with the Declaration on Air Connectivity, which was supported by 12 EU Member States, and we proceeded with a detailed study of the impact of the Fit-for-55 legislative package in the air transport sector, which we communicated to all Member States. At the same time, we travelled and held meetings in the European Parliament, the European Commission and international organisations active in the aviation sector such as IATA, A4E and ACI, analysing and presenting our various proposals and suggestions.
I would like to thank the officials of both the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Works and the Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and Environment, the Deputy Permanent Representative Mr. Pavlos Kombos and the officials at MAEE who worked hard to achieve these positive results."
(MF/MB/IC)
Contents of this article including associated images are owned by PIO
Views & opinions expressed are those of the author and/or PIO
Source
Source[/P]
