A compromise looming after the first trilogue?

The first trilogue between the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Council was held today. The objective of the trilogue is to negotiate a compromise with regards to the Commission's proposal to restrict EU ETS to European regional airspace from 2014 onwards.

As a reminder, the European Commission is obviously supporting its own proposal made on 16 October 2013 (read our article). The European Parliament - led by the rapporteur MEP Dr Peter Liese - is supporting its opinion voted at the ENVI committee on 30 January 2014 (read our article), which is strong support of the Commission's original proposal but with earmarking of the auction revenues for projects to fight climate change. On the other side, the European Council (EU member states led by Germany, France and the UK, and represented by Greece) is calling for an extension of stop-the-clock (restriction to intra-European flights only) until at least 2016.

A compromise was proposed by the European Commission: stop-the-clock until 2016 with 'snap-back' to full scope in case there is no progress made on a global MBM at the next Assembly of ICAO. This could indeed constitute a possible compromise between 'European Regional airspace in 2014-2016 + full scope in 2017-2020' and 'stop-the-clock in 2014-2016 + European regional airspace in 2017-2020'.

The European Parliament strongly supported its proposal to earmark auction revenues on projects to fight climate change but the European Council is strongly opposing it.

Although the idea to decrease the cap down by 1.74 % from 2015 onwards which was originally proposed in the ENVI committee's report published in November 2013 (read our article) was removed from the ENVI committee's final 30 January 2014 vote (read our article), the idea to decrease the cap further down from the original 95% was put back on the table during the trilogue as an item of negotiation.

The next trilogue is scheduled for Tuesday 4 March. Hopefully, a final compromise will be negotiated, which will then be proposed to Parliament for a final vote at its next plenary session scheduled in April 2014.

> Read Press Release from the European Parliament
> Read GreenAir online related article
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