If you still didn’t know how the lawmaking process in the EU works exactly, here’s a perfect example to sum it up.
A new lobby declaration from aviation industry executives in support of the EU’s sustainable jet fuel initiative was revealed to have been drafted by the EU Commission itself and merely sent to the industry to be signed, and then to present it to Transport Commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas during the Paris Air Show on Monday, June 16th.
The so-called ‘Le Bourget Declaration’ was fishy from the start, since it endorsed the same decarbonization targets, via gradually increasing the ‘sustainable aviation fuel’ (SAF) contents in their fuel mix, that major airlines heavily criticized as recently as March, slamming them as “unrealistic.”
And in fact, according to an anonymous aviation lobbyist, the industry didn’t make a U-turn overnight. The declaration “didn’t come from us; this came from DG MOVE (the Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport),” the EU Commission’s transport department, the lobbyist explained.
“A couple of weeks ago, DG MOVE contacted us and said, ‘We want you to sign this and give it to the Commissioner,” he said. “Officially, it’s our initiative, but unofficially it came from the Commission, which is highly unusual.”
According to Politico, other lobbyists involved in the drafting also confirmed the story, stating that they’ve received the same document and request. They eventually agreed to include it in the declaration only after integrating it with actual industry requests, such as a specific emission trading system for SAF, which Brussels keeps opposing.
The end result, however, is a heavily diluted and self-contradictory document that no one really wanted. “Now it’s basically a Frankenstein that carries all sorts of different messages,” another lobbyist said.
The green dispute between the EU and the aviation industry has escalated since the implementation of the first SAF mandate in January, which requires them to add at least 2% sustainable fuel—mainly made from used cooking oil—in their fuel mix.
Airlines have been complaining ever since that they’ve been paying twice as much for SAF as expected, since there’s not enough produced globally to ensure compliance, and its price is already three times as high as kerosene’s. That’s why back in March, the CEOs of several major airlines (including Lufthansa, British Airways, Air France-KLM, and Ryanair) all signed a joint letter callingl for an “urgent review” of the rules, and demand a delay in implementation until the SAF market becomes affordable.
Still, the EU Commission wants to push on, eyeing to increase the mandated volume to 6% by 2030, including 1.2% synthetic ‘e-SAF’ made from renewable hydrogen and captured CO2, which would further increase costs. And that’s just an intermediary goal before reaching “net zero” by 2050.
So, the Commission drafted a document to practically lobby itself, justifying moving forward with these measures. According to the first anonymous aviation lobbyist, the goal is to manufacture a public perception of industry support in the absence of a real one.
“The Commissioner doesn’t want to replicate the disaster of the automotive sector,” he explained, referring to the 2035 fossil fuel ban and other climate targets, which caused the European car industry to loudly push back with severe public criticism.
“He wants to ensure that airlines continue to support the measures adopted,” even if only on paper, in the hope of getting other, long-wanted concessions, he said.
The story is reminiscent of the Green Deal lobby scandal—also known as the ‘Timmermans Gate’—which revealed that the Commission paid over €700,000 from taxpayer funds to environmental NGOs to lobby EU and national lawmakers to adopt the flagship decarbonization package with its disastrous consequences to Europe’s energy security, industry, and competitiveness.
And just like in that case, it’s unlikely that there will be any consequences following these revelations. As usual, the Commission declined to comment, while the mainstream ‘Ursula coalition’ in the EU Parliament will probably block any genuine effort to investigate these allegations, just like it did in the case of the Green Deal scandal.
