New climate package: EU Commission proposes kerosene tax for flights within Europe

The EU Commission wants to introduce a kerosene tax for flights within Europe. The existing exemption for the aviation industry from the fuel tax is to be phased out over a period of ten years, as the Brussels authority announced. Private business flights and freight traffic should therefore continue to be exempt from taxation. In addition, Brussels is aiming to introduce an import tax on climate-damaging products from third countries from 2026. From 2023 onwards, a transition phase is planned so that companies can adjust to the innovation, the commission said. Subsequently, importers of steel, aluminum, cement and fertilizers will have to buy CO2 certificates according to the climate-damaging nature of their imports.

This is to protect companies in the EU from competition from abroad whose production is not subject to the same climate regulations as in the European Union - the focus is on countries like Russia and China. A few hours before the Brussels plans were announced, the People's Republic announced that it intends to start an emissions trading system (ETS) this month. Trading in CO2 certificates is an important instrument for climate protection.

In addition, as previously reported by the FAZ, the commissioners have spoken out on a ban on the sale of new cars with internal combustion engines from 2035. By then, the entire new vehicle fleet in the EU should no longer emit any greenhouse gases. According to the current state of technology, this can only be achieved by pure electric cars. The Commission is also raising the intermediate goal on the way to greenhouse gas neutrality of the new vehicle fleet: According to current EU guidelines, a group's vehicle fleet may only emit an average of 95 grams of carbon dioxide (CO2) per kilometer; by 2025, a further 15 should be reduced by 2025 Percent and by 2030 by 37.5 percent. According to the new proposal of the EU Commission, the value for cars should now fall by 55 percent by 2030 and for delivery vans by 50 percent.

At the same time, according to the commission, the expansion of the charging infrastructure is to be promoted. By the end of last year, there were around 260,000 publicly accessible charging points in the 27 member states of the European Union - more than two thirds of them in the three countries of the Netherlands, France and Germany alone. The aim now is to have charging points at least 60 kilometers apart along the most important roads.