30 September 2022: September 2022, the inter-institutional negotiations (trilogues) on the Fit for 55 package officially started. EU co-legislators – the European Parliament and the Council – adopted their positions on the legislative files earlier in the summer.

Trilogues are closed-door negotiations. Any provisional agreement is informal and has therefore to be approved by the formal procedures applicable within each of the two co-legislators.

Refuel EU Aviation:

The first trilogue on Refuel EU Aviation initiative took place on 8 September 2022, during which the EU institutions presented their views on the file and tried to reach an agreement on future technical meetings. The main issues are still related to the SAF definition, the allocation of revenues and the possibility of SAF national mandates for Member States.

The European Parliament supports an 85 per cent SAF mandate by 2050 and the incorporation in the SAF definition of recycled carbon fuels produced from waste-processing gas, and biofuels produced from animal fats or distillates. The Parliament does not support any national SAF mandates.

The Council, for its part, supports a 63 per cent SAF mandate by 2050 as well as national flexibilities to increase synthetic fuels. It is also favour in the extension of the scope for biofuels to other certified biofuels complying with the RED sustainability and emissions-saving criteria.

EU ETS Aviation:

The first trilogue on the EU-ETS Aviation took place on 6 September 2022. The two main points on which a compromise will be needed are the scope and the phase-out of the free allowances.

Indeed, the European Parliament asks for a free allowances phase out by 2025 while de Council a phase out gradually by 2027. Regarding the scope, the positions between the two European co-legislators are still divergent as the European Parliament asks all flights departing from the EU to fall under the ETS while for the Council EU-ETS should apply for intra-EEA (including the United Kingdom and Switzerland) for EU carriers while CORSIA for non-EU carriers.

It is important to state that the outcome of the CORSIA discussions at the ICAO General Assembly will be an important consideration for the trilogue negotiations on the Fit for 55 files both in terms of the speed they will be conducted at and also the positions being taken. There may be a move to secure support for CORSIA, which may not meet the expectations of the European Parliament and the ReFuel EU may be the vehicle for the Commission and Member States to provide the European Parliament a ‘win’ on one of the files. This could be reflected in the target figure for the mandate of fuel mix being increased.

On the Energy Taxation Directive (ETD), political and technical discussions are ongoing between Member States under Czech Presidency, but there is no compromise yet. A debate on ECOFIN Is scheduled on the 6 December 2022