London, May 25:
The EU insists
that it will make no changes to its plans for a carbon tax on aviation
emissions, despite continued warnings from India and China of retaliatory
action, and the failure by two Indian airlines and eight Chinese airlines to
submit emission data by a March 31 deadline.
“The day we get
an ambitious global deal, we could amend our legislation. In the meantime, our
law is here to stay,” said Mr Isaac Valero-Ladron, spokesperson for EU
Commissioner, Ms Connie Hedegaard, in an e-mailed response.
“I am glad to
see that India favours a global deal. So do we. In fact, the EU has been
pushing for this for almost two decades.”
His comments
follow a warning from the Civil Aviation Minister, Mr Ajit Singh, who told the Financial
Times in an interview this week – travelling is always a two-way traffic –
and that if Europe could impose sanctions, so could other countries.
In a press
conference in mid-May, Ms Hedegaard disclosed that two unnamed Indian airlines
and eight unnamed Chinese airlines had not given their emission reports in an
otherwise successful collection of data by the European Commission.
Airlines from
other nations, some of which have been critical of the aviation tax, including
the US, Canada, Russia, Mexico, Qatar, Japan and the UAE, all submitted the
data, alongside all EU airlines.
The 10
non-submitters represented less than three per cent of total aviation
emissions, Ms Hedegaard said. They have all been given a deadline of mid June
to report back their data. If they do not comply, it would be up to the
individual countries, to and from which the airlines operated, to apply
penalties, which they could do in a number of ways.
The EU has
firmly stuck to its stance that it is only embarking on the emission charges
because of a value to reach a deal at a global level, and that it would be
willing to find a solution via ‘equivalent' measures in the countries affected.
In an interview
with Business Line earlier this year, she warned that any attempt to
undermine the law through a trade war would undermine democratically made
legislation.
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