The government will propose an “increased ecological contribution” in 2024 for private commercial aviation, Transport Minister Clément Beaune announced Thursday before the National Assembly, during a debate on pollution caused by private planes.
“The issue is not anecdotal,” admitted the minister in the chamber, while expressing his hostility to the ban on private jet flights, carried by environmentalists as part of their reserved day at the Palais Bourbon.
The finance law for 2023 established a “70% increase in the private aviation fuel tax,” he recalled, agreeing that certain practices were “scandalous, often unconventional, sometimes unacceptable.”
“The general ban (…) does not advance the ecological transition”
“And I announce it to you, we will go further if you agree on the budget for 2024 proposing that private commercial aviation (…) may be subject to an additional contribution, an upwardly revised eco-contribution, which precisely allows these behaviors to be taken into account” the Minister continued.
“The general ban gives a good conscience but does not advance the ecological transition in practice”, estimated Clément Beaune, underlining in particular the “legal obstacles” and the difficulty of defining and controlling exemptions.
The ecologists propose to prohibit “non-scheduled passenger air transport services that are not commercially operated”, as well as non-scheduled public air transport services “with less than sixty passengers”.
It is about “bringing the rich back to Earth” by making them contribute to the ecological transition, claimed the deputy Julien Bayou, who carries this text with little chance of being adopted. “This is the measure that penalizes the fewest people but produces the greatest effects for the climate and the atmosphere,” he said.
Source: BFM TV
