The EU Council, the EU Commission, and the European Parliament reached an agreement yesterday (Wednesday), that the outermost regions (OR) of France, Portugal, and Spain are exempt from the new tax on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from air transport until 2030.
The president of the Canary Islands Government, Ángel Víctor Torres, who has been coordinating the group of the nine most remote territories in the EU for a month, made the announcement on Twitter.
“This is a key step for the islands that has been won by the Canary Islands and by the Conference of Presidents of the ORs. Without a doubt, this is a complete success for all of us”, he posted.
This new tax was one of the main issues focused on at the last conference of the ORs held in Brussels in November, and the meetings of their presidents with the representatives of the European Commission, when an agreement from the European Parliament was on the table to leave the nine OR territories out of the tax of aviation fuel until 2030.
However, at that point the agreement was limited to internal flights between islands, or connections between each OR with the rest of its country, but did not apply to international flights.
At the moment, the message from the President of the Canary Islands does not specify whether the agreement closed yesterday has the same conditions, or if it incorporates any changes.
