World 3.0 Foundation · Supplementary Information to Petition 1360/2026 · August 2026
Seventeen Years of Postponement:
The July 2026 EU ETS Review and Private Aviation
On 26 August 2026 World 3.0 Foundation submitted supplementary information on petition No 1360/2026 to the Committee on Petitions of the European Parliament. Based on Commission proposal COM(2026) 616 final of 17 July 2026, procedure 2026/0212 (COD), and Council document 12073/26 ADD 1 of 20 July 2026.
✓ Supplement submitted — 26 August 2026What We Submitted, and Why
Petition 1360/2026 — Climate Justice in Aviation: Closing the Tax Loopholes for Private Jets — was filed on 22 May 2026 and registered by the European Parliament on 17 June 2026. It is currently awaiting the Committee on Petitions’ decision on admissibility.
Seven weeks after registration, the legal ground moved. On 17 July 2026 the Commission tabled proposal COM(2026) 616, which addresses the review clause in Article 28b of Directive 2003/87/EC — the clause due by 1 July 2026, which was to settle whether extra-European flights would be brought within the EU ETS. No separate review document was published. The clause was addressed inside a package entitled driving competitiveness and cost-effective decarbonisation, in which aviation is one of more than a dozen strands, alongside municipal waste incineration, carbon capture and utilisation, the market stability reserve and a new Industrial Decarbonisation Bank.
The review was therefore neither skipped nor delayed. It was dissolved into a competitiveness package. Our submission identifies three points in the proposal that bear directly on the subject matter of the petition, and asks the Committee to take them into account before it prepares its summary and recommendations.
Chronology: An Obligation From 2012, A Deadline Set For 2029
Flights departing from the EEA to third countries were to have been covered by the EU ETS from 1 January 2012 under Directive 2008/101/EC. They have never been covered in full.
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| 2003 | Directive 2003/87/EC establishes the EU ETS. Aviation not covered. |
| 2008 | Directive 2008/101/EC brings aviation in from 1 January 2012 — all flights arriving in and departing from the EEA. |
| 2012 | First year of application. Objections from third countries at ICAO. |
| 2013 | Decision 377/2013/EU (“stop the clock”) suspends obligations for extra-European flights. |
| 2014 | Regulation (EU) 421/2014 limits the scope to intra-EEA flights, until the end of 2016. |
| 2017 | Regulation (EU) 2017/2392 extends that limitation to the end of 2023. |
| 2023 | Directive (EU) 2023/958: CORSIA implemented, intra-EEA scope maintained, Article 28b review clause set for 1 July 2026. Exclusion thresholds unchanged. |
| 2025 | Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/927: CORSIA monitoring, reporting and verification rules, excluding intra-EEA flights and routes to Switzerland and the United Kingdom. |
| 19 Mar 2026 | Council conclusions invite the Commission to present a review of the EU ETS by July 2026 at the latest, in order to reduce carbon price volatility and mitigate its impact on electricity prices. |
| 23 Apr 2026 | “One Europe, One Market” roadmap: first quarter of 2027 as the target for agreement. |
| 22 May 2026 | World 3.0 Foundation files petition 1360/2026 with the European Parliament. |
| 17 Jun 2026 | Written question E-002500/2026 in the European Parliament: what happens to the scope of the system once the limitation expires at the end of 2026. |
| 17 Jul 2026 | COM(2026) 616: scope extension from 2029, with a 10,000-tonne exclusion threshold. |
| 26 Aug 2026 | World 3.0 Foundation submits supplementary information on petition 1360/2026. |
| 31 Dec 2026 | Expiry of the limitation of scope to flights within the EEA and to Switzerland and the United Kingdom, in force under Directive (EU) 2023/958. |
| 31 Dec 2028 | Deadline for transposition of the proposed Directive into national law. |
| 1 Jan 2029 | Application of national provisions. |
Seventeen years will have elapsed between the date on which the obligation was to take effect and the date now proposed. Over that period the scope was suspended, narrowed and extended four times — each time by a legal instrument of a transitional character, and each time with a new deadline.
The row for 31 December 2026 deserves emphasis, because it explains why the proposal appeared in July. The limitation of scope to intra-EEA flights is temporary and expires at the end of 2026; recital 10 of the proposal confirms that, until that date, the scope comprises only flights within the EEA together with departing flights to Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The proposal is therefore not a response to a review clause that could have been postponed. It is a response to a deadline that was closing by itself.
The default outcome is wider, not narrower
This matters more than it first appears, because of the direction in which the architecture runs. The limitation of scope is drafted as a temporary derogation, not as a permanent rule. Legislative inaction therefore does not freeze the status quo. If the derogation lapses at the end of 2026 and nothing replaces it, the wider scope in Annex I — flights to and from aerodromes in third countries — revives by operation of law from 1 January 2027, without any of the qualifications contained in the July 2026 proposal.
Set against that baseline, COM(2026) 616 is not a step forward from nothing. It is a narrowing. Under automatic reversion, extra-European flights would fall within scope subject to the existing 1,000-tonne de minimis. Under the proposal, they fall within scope from 2029 subject to a 10,000-tonne de minimis. For a private operator emitting around 810 tonnes a year, the difference between those two figures is the difference between a threshold that at least some intensive users could cross and a threshold none of them will.
The pattern is now visible in full. The derogation has been extended twice before, in 2014 and in 2017. What is proposed for the third time is not a continuation of an exclusion, but the replacement of an approaching automatic extension with a narrower one, deferred by two further years and carrying a new exclusion of its own.
Legislative delay is not a neutral state of affairs — it has a price, and it has beneficiaries. — Petition 1360/2026, World 3.0 Foundation
What The Proposal Changes — And What It Leaves
One real improvement: commercial status removed
Points (j) and (k) of the aviation exclusions in Annex I are replaced. The exclusion now covers operators with total annual emissions below 1,000 tonnes, with no distinction between commercial and non-commercial operators, and with the alternative number-of-flights criterion removed.
Until now three parallel thresholds applied: 1,000 tonnes for non-commercial operators, 10,000 tonnes for commercial operators, and fewer than 243 flights in three consecutive four-month periods. The proposal reduces this to a single threshold.
The effect concerns one segment in particular. Charter operators holding an air operator certificate, formally commercial, lose the 10,000-tonne threshold and drop to 1,000 tonnes. Within European business aviation, branded charter accounts for roughly 28% of departures. This is the only genuine tightening applied to the sector anywhere in the proposal.
The 1,000-tonne threshold stands — for the third time
The threshold applicable to private operators is left unchanged. At 2 to 4 tonnes of CO₂ per flight hour, around 250 to 500 flight hours a year are still needed to fall within the system.
The Commission described this gap in 2021
Impact assessment SWD(2021) 603, accompanying the proposal that became Directive (EU) 2023/958, lists the exclusion for aircraft below 5,700 kg, the 1,000-tonne threshold for non-commercial operators and the 10,000-tonne threshold for commercial operators — and states expressly that, as a result, most business aviation is de facto excluded from the obligation to report or to surrender allowances.
The Commission described that effect in its own document in 2021. The reform adopted in 2023 left the thresholds unchanged. The proposal of July 2026 leaves the private-operator threshold and the weight exclusion unchanged again.
A clause retained for politicians
The redrafted point (j) retains a clause in force since the 2009 amendment: the de minimis exclusion may not be relied upon for flights performed exclusively for the transport, on official mission, of reigning Monarchs and their immediate family, Heads of State, Heads of Government and Government Ministers of a Member State. This is not a new rule. What matters is the choice: in redrafting the point, the Commission retained the clause closing that route for its own representatives, while leaving the weight exclusion for light jets untouched.
Status Until 2026 vs. What The Proposal Does
| Element | Status until 31 Dec 2026 | Under COM(2026) 616 |
|---|---|---|
| De minimis — non-commercial operators | 1,000 t CO₂/year, unchanged since 2013 | 1,000 t retained; the commercial/non-commercial distinction is abolished |
| De minimis — commercial operators | 10,000 t CO₂/year, or fewer than 243 flights in three consecutive four-month periods | Reduced to 1,000 t; the number-of-flights criterion is removed |
| Weight exclusion | Absolute exclusion for MTOW below 5,700 kg, irrespective of emissions | Not among the amended provisions — remains in force unchanged beyond 2029 |
| Extra-European departing flights | Outside scope; limitation expires 31 December 2026 | Partial extension from 1 January 2029, excluding operators flying between two different States with annual emissions below 10,000 t |
| Definition of a “business flight” | No such category in the Directive | A list of aircraft considered business aircraft, to be adopted by implementing act under Regulation (EU) No 182/2011 (recital 15) |
| Reserved allowances for business flights | Not applicable | Available only for aircraft using electric or hydrogen propulsion (recital 15) |
| Public emissions reporting below threshold | None | No change proposed |
| Fuel taxation under the Energy Taxation Directive | Obligation since 2003; national derogations unenforced | Outside the scope of this proposal |
The Three Points Raised With The Committee
The submission introduces no new requests and does not extend the scope of the petition. It identifies three features of the proposal that will determine whether the measure has any effect on private aviation.
Points submitted to PETI — 26 August 2026-
A 10,000-tonne exclusion inside the extended scope
Annex I is supplemented by a sentence bringing within scope, from 1 January 2029, flights departing from aerodromes in the territory of a Member State — except for operators flying between two different States with total annual emissions below 10,000 tonnes. The newly covered scope therefore carries a threshold ten times higher than the intra-EEA one. The average private jet emits around 810 tonnes a year. Private operators would be excluded from the very extension intended to bring long-haul flights under a carbon price — that is, from precisely the routes identified in the petition as falling outside any pricing instrument. The explanatory memorandum justifies the exclusion by reference to limiting administrative burden: the same justification that produced the 1,000-tonne threshold in 2013.
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The 5,700 kg exclusion is not addressed at all
The absolute exclusion for aircraft below 5,700 kg maximum take-off mass applies irrespective of emissions, flight frequency or the identity of the operator, and has never been the subject of legislative review. The proposal amends only points (j) and (k) of the aviation row of Annex I; the weight exclusion is not among the amended provisions. In April 2026 the European Union Aviation Safety Agency confirmed to World 3.0 Foundation that Regulation (EU) No 965/2012 presents no technical obstacle to the regulation of short-haul private flights, and that the regulation of emissions falls within the competence of the European Commission. EASA registers hold complete maximum take-off mass data. The administrative-difficulty argument is capable of verification — and does not survive it.
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The definition of a business flight is left to an implementing act
The proposal contains no substantive definition of a business flight. Recital 15 provides for implementing powers to be conferred on the Commission, under Regulation (EU) No 182/2011, to adopt a list of aircraft considered to be business aircraft. The material reach of the provisions concerning business flights would therefore be settled by an act adopted outside the ordinary legislative procedure — and thus outside the scrutiny the European Parliament exercises in the course of its work on the proposal. How that list is drawn up will determine the regulation’s actual scope.
What Comes Next
The proposal is subject to the ordinary legislative procedure. The European Parliament and the Council may amend it; the target date for agreement is the first quarter of 2027. The level of the thresholds, the shape of the exclusions and the geographical scope of the extension will therefore be under negotiation for the next year and a half. That is the window in which it will be decided whether the 10,000-tonne threshold stays in the text.
The submission asks the Committee on Petitions to take these findings into account when preparing its summary and recommendations, and to consider forwarding the matter for information to the Committee on the Environment, Climate and Food Safety — the committee that traditionally handles EU ETS files. The dossier for procedure 2026/0212 (COD) does not, at this stage, name a rapporteur.
The proposal maintains the EU implementation of CORSIA: the deduction of the cost of CORSIA units from the obligation to surrender allowances, and the cancellation of CORSIA units extended until 2035.
In this sector EU law is complete on paper and ineffective in practice. The proposal of 17 July 2026 does not change that — it specifies where in the text the exclusion is located, and names the next deadline. — World 3.0 Foundation, supplementary information to Petition 1360/2026
Methodological Position
On geographical scope. The explanatory memorandum declares coverage of flights departing to the immediate neighbourhood of the Union, consistent with the scope of the ReFuelEU Aviation Regulation, and recital 12 states that the scope of carbon pricing is only partially extended from January 2029. The specific geographical limitation — described in industry analyses as a 5,000 km radius — appears neither in recitals 1 to 16 nor in Annex I; it should be located in Article 28a(1), the wording of which we have not verified. We treat it as a declared intention of the Commission, not as an established provision.
On the position from 1 January 2027. The expiry of the limitation of scope at the end of 2026 is confirmed by recital 10 of the proposal. That the wider Annex I scope revives automatically in the absence of replacing legislation is our reading of the structure of the derogation, supported by its drafting as a temporary measure and by the fact that it has twice required active extension. It is legal analysis, not a quoted provision, and we have not seen a Commission statement on the transitional position should procedure 2026/0212 (COD) not conclude before that date.
World 3.0 Foundation does not allege corruption or unlawful conduct by any party. The petition and this submission identify a systemic asymmetry of legislative influence whose consequences are measurable: the key exemption parameters — the 1,000 t CO₂ threshold and the 5,700 kg weight exclusion — have not been justified by any independent climate analysis available in the legislative record.
The methodology of World 3.0 holds that regulations shaped with the dominant participation of one side of an interest, without a balanced contribution from independent climate experts, rest on a flawed foundation — and cannot serve as a reliable reference point for the assessment of the common good. A rigorous assessment of actual impact would require full transparency regarding the financial and personal ties of the experts involved in designing these regulations.
Sources
European Commission, Proposal for a Directive amending Directive 2003/87/EC and Decision (EU) 2015/1814 as regards driving competitiveness and cost-effective decarbonisation, COM(2026) 616 final, Brussels, 17 July 2026, procedure 2026/0212 (COD).
Council of the European Union, document 12073/26 ADD 1, Brussels, 20 July 2026 — COM(2026) 616 final, Annexes 1 to 2.
European Commission, impact assessment SWD(2021) 603, accompanying the proposal amending Directive 2003/87/EC as regards aviation’s contribution.
European Parliament, confirmation of registration of petition No 1360/2026, ref. D 501873, 17 June 2026.
European Parliament, written question E-002500/2026, 17 June 2026, on the expiry of the limitation of scope at the end of 2026.
Directive 2003/87/EC, Annex I, “Aviation” row; Directive 2008/101/EC; Directive 2009/29/EC; Directive (EU) 2023/958; Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/927.
International Council on Clean Transportation, Air and greenhouse gas pollution from private jets, 2023, June 2025.