The vice president and Minister of Economy, Industry, Commerce and Self-Employed of the Government of the Canary Islands, Manuel Domínguez, applauded this Thursday the decision of the European Parliament for the Archipelago to remain exempt in the application of the Regulation on the Use of Alternative Fuels in Air Transport.
The new community regulations will promote, from 2025, the use of sustainable fuels in aviation (SAF in its acronym in English) as part of the commitments made by this sector to reduce the carbon footprint in passenger transport. "We celebrate the sensitivity of the European Parliament towards the Canary Islands and the respect for the differentiated treatment with the outermost regions. Our island condition makes us totally dependent on air transport and, for that reason, we also need a longer period of time in order to adopt the necessary decisions to prevent this new European legislation from increasing the cost of air transport in the islands."
“One of those challenges, Domínguez continues, will be to prioritize that the Canary Islands become a producer of alternative fuels for aviation because we do not renounce its use. On the contrary, we will fight for this industry to be developed in the Islands, which will undoubtedly translate into the improvement of connectivity, the diversification of employment and sustainability.
This new regulation, approved this Wednesday by the European Parliament, obliges us to "study incentives for the distribution and production of synthetic fuel" because this will be the "future of the world aeronautical industry" and because, at the same time, the European moratorium will represent a "great opportunity to diversify the economy of the islands, strengthen its industrial fabric and advance in the field of sustainability and the creation of green employment for the Archipelago", he argued.
"We will fight to improve connectivity, employment diversification and sustainability"
The vice president recalled that the 'Regulation on the Use of Alternative Fuels in Air Transport' establishes that, as of 2025, a minimum of 2% of the fuels used in aviation must be "sustainable" and that this percentage will increase, gradually every "five years", until reaching 70% in the year 2050. “Now we must also work to adapt the airport facilities of the Canary Islands to this type of sustainable refueling. As is logical, we defend the environmental objective posed by this new community regulation and we believe that the necessary decarbonization should not imply, in any case, a detriment to the connectivity of the Canary Islands, nor to the pocket of its citizens.”
The Minister of Tourism, Jéssica de León, also expressed, for her part, that the decision adopted by the European Parliament “supposes the confirmation that the citizens of the Canary Islands and the tourism industry will not have the obligation to use a SAF fuel that, due to its scarce development and production, was going to increase the price of airline tickets and reduce our competitiveness as a tourist destination compared to other non-European markets.”
