The Lanzarote Tourism Federation (FTL), together with the Las Palmas Hospitality and Tourism Business Federation (FEHT Las Palmas); the Hotel and Extra-Hotel Association of Tenerife, La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro, Ashotel; and the Association of Tourism Businessmen of Fuerteventura (Asofuer) have underlined the "need to obtain total exemption for the Canary Islands in the new regulatory framework on payment of emission rights for flights" in the European airspace.
To this end, they demand "a major negotiating action by the Canarian and central governments in negotiations with the EU institutions that totally exempts the Canary Islands from the payment of CO2 emission rights on flights", while "the stable supply and affordable prices of new non-polluting fuels in the aviation sector is not guaranteed".
This initiative, the employers' associations add, should be based on the arguments that the Canary Islands has put forward with regard to environmental taxation for aviation, because "the archipelago requires specific measures in this area, both because of its status as an Outermost Region (OR) and because of the relevance of the tourism sector in the productive fabric" of the islands, based also on efficient connectivity with its main issuing markets, the countries of the European continent.
"Air connectivity is strategic for the Canary Islands"
The business associations consider that their proposal in favor of an exemption for the islands has been endorsed in a meeting organized last week by the Government of the Canary Islands with the Director of Regional Policy responsible for the ORs in the European Commission, Monika Hencsey, a forum that addressed, among other issues, the future Community regulation on the payment of CO2 emission rights.
In this regard, the sector representatives agreed with the decarbonization objectives set out in the EU as a whole, which the Canary Islands is addressing with its own strategies in its energy model".
At the same time, the tourism employers' associations consider that a decision by the European Union cannot specifically harm "a sensitive territory of the EU itself which, as is the case of the Canary Islands, has in air connectivity a strategic element for its economic model, due to the weight of its tourism sector and the absence of alternatives to air transport".
Hence, the exemption already obtained for inter-island and national flights is not sufficient, as highlighted by the President of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, during the meeting. It is necessary to negotiate to achieve total exemption.
They demand "unity of action" from the administrations
The employers' associations are calling for joint action by the Canarian administrations, the Spanish Government and Spain's representatives in the European Parliament, because "the arguments of the Canary Islands are very solid". And they are comparable, for example, "with those expressed by some European governments that have called for a reflection on the advisability of prohibiting the sale of combustion vehicles in the EU from the year 2035 onwards".
Moreover, in the case of the Canary Islands, they argue, "it is necessary that any implementation of fiscal measures related to aviation fuel should be carried out with sufficient caution to guarantee the competitiveness of tourism in the islands compared to other comparable destinations which, not being part of the European Union, will not be obliged to apply such fiscal measures".
They argue that "stays in the Canary Islands are longer"
It must be taken into account, add the tourism employers' associations, that the Canary Islands, as a medium-distance destination, "cannot be considered as an inefficient territory in the relationship between polluting emissions and average stay of travelers.
European tourists who visit the islands spend an average of more than nine days in the Islands, which distances the Archipelago from other destinations that also make intensive use of airplanes and count much shorter stays" and, therefore, less efficient in environmental terms.
This is another argument in defense of an exemption that, as admitted by the Director General of the European Commission at the meeting held this week, would offer the Canary Islands the opportunity to face the decarbonization of the aviation sector with sufficient time to guarantee the competitiveness of the flights that currently sustain tourism in the Islands.
For the representatives of the tourism employers' associations, the general philosophy that supports the application of payment for greenhouse gas emission rights is a concept that "the tourism sector of the Canary Islands supports and endorses, but must also incorporate corrective measures that make a fair transition in the use of fossil fuels possible".