After the approval with 334 votes in favor and 95 against in recent days, the European Parliament is preparing to negotiate on Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) with the Council of the European Union. The initiative, called RefuelEU Aviation, is part of the Fit for 55 package. It aims to promote the emergence and spread of sustainable aviation fuels, but the debate on this issue is divisive. 

One only has to look at the approved text. The document adopted by the European Parliament is very different from the one proposed by the European Commission on several decisive points: the type of fuels considered eligible, the implementation procedure, the flexibility mechanism, and the innovation fund.

In any case, on this basis the way is now open for negotiations between the Parliament and the member states that make up the Council of the European Union: the Commission proposed to implement 2 percent Saf by 2025 rising to 63 percent in 2050; the Parliament is aiming for 6 percent in 2030, going through 54 percent in 2045, to 85 percent in 2050. What will come out of this? 

Another topic of debate is the expansion of the definition of Saf: the European Commission has proposed a traditional definition based on the 2018 Red II Renewable Energy Directive; the Parliament's transport department, on the other hand, wants to broaden its meaning to include "liquid and gaseous fuels produced from waste treatment and exhaust gases of non-renewable origin".

MEPs also decided to create a new fund dedicated to sustainable aviation to support investment and innovation from 2023 to 2050. The economic endowment of this will be financed partly from penalties for non-compliance, partly from the proceeds of auctioning allowances from the European Union's Emission Trading Scheme (ETS).