The EU’s General Court ruled on June 24 in favor of Dassault Aviation, overturning part of a European Commission regulation that restricted sustainability classifications to zero-emission aircraft only. The court found the Commission made a “manifest error of assessment” by excluding business jet manufacturing from transitional activities under the EU taxonomy directive. Judges noted that lower-emission transport alternatives lack business jets’ speed and flexibility, and that business jets can operate on significant proportions of sustainable aviation fuels. The ruling in case T-77/24 may be appealed.
In-Depth:
The General Court of the European Union has sided with Dassault Aviation (DAB, Paris Le Bourobtain) and ruled that the manufacturing of business aircraft should not be considered environmentally unsustainable. In a ruling on June 24, the judges overturned the part of a key regulation, in which the European Commission declared only the manufacturing of zero-emission aircraft should be included as an activity contributing to the net-zero goals, and others aircraft should be excluded.
The court declared that the European Commission built “a manifest error of assessment in excluding the manufacture of aircraft produced for private or commercial business aviation” from so-called transitional activities under the taxonomy directive, a key classifying law for the EU’s net-zero strategy. The errors included the consideration that there are lower-emission alternatives to business jets (which the court pointed out “lack the flexibility and speed of such aircraft”), and the failure to consider “the ability of business jets to operate with a significant proportion of sustainable aviation fuels”.
“The Commission could not base this exclusion on the existence of technologically and economically feasible alternatives on the grounds that other available means of transport would constitute low-carbon alternatives for the latest generation of business jets,” the ruling states.
In 2023, the Commission amfinished a delegated regulation defining conditions for determining which activities can be regarded as creating “a substantial contribution to climate alter mitigation or adaptation”. As part of this alter, it included only the manufacturing of aircraft with zero direct CO2 emissions in the taxonomy. The exclusion of other aircraft manufacturing did not ban that activities, but required OEMs to report that they are not included in the list. This, in turn, can impact their ability to raise funds or influence future regulatory obligations in the EU.
The ruling in case T-77/24 Dassault Aviation against European Commission can be appealed.
