French 'EcoTax' Targets Air Travel to Benefit Rail Network

"Transport Minister Élisabeth Borne said a news conference [on July 9] that an “ecotax” on flights departing from France would be introduced next year," reports Adam Taylor for The Washington Post.

It would amount to between 1.50 euros ($1.70) and 18 euros ($20) per flight, Borne said, and is expected to raise more than 180 million euros. That money would then be reinvested in eco-friendly transport, such as rail networks.

Borne said this reallocation of funds could be “part of the answer to the climate challenge.”

Visitors to France would not pay the tax on their inbound flights, but would pay it when they leave, as would French residents, effective January 1, 2020, although it would not apply to connecting flights.

Not just climate but equity

The comparison to the yellow vest insurrection, a populist revolt that began last November in response to a planned carbon tax that would have been added to petrol and diesel fuels in January 2019, is difficult to avoid. The fuel tax increases inspired the largest and most violent mass demonstrations in France since 1968.

Though sparked by a carbon tax, the movement by working-class residents, largely from outside the country's largest cities, was more a revolt against social inequities than efforts to fight climate change. By contrast, the aviation ecotax will target a much higher-earning demographic, but it would be aimed at behavior, not income, unlike the Green New Deal legislation in the U.S., a point highlighted below by Dutch State Secretary for Finance Menno Snel of The Netherlands.

European-wide aviation tax?

Taylor noted that Britain and Sweden implemented aviation taxes, in part to address climate change, last year, which has prompted consideration of a multi-country tax.

The Dutch government is lobbying the European Union to introduce a continent-wide tax on aviation that would prevent airlines from changing their routes to avoid taxes.

“People also feel that in the end, we have to collect taxes,” Snel said in an interview with The Washington Post earlier this year. “If you can choose between taxing the income of people or pollution and CO2, it makes more sense to try and find a tax base on the second than on the first."