The European Union is planning to spend millions of euros more on private jet flights for its top officials — just as it is proclaiming its green credentials and pledging to step up the fight against climate change.
The bloc has raised the amount that can be spent under a five-year contract for “air taxi” flights by more than €3.5 million, according to a document published this month in the EU’s tenders database.
The new maximum amount of €10.71 million for the contract, which runs from 2016 to 2021, represents a 50 percent increase on the original value of €7.14 million.
The EU has been placing increasing emphasis on green policies in recent months.
Ahead of Monday’s U.N. climate summit in New York, Miguel Arias Cañete, the European commissioner for climate action and energy, declared: “The EU has a strong story to tell — we are global climate leaders.”
European Commission President-elect Ursula von der Leyen has promised to set a 2050 climate neutrality goal for the EU and to raise the bloc’s 2030 emissions reduction target to at least 50 percent from 1990 levels.
The plans to spend more on private jets also stand in sharp contrast to remarks by Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who has highlighted his use of commercial flights.
“When I was talking to Donald Trump, I was constantly looking at my watch so that I wouldn’t miss my flight home,” Juncker told German newspaper Bild am Sonntag earlier this year. “Trump kept saying, ‘Your ‘plane can wait!’ He didn’t realize that I didn’t have my own aeroplane.”
In response to questions from POLITICO, a spokesperson for the Commission said that Juncker had taken 25 flights on private planes in 2018, the same number as in 2017. In 2016, he took 18 private flights, compared with 21 in 2015.
Juncker has come under criticism in the past for taking “air taxis” to short-haul destinations like Strasbourg.
The Commission said that private jets are only rented when there are no other options, and noted that the president’s travel expenses are published on a regular basis.
Read more at Politico
These arrogant old Peacocks they think their so special and have certain privlages over us ordinary Birds oh how special they think they are strutting and parading around Typical Liberal Democrats
“air taxi’s ” how quaint . No doubt they bought offsets and have stopped eating re fried beans .
How is little Greta getting back to school ? She is very very upset . Just wait till she gets in the real world . I don’t want to see that .
What do you mean climate changes all by itself ? What do you mean humans can’t set the earths temperature ? What the F is that white stuff on the roads ?
I see a lot of twisted lip action as reality settles in . But hey its a living .
Well now that Democrat fun guy Epstein suicided while in custody his planes are probably available at a wholesale rate .
Maybe he suicided cause his private island was sinking from all the scum bags he had on it .
The UN are air miles leaders and a propaganda machine .
They need cash bad .