The European Parliament's Environment Committee (ENVI) voted to reject a deal to exempt long-haul flights from paying for carbon emissions until the end of 2016, aiming to prevent the European Union from bowing to foreign pressure. A preliminary decision ahead of a binding vote from Europe's parliament, the vote raised the prospect of a return to stringent polluting rules against foreign airlines vigorously opposed by trade partners outside the bloc as infringing their sovereignty ENVI members in Brussels failed to pass the deal brokered by EU diplomats earlier this month to extend a so-called "stop the clock" measure exempting intercontinental flights from regulation under the bloc's Emissions Trading System (ETS). "Today's vote simply means that MEPs do not like being bullied by third countries into dismantling EU climate legislation," said German MEP and ENVI chair Matthias Groote. The motion will now go to a full vote by the European Parliament, scheduled for April 3. "The ENVI result is most worrying," said Athar Husain Khan, CEO of the Association of European Airlines (AEA). But Aoife O'Leary of Brussels-based green group Transport & Environment called it a "bad deal" that was rightly rejected. "This decision sends the clear signal to political leaders in member states, to industry and to foreign countries that the EU's sovereignty is not subject to external bullying," she said. Negotiators from the European Parliament, the European Commission, and member states represented by current EU president Greece, on March 4 agreed a tentative deal to extend an existing suspension of EU law for flights into and out of the 28-nation bloc. Those airlines were from 2012 forced under EU law to surrender a permit for every tonne of carbon dioxide they emitted during the entirely of their flights, but those rules were temporarily suspended later that year amid international pressure. Trade Tensions Failure to get final agreement on the compromise before the end of April would mean the original law is reinstated, likely reigniting trade tensions with Europe's major trading partners such as China and the United States, who said the measure breached sovereignty rules. "Given the international controversy around the aviation ETS that we have witnessed during the past years, we believe that a full ETS is not a realistic option and that it would have a negative impact on European airlines, their operations and their employees," the AEA's Khan said. The vote of the cross-party ENVI committee is a preliminary indication of whether the proposal, which is supported by other parliamentary committees including those governing transport and industry, can win enough support in the full parliament. "I think plenary will pass it. Everyone agrees that reinstating the original compliance coverage on April 30 is unacceptable. From a timeframe standpoint, there is too much pressure not to pass it," said Emil Dimantchev, an analyst with Thomson Reuters Point Carbon. In its current form, the agreement would maintain the suspension of the law for intercontinental flights until 2016, with a provision to revert back to making all airlines pay for allowances in 2017 if a global deal on curtailing aviation emissions cannot be agreed. The U.N.'s International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) last October agreed it would deliver a global plan to curb airline emissions by 2016 for implementation in 2020. The European Commission's responded by proposing an amended measure to only charge aircraft for emissions in EU airspace. That proposal, backed by many European lawmakers but rejected by Britain, France and Germany, eventually evolved into the compromise struck earlier this month. (Reuters)