Planemakers united against EU tax

Boeing threw its weight behind Airbus in a row over European Union airline emissions rules yesterday, even as it refused to negotiate a settlement in a separate dispute with its arch-rival over aircraft subsidies. The chief executive of Boeing Commercial Airplanes joined a chorus of criticism led by Airbus of the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme that will charge airlines for emissions, something Brussels believes necessary to help defeat climate change. "This is not about Boeing and Airbus; it is about what is best for our customers and how we are going to get the whole industry to reduce its environmental footprint," Jim Albaugh said. "I don't think the European ETS approach is the right one. We need to have a standstill on this and work with ICAO [International Civil Aviation Organisation] and get some international rules in place that everyone can sign up to, and ones that will drive us to make the investments we need to improve the efficiency of airplanes." Albaugh said Boeing had not benefited from what Airbus has described as delays in Chinese approval to buy its planes as a result of the emissions row, but said Boeing expected to sell a significant number of 737 MAX and other models to China. He rebuffed European suggestions that the governments backing Airbus and Boeing should negotiate a settlement to the world's largest trade dispute, an eight-year-old spat at the World Trade Organisation over subsidies. "I am not sure we are interested in negotiating a settlement, what we are interested in is all parties playing by the same WTO rules," he said. In another trade issue affecting the $100 billion (Dh367 billion) jetliner industry, Albaugh rejected criticism by some US politicians of guarantees provided by the US Export-Import bank to support exports and predicted Congress would renew their funding soon. From gulfnews