Green Taxonomy – EU General Court annuls the criteria relating to the manufacture of aircraft

In a ruling dated 24 June 2026, the General Court of the European Union annulled the criteria that the European Commission had defined for determining whether the activity of manufacturing aircraft can qualify as environmentally sustainable.

The criteria had been laid down in a regulation adopted by the European Commission as part of the “EU Taxonomy”. Introduced at an EU level, the purpose of this framework is to establish a classification of economic activities based on whether they are environmentally sustainable, in order to facilitate investment in activities deemed to be sustainable.

In its ruling, the General Court ruled that the European Commission had committed a manifest error of assessment in excluding the manufacture of business aircraft from transitional activities. The General Court held that the criterion of CO2 footprint per passenger kilometre, on which the exclusion of business aviation is based, was not appropriate.

In this case, Bredin Prat represented Compagnie Daher, as an intervening party.

The team included Guillaume Léonard, Pierre Todorov and Wallis Hebert.