European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President António Costa and European Parliament President Roberta Metsola took what may be one of the shortest official flights on record last Friday.
The trio flew from Brussels to Luxembourg and back aboard of a charter flight, a journey that would have taken approximately two and a half hours by car.
According to Commission chief spokesperson Paula Pinho, the decision to charter a flight was made due to conflicting schedules among the leaders and Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Luc Frieden.
“The idea was that the three presidents … wanted to celebrate Schuman Day together with Prime Minister Luc Frieden in Luxembourg. Due to scheduling constraints of all the three presidents and the prime minister, the only traveling option to allow all of them to attend the commemoration of the Schuman Declaration together was to take a charter flight,” Pinho said during a daily briefing on Monday.
“This is justified because it was really exceptional and it was the only way of making sure that the three presidents could be present,” she added. “And obviously it is indeed considerably faster than if you take the car.”
This is not the first time EU leaders’ use of private jets has drawn criticism in Brussels, especially as the EU promotes greener transport and aims to reduce institutional emissions in line with its climate goals.
In March 2023, German media outlets Bild and Der Spiegel reported the Commission president had taken 57 private flights in just two years.
Before taking on his current role as Council president, Costa faced similar scrutiny in Portugal. In June 2023, opposition parties questioned his use of a Portuguese Air Force Falcon 50 jet for a trip to Brussels, alleging it may have served personal purposes. The government responded that the aircraft was used appropriately for official transport of high-ranking officials.
In March 2023, POLITICO revealed that former Council President Charles Michel had used chartered air taxis on 28 of the 46 foreign trips he made during 2022, including to the COP27 talks in Egypt in 2022 and to the COP26 summit in Glasgow in 2021.
Unlike many national governments, the EU does not maintain its own fleet of aircraft to transport officials. Instead, it relies on commercial airlines or chartered flights for official travel, making such arrangements more visible and controversial.
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