The new tax on plane tickets introduced by the Dutch government on July 1 can be scrapped in 2012 if aviation sector is included in the European carbon-dioxide emissions trading system (ETS), reports Tuesday’s Financieele Dagblad.

‘If the ETS is in place there are no more arguments for national tax measures to be kept,’ David Batchelor, a policy-maker at the European Commission told a conference in Amsterdam on Monday.
However Batchelor admitted that the Commission does not have the authority to interfere with national governments’ taxation, the paper reports.
A spokesman for the Dutch finance ministry declined to speculate on whether the tax on air travel would be scrapped with the introduction of the ETS.
However an executive for national carrier KLM, Jan Ernst de Groot, told the paper that he welcomes the signal from Brussels.