The European Union is planning to spend millions of euros more on private jet flights for its top officials — just as it is proclaiming its green credentials and pledging to step up the fight against climate change.

The bloc has raised the amount that can be spent under a five-year contract for “air taxi” flights by more than €3.5 million, according to a document published this month in the EU's tenders database.

The new maximum amount of €10.71 million for the contract, which runs from 2016 to 2021, represents a 50 percent increase on the original value of €7.14 million.

The EU has been placing increasing emphasis on green policies in recent months. Ahead of Monday's U.N. climate summit in New York, Miguel Arias Cañete, the European commissioner for climate action and energy, declared: “The EU has a strong story to tell — we are global climate leaders.”

European Commission President-elect Ursula von der Leyen has promised to set a 2050 climate neutrality goal for the EU and to raise the bloc's 2030 emissions reduction target to at least 50 percent from 1990 levels.

The plans to spend more on private jets also stand in sharp contrast to remarks by Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who has highlighted his use of commercial flights. “When I was talking to Donald Trump, I was constantly looking at my watch so that I wouldn’t miss my flight home,” Juncker told German newspaper Bild am Sonntag earlier this year. "Trump kept saying, ‘Your ‘plane can wait!’ He didn’t realise that I didn’t have my own aeroplane."

In response to questions from POLITICO, a spokesperson for the Commission said that Juncker had taken 25 flights on private planes in 2018, the same number as in 2017. In 2016, he took 18 private flights, compared with 21 in 2015.

Juncker has come under criticism in the past for taking "air taxis" to short-haul destinations like Strasbourg.

The Commission said that private jets are only rented when there are no other options, and noted that the president's travel expenses are published on a regular basis.

“The president always takes chartered flights in line with the existing rules for that,” the spokesperson said. “More concretely, chartered air transport can only be considered when commercial flights are not available to reach a destination, when they cannot fit with the diary commitments of the president or the members of the College [of Commissioners] or for security reasons.”

The spokesperson added that “when the president takes a chartered flight, he is accompanied by a delegation so the cost of the flight has to be divided by the total number of people traveling with him — an average of nine.”

European Council President Donald Tusk follows similar guidelines on the use of private aircraft, the Council’s press office said. It said that if no commercial flight was suitable, the Council president could use private aircraft or a plane provided by the Belgian air force.

Tusk took 23 "air taxi" flights in 2018 (five of them provided by the Belgian air force), the Council said. That compared with 29 such flights in 2017, a total of 20 in 2016, and 26 in 2015.

The European Parliament did not respond to a request for comment.

The EU's original contract stated it was for the "provision of air-taxi transport services (chartered jet aeroplanes) for use by the President or other members of the European Commission, for the European Parliament Presidency, for the President of the European Council, for the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and any accompanying persons, mostly in the European Union."

The initial contract was awarded for an estimated 871 flight hours, with planned frequent destinations including Strasbourg, Berlin and Stuttgart. The top officials, according to the contract notice, were expected to primarily use jets carrying 7-9 passengers.

But the officials appear to have been using private jets more than expected: Earlier this month, the new notice was published stating that an “analysis of expenditure during the period already elapsed has led to the conclusion that this threshold will not be suffice [sic] to cover the needs of the European institutions until the expiry date of the contract i.e. 30.4.2021” and that as a result in March “the Commission launched a negotiated procedure to increase the overall maximum threshold of the contract.”

The Commission spokesperson said: “This does not mean that the total amount under the contract will be spent. The amended contract just provides a guarantee that the threshold will be sufficient to cover the needs of the EU institutions for the remaining period of the contract.”

The three winning contractors — Masterjet, Unijet and Abelag — all belong to the Luxembourg-based Luxaviation Group. In 2015, China Minsheng Investment bought a 33 percent stake in the Luxembourgish company.

Joshua Posaner contributed reporting.

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