EU Taxonomy: General Court largely upholds aviation and shipping criteria

On 30 September 2026, the EU General Court ruled on a challenge brought by three environmental NGOs against the technical screening criteria for aviation and maritime transport under the EU Taxonomy, adopted by the European Commission in 2023. 

The NGOs had asked the Commission to withdraw the criteria allowing certain conventional aircraft and gas-fuelled vessels to count as "transitional" sustainable activities. The Commission refused in June 2024. The NGOs took the refusal to the EU General Court. For more information, see our previous blog post. The Court dismissed almost the entire action. It confirmed the Commission's broad discretion under Article 19 of the Taxonomy Regulation. It rejected both aviation pleas, including challenges to the CO2 thresholds, the fleet replacement ratio and the minimum sustainable aviation fuel percentages. It also rejected most of the maritime pleas. 

The Court upheld one point of the challenge: for gas-fuelled vessels, a requirement to use "state-of-the-art" methane-slippage mitigation cannot stand on its own. Where verification depends on compliance with emissions thresholds, the criterion must either set those thresholds itself or expressly cross-refer to an identifiable standard (such as FuelEU Maritime). On that basis, the Commission's refusal to re-examine the criteria was annulled to that limited extent.

The Taxonomy criteria for aviation and shipping remain in force and continue to apply. In practice, however, the methane-slippage condition for gas-fuelled vessels should now be read subject to the Court's finding. The Commission must re-open the internal review on that point and is expected to revise the maritime criteria. The timing has not been announced, and an appeal to the Court of Justice on points of law remains open to either side.