Continuing...

And at least for gas taxes there certainly is an alternative without large changes that is especially viable for non city-dwellers: electric cars. While still too expensive, they are much cheaper than even 5 years ago.

The cheapest electric car I know of in Portugal is the Dacia Spring for around 20000€ - 20X the average portuguese salary. A used Zoe goes for around 12000€. As comparison, the Dacia Spring costs 15800€ in France, only 9X the current minimum wage. Electric cars are talked about in Portugal as cars for the rich - though a lot of the "rich" upper crust of portuguese earners (the low top 15%) is only middle or low-middle class by the standards of neighboring countries (an interesting piece by a portuguese economist on that - https://www.publico.pt/2023/08/18/opiniao/opiniao/classe-media-politico-quiser-2060528).

The price of electric cars has ironically been increasing fast in Portugal. I remember the Spring was around 16000€ at launch.

The last point is entirely ridiculous: The Netherlands certainly isn’t known for cheap trains and france is the opposite of a train every 10 minutes (especially outside paris), with often large multi-hour gaps between TGV connections from many cities. Most people in other european countries fly much less than people in Portugal or Spain (...)

I mean... yes? That's my whole point. As an anecdote, students in Portugal going on an interrail are usually told to fly to somewhere in the center of Europe and start it there, so they can do it cheaper and better, and then fly back. It's natural that with better rail infrastructure, people don't use flights as much. I wouldn't get in a plane or car if I had the option. I didn't take a drivers' license while I lived in Porto. When I was forced to move out tough, I got one. Outside of that and Lisbon, it's car trips mostly as it's often the only option. I didn't even know what a TGV was until I rode one in Italy. Check the timetables for an intercity train in Portugal - it manages to be simultaneously slow, with large time gaps and expensive prices when adjusted for salaries.

Flying is one of the few climate related things where the only foreseeable “solution” is a reduction.

I very much agree. We should work to stop most - if not almost all - flights inside Europe, or at least when the destinations are internal or between neighboring countries. But I also think we should remember that countries in the EU are at incredibly different stages in terms of economy and buying power.

The EU's major plan for combined train infrastructure has been halted by France for around 10 years, because they desperately wanted to prevent english from being chosen as the main language for train conductors - though I've just checked and that decision has finally been approved in may, apparently (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12109253/Train-drivers-EU-countries-speak-English-new-rules-Brussels.html).

I applaud France's new found enthusiasm for saving the planet, I wish they hadn't spent the last few years boycotting EU decisions to prop up its train infrastructure.

People in poorer countries get to have "leisure" as well. These types of blanket decisions only seem to further the already existing and increasing anti EU sentiment in countries like mine and periphery countries in general.