Decisionmaking on EU biofuels regulatory framework is heating up

The inclusion of social criteria for biofuels production most likely is a fixed deal. The question is rather how it should be managed: The WG suggested that the Commission should be obliged to monitor and report on social standards in 3rd countries producing biofuels. The ILO-conventions should be guiding for the report. Some delegations of the WG favour the economic operators to be obliged to monitor instead of the Commission. For the majority of the Parliament however this might not go far enough. They want to see hard evidence for compliance with the conventions as a precondition to allow 3rd countries’ biofuels to count towards the EU target. The ‘ EU lawyers’ do not agree on whether such strict conditions are allowable under GATT.

Also the views of Parliament and the WG on the issue of (indirect) land use change could divert substantially. Whereas the majority of the Council WG favours the inclusion of a CO2 bonus for biofuels cultivated on degraded land (thus actually saving carbon by storing it in the soil) some voices in the Parliament (namely the rapporteur in the Environment Committee) want to add also a so-called risk adder or CO2 penalty for all biofuel crops regardless of where they are grown. This risk adder should help to cushion potentially occurring negative CO2 effects from (possible) indirect land use change. As the value of the risk adder is always the same, the result of this global approach is however highly questionable and will surely not bring about the distinction between “good” and “bad” biofuels as it is supposed to do. Moreover, not everyone Council and Parliament, is convinced that the science on ILUC effects is mature and robust enough to include such effects into the GHG saving calculation tool. Monitoring developments seems to be a more acceptable way forward.

Mandate and percentage
The issue of the mandate (obligatory use) is crucial. No mandate would mean (1) a fragmented EU market with different national rules and measures to promote biofuel use as we have it now and (2) marginal use of biofuels and possibly in several Member States no biofuels at all. Keeping the mandate is therefore crucially important. Both mandate and percentage have so far not been questioned in the Council. Member States do realize that changing the binding nature and the percentage of the transport target would undermine the overall objective of achieving 20% of renewable energy by 2020. In the European Parliament, however, the views are very dispersed. Several MEPs – especially Greens —have said they want the target to be deleted entirely echoing the views of many NGOs that are concerned about the sustainability of biofuels, their impact on biodiversity, food prices, food availability and social implications. Others have argued that biofuels should be a voluntary measure with an indicative target whereas other MEPs could agree to a lower but binding target.