A mixed bag from Wednesday’s full European Parliament vote on biofuels and that issue of indirect land use change, ILUC, after months of debate in the parliament.
The bad news is that the EP, as expected, voted to approve a cap on first generation biofuels, although the cap was approved at 6%, not the 5% that environmentalists were foaming at the mouth for. If approved by EU Member States, the cap would effectively lower the 10% renewables-in-transport target for 2020 that the EU set a few years back; that target is expected to be achieved largely by the use of biofuels.
The better news is that some positive amendments in UNICA’s interests were adopted, such as a 7.5% sub-target for ethanol and a sub-target of 2.5% for advanced biofuels, which includes bagasse and straw. And, proposals were rejected that would have applied protectionist and discriminatory measures and made it difficult, if not impossible, for sustainable, EU-compliant biofuels produced in non-European Union nations to be legally counted toward meeting EU renewable energy and fuel quality requirements.
Much to the environmentalists’ irritation, this whole issue now goes to the EU’s 28 Member States, who are less enthusiastic about the ILUC issue than Members of the European Parliament. Member States will try to come up with their own position on the biofuel/ILUC topic – which must then, time-consumingly, go back to the Parliament to be reviewed and debated.
What’s all this mean?? Delay, Delay, Delay. That is not ideal, but at least this situation raises the prospect of a better deal coming from Member States—or maybe no deal at all, should Member States fail to agree on a common position.
So stay tuned. A lot more to come on this from Brussels.
Some of the coverage from yesterday’s vote via Reuters, BusinessGreen, The Guardian, BBC News, Wall Street Journal, and Euractiv.
A seasoned professional specializing in international trade policy, Géraldine Kutas leverages over a decade of experience to strengthen UNICA’s activities across the European Union, the United States and Asia. She has a deep expertise in biofuels and agricultural policies, coupled with extensive exposure to multilateral and regional trade negotiations in agriculture. Ms. Kutas is the author and co-author of several international publications on these topics.
Before joining UNICA, she was a researcher and a professor at the Groupe d’Economie Mondiale at Sciences Po(GEM), Paris, and coordinator of the European Biofuels Policy research programme (EBP). Ms. Kutas has also worked as a consultant at the Inter-American Bank of Development and for agro-business firms.
Ms. Kutas has a Ph.D. in International Economics from the Institut d’Etudes Poliques de Paris and a Master degree in Latin American Studies from Georgetown University, Washington DC.