Brussels, 25/02/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 25 February, Copa-Cogeca slammed the European Parliament Environment Committee vote on the future of EU policy on biofuels.
In a press release, the agricultural organisations say that the position of MEPs on this committee “threatens the future of the EU biofuels industry, causing plants to shut down, and puts at risk safe animal feed supplies”. Copa-Cogeca Secretary-General Pekka Pesonen warned that the vote by the Environment Committee “goes in the wrong direction, making it more difficult to reach an agreement with member states”.
According to Pesonen, the Committees proposal to introduce a 6% cap for first generation biofuels would lead to “a big reduction in EU rapeseed surface area, to disturbances on the cereals and sugar markets, as well as a reduction in possible crop diversification through rotation”. Capping first generation biofuels would prevent the EU plant protein deficit from being rebalanced. Pesonen believes it could also prove harmful to the stability of agricultural markets and would underutilize our production capacity, especially in the new Member States where there are important productivity gains to be had.
Copa-Cogeca supports at least 8% of transport fuels made from crop-based fuels and said: “Capping them below 8% could also undermine investments in second-generation biofuels, which continue on from first generation biofuels and in the bioeconomy in general”. Copa-Cogeca also repeated its opposition to the inclusion in the report by Mr Torvalds of Indirect Land Use Changes (ILUC) as the models used as a basis to introduce ILUC factors in the fuel suppliers reporting to member states because they were unacceptable and not backed up by science. The organisation said that these had not been agreed at international level and concluded that “If ILUC were accepted, they would force bioenergy plants to shut down and the bio-based economy would never become a reality”. (Translation from the original French version)