A group of ten EU Member States (Sweden, Finland, Slovenia, Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Czech Republic and Hungary) sent a letter to the European Commission and the French Presidency of the EU Council on Wednesday 19 January calling for the current sustainability provisions for bioenergy in the EU Renewable Energy Directive (RED II) to be retained.
“It is too early” to revise these provisions, according to these countries, pointing out that the Commission presented its proposal for the revision of RED II only two weeks after the implementation of this directive in national legislation.
In their view, “frequent revisions” and new requirements discourage investment in bioenergy, “which calls into question the security of European investments in general”.
In particular, they deplore the fact that the Commission plans to adopt a delegated act, no later than one year after the entry into force of the revised Directive, on the modalities of application of the cascading principle to biomass (the principle of aiming at an efficient use of biomass by giving priority to its material use over its energy use).
In addition, the signatory countries criticise the proposed revision of RED II itself (see EUROPE 12762/8), arguing that it “introduces controversial additional requirements on bioenergy and significantly increases the administrative cost”.
They also consider that it does not take sufficient account of national characteristics regarding forest management practices, geographical location and energy production in the Member States.
The letter comes two days before an informal joint meeting of EU environment and energy ministers, which will focus on the role of forests and wood in environmental, energy and climate policies.
At the end of the meeting in Amiens, the French Minister of Ecological Transition, Barbara Pompili, welcomed the progress made in understanding the “challenges and the balance to be found” between the different roles of forests.
She also welcomed the fact that she had been able to bring together the Ministers for Energy and the Environment on this issue, in order to move away from the “silo” approach to this type of subject, which is linked to energy, climate and the environment.
See the letter: https://bit.ly/3qPs2Sk (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)