On Tuesday 9 April, MEPs on the Committee on Environment (ENVI) voted against an objection (see EUROPE 13386/4) to the delegated act concerning Annex IX of the Renewable Energy Directive (31 votes against, 27 in favour and no abstentions), adding raw materials for the production of biofuels and biogas.
Before the vote, two of the co-rapporteurs, Tiemo Wölken (S&D, German) and Martin Häusling (Greens/EFA, German), had called for a vote in favour of the objection, criticising, among other things, an unclear definition of “severely degraded” land, but also “an unclear legal concept for ‘intermediate’ crops”, which does not provide protection against cases of fraud and entails risks for the environment.
Maria Spyraki (EPP, Greek), on the other hand, felt that the general framework of the Renewable Energy Directive and the delegated act contained strict measures to minimise these risks.
“On the contrary, the use of intermediate crops and crops grown on degraded land as defined in the delegated act (...) offers advantages: it extends the list of raw materials, provides opportunities for better land management and will contribute to restoration efforts (...)”, she argued.
Nils Torvalds (Renew Europe, Finnish) considered the delegated act to be “balanced” and to take account of “technological developments and the need to promote all sources of sustainable fuel”, but acknowledged that the list was not perfect and that fraud prevention would need to be monitored.
Voting by MEPs in plenary is scheduled for late April.
The objection: https://aeur.eu/f/bnn
The delegated act: https://aeur.eu/f/bh8 (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)