EU might backtrack on its biofuels policy

EUROPEAN Union Ministers have hinted at the possibility of a revision of biofuels policy amidst concerns over the potential effects of fuel crops on food prices and the environment.

At last week’s Spring Summit, Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa, whose country currently holds the EU presidency, said the possibility that biofuels goals would need to be amended had not been excluded.

EU leaders are committed to raise the share of biofuels used in transport to 10 per cent by 2020.

France’s Europe Minister Jean-Pierre Jouyet said it would ‘belong to the French presidency to see where we go on this’, but there was no definite position at the moment. France takes on the presidency later this year.

Questions are now being asked about biofuels’ environmental credentials, raising concerns that increasing production to the levels required would have negative consequences for the environment and remove arable land from food production at a time of rising food prices.

No decision was made at the summit. It is believed that the EU Commission, which in January this year proposed strict new criteria to ensure biofuels are produced sustainably, is likely to resist any move to amend biofuels targets.

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