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The European Parliament’s ENVI Committee agreed on endorsing the Council’s proposed compromise on the revision of Renewable Energy and Fuel Quality Directives, also known as Indirect Land Used Change (ILUC) Directive. After several rounds of negotiations with the Council, MEPs gave in to most of Member States positions and voted to support the compromise agreement reached with the Council. 51MEPs voted in favour of this position while only 12 voted against.
The agreement establishes a cap of a 7% for land-based biofuels, including energy and food crops. Therefore, once exceeded this limit these will not be taken into account for the 10% renewables in transport goal. This cap is 2 points higher than the one proposed by the Commission and 1 point higher than the limit supported by the Parliament, still, Member States can go lower if they decide so. Furthermore, emissions deriving from ILUC should be reported by fuel suppliers and the European Commission although they will not be accounted, thus ILUC factors will not be included and pollutant biofuels will be allowed to receive public funds and to be accounted for the 10% goal. Regarding advanced biofuels, the compromise failed to set up an ambitious and firm objective. Council and Parliament agreed to establish a voluntary 0,5% goal by 2020, far away from the 1,25% supported by the Europarliament. Besides, these advanced biofuels will have to comply with sustainability criteria to be defined, such as waste hierarchy or the cascade principle for wood based biofuels. What is more, the Directive seeks a further support for advanced biofuels beyond the 2020 frame.
The closure of the ILUC file should restore legal and market certainty and consistency. Therefore, these developments are welcome but are still a far cry from what is needed to boost the sustaianble biofuels industry in the EU. The definition of so low and non mandatory goals for advanced biofuels will not give the required impulse to an incipient industry which is still in need for legal and financial support. Besides, since several issues have been left to Member State discretion there is a risk of uneven implementation of the legislation at national level which could disrupt the common market. The non inclusion of ILUC factors in carbon accounting or the absence of binding targets for renewable energy use in petrol will further limit the effects of this legislation, and therefore fail to differentiate more sustainable biofuels and to discourage the use of land based ones. Thus, EUBIA urges national policy makers to quickly transpose the Directive and to define national measures that may support the development of greener biofuels as ambitious national goals for advanced biofuels, such as Italy or France have recently done. Furthermore, EUBIA calls upon EU policy makers to address these inconsistencies as part of the Directive review in two years and a half and to develop a post-2020 policy framework for renewables in the transport sector.