Energy Security
L’Union européenne fait marche arrière sur les biocarburants (Le Monde)
Original and Portuguese translation available.
All of a sudden, 27 energy ministers from the EU gathered and decided to re-read the article 3 for the renewable energy plan. As mr Jean-Louis Borloo, the French environment and energy minister, said, “The member states realised that the Commission’s plan specifies that 10 percent of transport needs must come from renewable energy, not 10 percent from biofuels.” It is not a coincidence that they decided to re-read the plan at a time when the biofuels are being accused of responsability for most of the current food price raise.
Mr Ferran Tarradellas, spokerman for the EU energy commissioner, mr Andris Piebalgs, justified that biofuels were being treated as the only choice available because they are “the most realistic solution to decrease EU’s dependence on oil by 2020.” Mr Tarradellas definitely had a wiser choice of words.
But there is more regulation that is not so open to interpretation. EU decided in 2003 to mix 5.75% of biofuels to gasoline and diesel until 2010; France has a 7% goal. In March 2007, they decided to expand the target to 10% by 2020. Under both numbers, it makes sense for the EU to drop the tax barriers and to negociate the purchase of the Brazilian sugar cane ethanol, as reported a few days ago by news agencies.
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