Do we need a biofuel police?

At the Transport and Energy Council on Thursday (30 May), France, Germany and the Netherlands called the European Commission to launch controls in third countries to reinforce measures against imports of fraudulent biofuels. 

The Hague, Berlin and Paris urged the bloc’s executive to intensify the ongoing investigation on Chinese biodiesel exports to the EU and take “strong corrective actions to prevent the entry of fraudulent biofuels,” a note of the three delegations seen by Euractiv states. 

The three-member states proposed strengthening controls on production plants “wherever they are located in the world.” If operations do not accept the EU officials’ inspection, authorities should refuse the biofuel sustainability certification, preventing exports to the EU from that plant, the delegations proposed.

A biofuel police is an unprecedented proposal to tackle fraud in used cooked oils imports, one of the unintended consequences of the EU and global efforts to make aviation and transport more sustainable.  

Used Cooking Oil (UCO) is one of the simplest raw material to produce advanced biofuels, meaning those not obtained from feed and food crops.

And it was one of the cheapest options: according to data collected from the agricultural think tank Farm Europe, in 2017 a ton costed €800, while in 2022 the price had reached €1400 per ton. 

It’s the effect of a skyrocketing demand pushed by the race to produce sustainable aviation fuels. According to a recent report of the NGO Transport & Environment,  European UCO  consumption more than doubled in 2015-22.  

Nearly 80% of those products used in EU planes, trucks and cars, is imported, and 60% of the imports are from China.  

High demand has already triggered frauds, on which the EU and national authorities are investigating. Labelling normal vegetable oil (such as palm oil) as used oil, is the easiest way to take advantage of strong demand and inflated price. 

This has a double impact: biofuel from crops replace those made from waste, neutralising the intended benefits for climate and environment, and third countries companies compete unfairly with the EU ones.  

“[We] hope that the European Commission will follow up”, Farm Europe stated in an email supporting the initiative of Germany, France and the Netherlands.  

Among other recommendations, the agricultural think tank calls for “suspending imports from third countries suspected of fraud,” in “particular China” and strengthening the EU certification mechanism.

Nibbles of the week  

Member states determined to reinforce tools to prevent, manage agricultural crises. At the Agrifish Council on Monday (27 May), the European Union’s agriculture ministers called for the reinforcement of crisis management tools, demanding more budget and greater flexibility. 

On the same day, a group of EU countries pushed for an extension of food origin labelling. A dozen member states backed a call by Germany and Austria to extend mandatory origin labelling to a wider range of food products, despite concerns from some countries about disrupting the market and raising prices for consumers.   

EU hits Russian grain imports with tariff hike, countries call for further restrictions. European Union countries on Thursday greenlighted  a sharp increase in tariffs on Russian and Belarusian grain in a move aimed at halting imports of these products into the EU. Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Lithuania and Sweden backed a statement presented by Latvia demanding restrictions on other Russian agricultural products. 

Commission moves ahead with simplification measures for farmers. Also on Thursday, the EU executive made it easier to exempt farmers from the requirements to receive subsidies in case of exceptional weather events by clarifying the concept of “force majeure” 

The EU executive will propose to member states changes to the obligation to use geo-tagged photos to check some of the conditions for farms to receive subsidies at a CAP meeting on 5 June. 

Labour shortages, landmines plague Ukraine’s family farms, warns report. Ukrainian smallholder farmers continue grappling with the impact of the Russian invasion, facing damaged infrastructure, lack of veterinary services and drugs, increased production costs, and landmine contamination, according to a new report by humanitarian charity Mercy Corps. 

EU cereal producers face impact of reduced toxin limits, warns MEP. Reducing the maximum level allowed for mycotoxins – substances produced by fungi that can harm human health if consumed in sufficient quantities – in cereals could cost European  producers dearly, French Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Anne Sander warned on Wednesday. 

NGO calls on EU to ban fast-growing chicken breeds. The NGO Eurogroup for Animals said fast-growing broilers must be banned in the EU for animal welfare reasons, while representatives of European poultry producers countered that this would necessarily lead to higher prices for consumers and environmental problems. 

German farmers remain ‘very dissatisfied’ with federal government after protests. German farmers’ rallies marked the start of European demonstrations earlier this year, but while they have largely ebbed away, the agricultural sector remains unsatisfied with how the national government works. 

French farmers’ union chief wants Timmermans-style agriculture commissioner. A few weeks before the European elections, Arnaud Rousseau, president of the FNSEA – France’s largest farmers’ union – told Euractiv he was pleased to see food sovereignty at the centre of the political debate and called for the appointment of an Agriculture Commissioner who would also be vice-president of the Commission. 

[Edited by Angelo Di Mambro and Rajnish Singh]

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