The European Commission has indicated that there will be no change in biofuels policy, despite increasing concerns that production will lead to a shortage in food supply.

Speaking in Brussels, the Agriculture Commissioner, Mariann Fischer Boel, said that “no policy U-turns lie ahead”, despite criticisms of EU targets, and that such targets were “European Union policy for a reason”.

In what is reported as a last minute shoehorn arrangement the president of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso will present to the European Parliament, Wednesday, eagerly awaited proposals on energy and climate change.

TURNING FOOD INTO FUEL

EU BIOFUELS A DISASTER

As this publication said in July last year the European Union’s biofuels policy, eagerly signed up to by ministers at their meeting the previous March, is a disaster.

Now, thanks to Friends of the Earth and BirdLife International who obtained a leaked report of the EU’s Joint Research Council our story has been officially confirmed.

The two NGOs describe the report as damning. EU Reporter, castigated by Commission officials at the time of our own story, was wrong about only one aspect: we said that there would be a new policy paper based on thorough impact assessments.

Instead, the EU has continued to chase unrealistic targets that have now been condemned in a report that,  the NGOs say: “reveals that the EU's biofuels policy is likely to have a net cost of up to 65 billion euros, need huge amounts of land outside of Europe and questions whether it will make any greenhouse gas savings at all”.

In a press release issued Friday Friends of the Earth and BirdLife International list the three key “thumbs down” conclusions of the JRC.

Parliament this week hosts yet one more conference on the topical subject of climate change, this time, however, with a difference.