EU Urged to Review Biofuels Policy

BusinessEurope, which groups 20 million European firms, made the call on the eve of an EU summit in Brussels which is due to discuss high food and oil prices as well as some elements of the bloc's plans to fight climate change, reports the Guardian.

"BusinessEurope considers the current high food prices give additional weight to its call for the EU to reconsider the 10 percent target for biofuels in transport," BusinessEurope President Ernest-Antoine Seilliere said in a letter to EU president Slovenia distributed to media on Wednesday.

EU leaders have agreed that renewable energy sources, such as ethanol, should make up 10 percent of road transport fuels by 2020 as part of the bloc's programme to lower carbon dioxide emissions, blamed for global warming.

But the plan has been attacked by some scientists and politicians who say growing production of biofuels is curbing food supply at a time of soaring prices which triggered protests and riots in some poor countries. Critics say fuels derived from crops compete with food from farmland and helped to push up food prices.

Separately, the EU is investigating whether soaring imports of biodiesel from the United States are breaking global trade rules because of subsidies involved, raising the prospect of punitive import tariffs for U.S. imports.

European industries say they could lose out to competitors in countries that have less strict rules -- ranging from the United States to China -- without a global deal.

View the Guardian story by clicking here.

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