Bridges Trade BioRes • Volume 10 • Number 5 • 19th March 2010
EU faces Lawsuit over Transparency on Biofuels
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Four environmental non-government organisations have lodged a lawsuit with the EU’s General Court against the EU executive, on the grounds that several documents alluding to the environmental dangers of biofuels, as well as their affect on food prices, were withheld, which they say violates European laws on transparency and democracy.
The green groups - ClientEarth, Transport & Environment, the European Environmental Bureau, and Birdlife International - filed the suit after claiming the EC missed a deadline under the freedom of information laws to release sought-after documents.
Commission spokesman Mark Gray claims that the greater issue at hand is “whether the Commission can be expected to handle such bulky and complex requests within the normal time frames.” Gray also claims the court action was “premature” on the grounds that the release of the documents has not been expressly refused. The response by the activists is that the delay could set “dangerous precedent” by allowing documents to effectively be suppressed until after a relevant policy decision has been made.
Biofuels proponents say the fossil fuel alternative has the potential to raise EU farm incomes and possibly reduce carbon outputs - a claim that is now contested by several environmentalists. However, concerns regarding the use of plant-based biofuels from within the Commission came to light when 118 reports and emails, citing worries about food shortages and the expansion of farming into sensitive areas were released to Reuters.
Additionally, The EU recently came under fire over a report by UK based development organisation ActionAid, which stated that the goal of sourcing 10 percent of transport fuel from renewable sources by 2020 would lead to massive famine in the developing world (see Bridges Trade BioRes, 22 February 2010 http://ictsd.org/i/news/biores/70930/)
In a similar case, the Commission was criticised by ombudsman P Nikiforos Diamandouros for failing to release letters between German car company Porsche and former industry commissioner Guenther Verheugen. These letters were sought by Friends of the Earth Europe for consideration in the debate over legislation to curb carbon emissions from automobiles. The ombudsman, who is responsible for investigating claims of administrative concerns in the EU and relevant bodies, stated in a report that “The Commission’s uncooperative attitude in this case is detrimental to the public image of the EU.”
Nusa Urbancic of Transport and Environment, a transport campaign group, said that in effort to reconcile EU environment policy with actual effects, there “must be full transparency about what the true impacts are.”
The EU is working to design and implement rules to ensure that only biofuels that are derived from sustainable energy crop plantations count towards its target, while biotech companies are developing second-generation biofuel technology using feedstocks that do not infringe on agricultural or forested land. Nevertheless, the NGOs say the already released documents demonstrate that there was already considerable concern among European policymakers regarding the impact of their attempted goal.
“EU Faces Court Challenge over Biofuel Reports,” REUTERS. 9 March 2010; “European Activists Sue Over Biofuels Studies,” THE NEW YORK ITMES. 8 March 2010. “Legal action targets EU biofuel policy,” BUSINESS GREEN. 9 March 2010.
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[...] аналогичной тематике (см. «Bridge Trade BioRes» за 19 марта 2010 г., http://ictsd.org/i/news/biores/72580/) и не опубликовала доклады о возможной взаимосвязи [...]