Madam President, we are being consulted on a proposal for a tax directive on biofuels. Before examining the merits of the proposal, I would like to make two initial comments. The first concerns language. Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, please excuse the flaws in the language that I am using in this House. My mother tongue is, in fact, Catalan and I condemn the fact that 10 million citizens are unable to use their own language in this House. The second comment concerns terminology. In my view, the term ‘biofuel’ is regrettable. I proposed to the Committee on Economic Affairs that we use the term ‘agrofuel’. Since this proposal was rejected, I mention it now for the record. The proposal for a directive seems to be the result of the directive intended to promote the use of biofuels in transport. The Commission is working on a hypothesis that road transport will continue to increase. In order to meet the commitments made by the Union in Kyoto, we must contemplate using, at least in part, fuels that do not exacerbate the greenhouse effect as a substitute for fossil fuels. In this connection, the White Paper on transport policy states that CO2 emissions from transport can be expected to increase by 50% between 1990 and 2010. According to assessments made in the White Paper, road transport is responsible for 84% of these emissions. Furthermore, the growth in demand in the transport sector is causing increased dependence on oil- or natural gas-producing third countries. The Commission Green Paper on the security of energy supply recommends that substitute fuels should represent 20% of our total consumption by 2020. The Commission believes that we will benefit from promoting the use of bio- or agrofuels, giving us the possibility of using land which, under the Blair House Agreement, is excluded from food production. In the Commission’s view, this could be beneficial for the future Member States, Eastern Europe, Malta and Cyprus. In order to promote the use of biofuels, a tax incentive must be introduced. Taking into account the current price of crude oil, the per-litre cost price of producing pure bio-diesel would be between EUR 0.25 and EUR 0.30 higher than that of fossil diesel oil. In fact, it appears that the Commission wanted to amend the tax regime for biofuels following the ruling by the Court of First Instance of 27 September 2000. These arrangements constitute an exception to the general law on excise duties for mineral oils; the harmonisation of the structure of excise duties for mineral oils is the subject of Directive 92/81/EEC, which the present directive is seeking to amend. In order to encourage the production of bio- or agrofuels, Member States have, until now, been able to implement measures to reduce or exempt excise duties under Article 8(2)(d) of Directive 92/81/EEC. Under the aforementioned Directive, pilot projects for the technological development of more environmentally-friendly products, in particular in relation to fuels from renewable resources, may benefit from these exemptions. On the basis of these provisions, Germany, France and Sweden, in particular, have approved tax derogations that may go as far as complete tax exemptions. The Court of First Instance, however, overruled the Commission’s decision to apply this specific tax derogation to France since the manufacture of ethyl-tertiary-butyl-ether (ETBE) in France had gone beyond the pilot project phase. Another provision has been made for derogations under Article 8(4) of Directive 92/81/EEC. The Council takes the decision, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission. In view of the case law involving BP Chemicals, several Member States submitted derogation applications to the Commission. On the basis of Article 93 of the EC Treaty, the proposal for a directive seeks to harmonise the rate of excise duty for biofuels. It is stipulated therefore that Member States may apply levels of taxation lower than the rate of 20% which has been retained as a lower limit on these products, but that the levels of taxation may not be lower than 50% of the normal rate of excise duty applied to fossil fuels. Member States may apply an additional reduction to bio- or agrofuels used by certain hauliers, including local public transport suppliers. Several amendments are seeking a total exemption from excise duty to be applied to biofuels. It is unlikely that the Member States, which must act unanimously in this area, will reach an agreement on this issue. From an ecological point of view, there is no evidence whatsoever that the products that these particular directives are encouraging, namely, bio- or agrofuels which can be mixed with oil (biodiesel and bio-ethanol) offer any real benefit. One might wonder whether the ideas for reducing the greenhouse effect are not being put forward to conceal the true intentions of oil companies, chemical refining industries, the motor industry and agriculture. The amendment that we tabled, therefore, seeks to ensure that the size of reductions in the rate of tax are calculated solely in accordance with the ecological benefits of products and their uses. From this point of view, we believe it would be more appropriate to encourage biofuels with a view to their use by what are called their ‘captive audience’, namely taxis, bus companies and diesel locomotives. A separate distribution network could be set up, engines could be modified to run exclusively on biofuels and energy savings could thus be made. This solution also has the merit of encouraging decentralised development. It may be possible for these products and uses to benefit from total tax exemption. This should also apply to biofuels produced from the biomass from Mediterranean regions where there is a substantial risk of fire. In essence, although we agree on the 2% target of biofuels for the year 2005, we oppose the 5.75% target by 2010. We call for the quantitative objectives to be redefined following an environmental impact assessment which takes into account the alternative uses of biomass.

Political group: Verts-ALE