G/TBT/W/615  
 
25 March 2019  
(19-1821) Page: 1/2 
Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade  Original: English  
 
EUROPEAN UNION — AMENDMENTS TO THE DIREC TIVE 2009/28/EC,  
RENEWABLE ENERGY DIR ECTIVE  
STATEMENT BY INDONESIA  TO THE COMMITTEE ON TECHNICAL BARRIERS T O TRADE  
6 AND 7  MARCH  2019 
The following communication, dated 25 March 2019 , is being circulated at the request of the 
delegation of Indonesia . 
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1.  The Government of Indonesia thanks the EU for the clarification expressed to Indonesia regarding 
EU Renewable Energy Directives. Although EU has explained that a gradual p hasing out of  palm oil 
within biofuel targets would not affect palm oil exports , the respon se did not adequately answer our 
concerns.  
2.  The EU  also informed us that the Draft of the Delegated Act that setting out the criteria to 
determining high Indirect Lan d Use C hange  (ILUC)  and certifying the low ILUC risk biofuels was 
already published and open for public consultation until 8 March 2019 . 
3.  The Draft Delegated Act (DDA) represents a political compromise reached within the Trilogue  
between the EU Institutions and Member States to exclude palm oil from the EU mandated biofuel 
sector through the use of a scientifically flawed ILUC which is used to protect EU rapeseed and 
discriminating against palm oil.  
4.  The Draft Delegated Act that u sed ILUC criteria is scientifically flawed and applied by the EU to 
deliberately discriminate against palm oil which intentionally  focuses on lands of high biodiversity to 
target palm oil producing countries.  
5.  Indonesia firmly believes that any weighting  on the sustainability issues should not cover only 
deforestation, but should also tak e into account  the overall aspect of sustainability which include s 
other environmental aspects, social and economic aspect as commited by both developed 
and developing coun tries in the overall objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 
2030. The only legitimate non -discriminatory approach to assessing the environmental impact of 
vegetable oils in general is through the UN SDGs by 2030 which has been widely embrac ed by 
Members of the UN including the EU and Indonesia. The adoption of this global standard broadens 
the environmental impact of vegetable oils to include the degradation of soils from nitrate 
concentrations resulting from the cultivation of rapeseed and soy.  
6.  ILUC does not contribute at all to the efforts being made by Indonesia to address environmental 
concerns on the loss of biodiversity and land clearing through a moratorium on forest clearances, its 
sole purpose is to protect rapeseed  and soybean . Indonesia is also aware that a number of EU 
member states are encouraging the Commission to accelerate a ban and this likely underlines the 
terminology used of "no later than 2030 ". It is in line with the political pressure applied by the EU 
member  states on HVO operations to cease sourcing palm oil in favour of rapeseed from 2020.  
7.  The imposition of a freeze and gradual phasing out of palm oil for the mandatory biofuel sector, 
in our view, can be regarded as a technical barrier to trade and represents a form o f a mandatory 
restraint on trade that would violate Article 2.1 and Article 2.2 of the TBT Agreement. Therefore, we 
urge European Union to ensure the consistency of these regulations with provisions in the WTO.  G/TBT/W/615  
 
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  8.  We look forward to a response from the EU on all of these concerns and stand ready to undertake 
a genuine dialogue with EU on these issues . 
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