Case C-624/22, BP France: Judgment of the Court (Third Chamber) of 29 July 2024 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Conseil d’État – France) – BP France SAS v Ministre de l’Économie, des Finances et de la Souveraineté industrielle et numérique (Reference for a preliminary ruling – Promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources – Directive 2009/28/EC – Articles 17 and 18 – Directive 2018/2001 – Articles 25, 29 and 30 – Sustainability and greenhouse gas emissions saving criteria – Verification of compliance with those criteria – Biofuels used for transport – Production of fuels using the co-processing procedure – Evidence of compliance with those sustainability criteria – Mass balance method – Methods for evaluating the content of hydrotreated vegetable oils (HVO) in fuels produced using that procedure – Member State’s legislation requiring a physical carbon-14 analysis – Article 34 TFEU – Free movement of goods)
Date: 2024-07-29
Institutions: Court of Justice
Subjects: biofuel, free movement of goods, fuel tax, greenhouse gas, reduction of gas emissions, renewable energy, sustainable product, vegetable oil








C_202405593EN.000101.fmx.xml












Official Journal of the European Union


EN
C series













C/2024/5593


30.9.2024






Judgment of the Court (Third Chamber) of 29 July 2024 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Conseil d’État – France) – BP France SAS v Ministre de l’Économie, des Finances et de la Souveraineté industrielle et numérique


(Case C-624/22,
                (1)
BP France)

(Reference for a preliminary ruling - Promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources - Directive 2009/28/EC - Articles 17 and 18 - Directive 2018/2001 - Articles 25, 29 and 30 - Sustainability and greenhouse gas emissions saving criteria - Verification of compliance with those criteria - Biofuels used for transport - Production of fuels using the co-processing procedure - Evidence of compliance with those sustainability criteria - Mass balance method - Methods for evaluating the content of hydrotreated vegetable oils (HVO) in fuels produced using that procedure - Member State’s legislation requiring a physical carbon-14 analysis - Article 34 TFEU - Free movement of goods)
(C/2024/5593)
Language of the case: French

Referring court

Conseil d’État

Parties to the main proceedings


Applicant: BP France SAS

Defendant: Ministre de l’Économie, des Finances et de la Souveraineté industrielle et numérique

Operative part of the judgment







1.


Articles 17 and 18 of Directive 2009/28/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2009 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources and amending and subsequently repealing Directives 2001/77/EC and 2003/30/EC, as amended by Directive (EU) 2015/1513 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 September 2015, and Articles 29 and 30 of Directive (EU) 2018/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2018 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources,
must be interpreted as meaning that the mass balance monitoring system and the voluntary national or international schemes provided for in those articles are intended to assess and justify the sustainability of raw materials and biofuels, and their mixtures, and not to regulate the evaluation of the share of energy from renewable sources contained in fuels produced according to the co-processing procedure.










2.


Article 34 TFEU
must be interpreted as precluding legislation of a Member State which requires, for the purposes of calculating an incentive tax for the incorporation of biofuels, that a physical carbon-14 analysis of the biofuel content (HVO) of fuels produced according to the co-processing procedure be carried out, upon the entry of those fuels in the first tax warehousing facility of that Member State, where those fuels are produced in an installation located in another Member State, which uses a voluntary mass balance monitoring system recognised by the European Commission as being comprehensive under Article 18(4) of Directive 2009/28 and under Article 30(4) of Directive 2018/2001, and whereas (i) fuels produced according to that procedure in the first Member State are not subject to such an analysis when they are released for consumption directly from the installation and (ii) the authorities of that first Member State allow the biofuel content of exports or releases for consumption in sectors other than transport to be evaluated – in order to determine the biofuel content that may be allocated for the purposes of that tax upon exit from a production facility under a duty suspension arrangement or a national tax warehousing facility – on the basis of an average monthly incorporation rate of the facility concerned.






(1)  
            OJ C 15, 16.1.2023.


ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2024/5593/oj
ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)