MGQ cabinet divided over biofuels

The cabinet of European Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn is understood to have been heavily divided in the run-up to agreeing new legislation on biofuels.

According to documents obtained by EurActiv, colleagues close to the Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science were pressing Geoghegan-Quinn to reduce support for biofuels, arguing that such proposals should be delayed and “kicked…into the long grass”. The papers were seen as part of access to information rules.

Cabinet members are also understood to have been keen to delay a 5% limit on the amount of biofuels in the EU’s 2020 Transport Strategy.

In comments carried in the Irish Times, Michael Jennings, the spokesman for Geoghegan-Quinn, said the Commissioner: “fully supported the proposals…including the 5% cap on first generation biofuels [and] championed the evidence provided by the [EU’s] Joint Research Centre.”

The European Commission put forward legislation to the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament last autumn, ending support for the so-called ‘first-generation biofuels’, which have been criticised for being the most polluting.

Biofuels, biotechnology and the bioeconomy are all expected to receive substantial funding from Horizon 2020 across several different pillars.