Farm Europe calls on the Commission to recognise all sustainable biofuels

Following the Commissioner’s recent statement to the European Parliament on sustainable biofuels, Farm Europe has written to Commissioner Tzitzikóstas to recall that EU crop-based biofuels should be fully included in the category of sustainable biofuels. They do not carry a high indirect land-use change (ILUC) risk, have not contributed to higher food prices or land displacement, and generate significant co-products including high-protein animal feed, advanced biofuels and biochemicals. Far from competing with food security, their production actively supports it.

The ongoing trend of agricultural land abandonment across the EU — driven by insufficient farm profitability — should led the European Commission to strengthen the demand from EU crop-based biofuel production, reinforcing food sovereignty, EU strategic autonomy, and rural economic resilience, and paving the way to step up other bioeconomy streams.

Therefore, Farm Europe calls on the Commission to uphold the principle of technological neutrality across all relevant legislative frameworks — including the ongoing revision of CO₂ standards for light- and heavy-duty vehicles — and to ensure that all sustainable renewable fuels are duly recognised. Crop-based EU biofuels are an immediately deployable, affordable decarbonisation tool that draws on existing infrastructure and vehicle fleets, generates income for EU farmers, and supports Europe’s energy sovereignty.

The letter also raises a critical market integrity concern: imports of Annex IX biofuels from China rose sevenfold between 2017 and 2023, reaching approximately 3 million tonnes — roughly 20% of total EU biofuels consumption. A substantial share of these imports has been identified as fraudulent, involving the mislabelling of virgin palm oil and its derivatives as used cooking oil or other qualifying feedstocks. This fraud, documented by the European Court of Auditors (2016 and 2023) and acknowledged in the Commission’s own implementing decision of 18 July 2025, is structurally incentivised by the double-counting mechanism under the Renewable Energy Directive.

Farm Europe warns that without addressing this fraud, the genuine availability of advanced biofuels is markedly overstated, and the case for marginalising crop-based EU biofuels rests on a distorted picture of the market.