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Don't use biofuels to fund farmers: EU trade chief
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union must not use a surge in demand for biofuels as a new way to finance its farmers and should instead open up to imports of green fuels, the bloc's trade chief will say on Thursday.
EU agriculture groups see crops for fuels as a money-spinner as Europe moves ahead with plans to fight climate change including less use of fossil fuels.
But European Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said EU biofuel policy should be based on environmental concerns, and not as a way to look after European interest groups.
"Biofuel policy is not ultimately an industrial policy or an agricultural policy -- it is an environmental policy, driven above all by the greenest outcomes," Mandelson said in notes for a speech to a biofuels conference in Brussels later on Thursday.
"Europe should be open to accepting that we will import a large part of our biofuel resources...We should certainly not contemplate favoring EU production of biofuels with a weak carbon performance if we can import cheaper, cleaner biofuels."
Mandelson's speech is likely to raise eyebrows in EU countries with strong farm interests, chief among them France whose new President Nicolas Sarkozy has repeatedly criticized Brussels for being too focused on open markets.
Mandelson will probably get a warmer reception from Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva who will also attend Thursday's conference as part of the South American country's campaign to promote biofuels worldwide.
Brazil, with its huge sugarcane output and vast territory, is a major biofuels producer, along with countries in Asia.
But Brazilian biofuel currently faces EU import tariffs of about 70 percent, a level that some officials in Brussels say may have to be lowered to meet the targets for 2020.
The 27-nation EU is trying to square several key policies as it prepares for big growth in the use of bio-diesel and ethanol.
EU leaders agreed in March that biofuels should make up at least 10 percent of vehicle fuels by 2020.
European Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel sees imports accounting for between 10 and 30 percent of EU biofuel by 2020. Some exporters are eyeing a bigger share than that.
Mandelson warned that Europe did not want biofuel imports coming at the cost of destroyed ecosystems or energy-guzzling farm techniques and transportation.
"Europeans won't pay a premium for biofuels if the ethanol in their car is produced unsustainably, or if it comes at the expense of rainforests," he said, adding the EU should help developing countries to verify their biofuels are sustainable.
