European renewable ethanol producers have launched a legal challenge against the EU’s FuelEU Maritime Regulation, asserting that it fails to acknowledge the benefits of sustainable crop-based biofuels like renewable ethanol.
Companies representing the majority of the EU’s renewable ethanol production are seeking to annul a section of the regulation that treats crop-based biofuels as having the same emission factors as the least favorable fossil fuel pathway. Consequently, the FuelEU Maritime Regulation excludes Renewable Energy Directive (RED)-compliant crop-based biofuels from the maritime sector’s decarbonization objectives.
The legal action argues that the EU’s approach hinders the achievement of ambitious decarbonization targets and jeopardizes climate change mitigation, energy independence, food security, and strategic autonomy goals.
The legal challenge is founded on multiple arguments, including the claim that the European Parliament and the Council committed a manifest error of assessment by not relying on scientific and technical data in forming their environmental policy.
The legal application for annulment was filed with the General Court of the European Union on 18 December 2023. The challenge was filed by members of ePURE, the European renewable ethanol association, along with Pannonia Bio Zrt.
Europe will be a climate laggard when the global maritime and aviation markets harmonise around solutions such as sustainable crop-based biofuels that the EU has ruled out but that are affordable, scalable and have low carbon intensity
… said Mark Turley, CEO of ClonBio Group, the owner of Pannonia
