Europe threatens to shut down biodiesel exports again from 2023

Biodiesel is in danger again. This time from Europe, which assimilates that Latin American production is based on a alarming deforestation and seeks to ban imports of this soy-based biofuel from 2023.

The decision also covers palm oil-based biodiesel. And he tries to punish Jair Bolsonaro’s Brazil. But hide another one intention and protect the rapeseed biofuel produced in Europe.

The truth is that biodiesel It is not easy to export because it requires countries that cut fossil fuels with those of plant origin. The markets are the European countries and the United States.

Europe, which had closed its doors to us in retaliation nationalization of the YPF in 2012. Buenos Aires made recourse to the World Trade Organization, which ruled against the European decision. And after a few months of delay, the market has finally reopened for us.

United States of America still closed. They do so with the argument that Argentina subsidizes this industry, which with the latest change in withholding that apparent benefit has come to naught.

But Washington maintains its intransigence and the country remains without embarking them 1.5 million tons per year, about 2.1 billion dollars. The companies affected range from the national oil companies General Deheza, Molinos and what remains of Vicentín, to the American giant Cargill, in addition to the European companies Glencore and Dreyfus.

This midday Luis Zubizarreta, president of Carbio, the association of the biofuel industry and director of the French company Dreyfus, was seen ask for the support of the French ambassador, Claudia Scherer-Effosse, on the occasion of the celebration of 14 July.

“The draft European regulation recently approved by the Environment Commission of the European Parliament excludes soybean biodiesel of the biofuels market in the European Union as they believe they are products of the deforestation and land use change. In practice this project is clearly a tariff barrier, because there is no single justification for doing so. In Argentina, soybean production is locked 12 years agoWe also carry out direct sowing and rotation. Europe wants to close its market without real arguments, “he said Clarione.

In turn, in a statement in English, Ciara, the chamber that gathers the oil industry and Carbio, that gathers biodiesel, expressed its refusal.

Argentina exports around 1.2 million tons per year to Europe. That is about 1,680 million dollars.

That document details Argentine soybean production it does not represent an environmental riskl by crop rotation and direct sowing. They also point out that soybean production is stagnant. And that the level of deforestation linked to cultivation is imperceptible something that Europe itself has controlled since 2008.