US-produced biofuels could in effect be shut out of Europe under plans being discussed in Brussels.
Anxious to distance itself from charges that its push for biofuels is creating hunger round the world, the European Union is considering stringent social and environmental criteria for imports that the US and some other big biofuel producers would not meet.
The sustainability criteria under discussion would in effect bypass World Trade Organisation rules forbidding biofuel bans. By excluding those products not meeting the criteria from its biofuels target of a 10 per cent contribution to the fuel mix by 2010, the EU would deprive those products of government support, removing incentives to import them.
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