FACTBOX: Key points for negotiation in EU renewable energy bill

Last week the EU Parliament passed a bill to amend the EU Renewable Energy Directive (RED II), legislation that will set renewable energy targets for the European Union for the next 12 years.

The bill is one of the most contentious that Brussels has dealt with, with “no political party happy with its outcome”, according to MEP Marijana Petir, who led the bill through one of the committee stages and was speaking at the Future of Fuels Conference in Berlin on Monday.

Before becoming law, the Parliament’s bill, which could impact UK legislation if Brexit talks culminate in harmonised environmental policy, can still be changed via trialogue discussions with the European Commission and the European Council, which has its own position on the bill.

That is not expected to conclude until November this year, a month before annual UN Climate talks start.

Leading the Parliament’s negotiating team for the biofuels part of the bill is Bas Eickhout, a Dutch MEP and member of the Green Party.

Speaking at the same conference, he made it clear that several parts of the bill will stay – including a cap for the use of crop-based biofuels, a ban on palm oil in biofuels and the fact there will be a target of at least 12% for transport – a figure that chimes with UK goals.

So what are the key parts to look for in the discussions?

Overall renewable target

The overall target level has still to be decided.

Currently the EU has a target to source 20% of its energy by renewable sources by 2020.

The latest figures show that the EU sourced 16% of its energy from renewable sources in 2014, meaning it is well on target to meet that goal.

But for 2030, there is a difference between the European Council, which is comprised of ministers from member states, and the Parliament’s directly-elected chamber of about 750 MEPs.

The former favours a target of 27%, with the latter 35%. It’s likely the target will be somewhere in between.

A more contentious point will be whether each member state shall have national targets for renewable energy, as they did for the 2020 target, including one for transport.

However, the political landscape has changed since 2008 when the 2020 targets were formed and European officials are wary of setting individual member state targets for fear of encroaching on domestic sovereignty issues.

“This will be a huge debate. Many countries might say ‘We decide on our own energy mix and Brussels has nothing to do with that’,” said Eickhout.

Transport and crop-based biofuels caps

In the Commission’s original proposal, it omitted a target for transport.

However, both the Council and the Parliament have inserted a sub-target for transport, with the former setting a target of 14% and the latter at 12%.

While it appears that this is where the greatest harmony is, that debate may get wrapped up in what kind of renewable energy does the target pertain to.

The Council has set a cap on crop-based biofuels at 7%, while the Parliament is seeking to cap their use at 2017 levels up to a maximum of 7%.

That latter figure is estimated to be at around 4%, in line with the Commission proposal.

“That is certainly going to be a big discussion,” said Eickhout, who added he expected the compromise to be “somewhere between those two points.”

Sub-targets?

While the EU will not dictate what policies and measures each country should use to meet the targets, it is likely it will set individual sub-targets for types of biofuels or their uses.

But what they are and how to meet them is still to be discussed.

The parliament is calling for a share of advanced biofuels to be 1.5% in 2021, rising to 10% by 2030, while the Parliament has called for 3% by 2030 with 1% by 2025.

It is also unclear whether and how to incentivise biofuel use in aviation and maritime transport, what, if any, types of advanced biofuels should be targeted, whether to incentivise electrification in transport and whether to include rail in the final target.