Biofuels--at what cost? : Government support for ethanol and biodiesel in the European Union

This report, one of a series of country studies undertaken by or for the Global Subsidies Initiative (GSI) of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), examines the types and magnitude of support to biofuels in the European Union (EU). [...] Although the Commission had already adopted legislation to promote biofuels in the mid-1980s, in 2003 it took the much more significant step of passing a directive that fixed indicative targets for the consumption of biofuels in the EU’s domestic markets (2 percent in 2005 and 5.75 percent in 2010). [...] Chapter 4 describes and quantifies the different elements of support for biodiesel and ethanol at the European level, and at the national level, to the extent that information could be obtained, for each of the Member States. [...] In addition to expressing support in total euros (€) and euros per litre, the chapter estimates the amount of support in terms of several indicators relevant to the question of its cost-effectiveness: subsidy per litre of gasoline and diesel equivalent, subsidy per unit of fossil fuel avoided, and subsidy per tonne of CO2-equivalent avoided. [...] In the wake of the EU’s sugar reforms, which began to be implemented in 2006, some small sugar distilleries are preparing to close; or produce only the quantities of ethanol needed to fulfil the production quotas allocated to them in previous years by the French government.