POME biofuel imports come under discussion

At the recent meeting of the EU Energy Council, the sharp increase in imports of biofuels from palm oil mill effluent (POME) and the need for action to prevent fraud were discussed at the initiative of Ireland, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.
The Union for the Promotion of Oil and Protein Crops (UFOP) welcomed this overdue initiative, as the development was to be expected.
The UFOP emphasised the legal framework of the Renewable Energies Directive, which authorises member states to count biofuels from palm oil mill effluent double towards their quota obligations.
In principle, the EU Commission must, in the view of the UFOP, itself fulfil its responsibility to check that the type of raw material is in line with the procedural innovation for proving compliance with the legal requirement according to Article 28 (6) of the Renewable Energy Directive 2018/2001 (RED II): ‘Raw materials that can only be processed using advanced technologies will be included in Annex IX Part A.’