THE COMMERCE Ministry is pushing the House of Representatives to amend a 2005 law banning the sale of biofuels made from genetically-modified (GM) plants, in order to avoid being fined millions of euros by the EU for non-compliance with one of its directives.
The European Commission (EC) asked the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on 28 May this year for a ruling that, by enacting a law containing the specific banning clause without previously notifying the EC, Cyprus is in breach of its obligations under EU Directive 98/34/EC.
If the ECJ makes such a ruling, the government will most likely face a one-off fine of a few million euros, with the possibility of an additional daily fine of thousands of euros until final compliance.
The problem was created in 2005, when Cypriot Law No.66(I) transposed the 2003 EU directive on the promotion of the use of biofuels or other reusable fuels for transport. That law contained an irregular clause which made the distribution and sale of biofuels produced from GM plants illegal.
The government received a letter dated 3 May 2007 from the EC warning that Cyprus had failed to comply with EU law. However, amending legislation designed to reverse the ban was voted down by the House Plenum – by just one vote – on 27 May 2007. A revised version of the law, which left the offending clause in place, was eventually approved by the House in August 2007.
Some two years later, with no progress having been made to correct the situation, the EC informed the government in its letter dated 26 May 2009 that it was referring the matter to the ECJ.
Following a meeting of the Council of Ministers on 29 July, the government authorised Commerce Minister Antonis Paschalides to submit amending legislation to the House to delete the offending clause, and set its Legal Services a deadline of 1 September to submit a rebuttal to the ECJ.
The amending bill was submitted to the House on 19 August, with the Commerce Ministry making it clear that Legal Services had already advised that there are no legal or scientific grounds for avoiding certain condemnation by the ECJ.
In fact, in a letter dated 27 July sent to the Ministries of Commerce and Agriculture by Counsel to the Republic of Cyprus Maria Hadjigeorgiou on behalf of Attorney General Petros Clerides, Hadjigeorgiou stated bluntly: “By 1 September, given that there are no legal or scientific arguments for Cyprus to support the continuation of the prohibitory clause, suitable decisions should be made and suitable measures be taken which will demonstrate the willingness of the Republic of Cyprus to comply with the acquis communautaire, which in turn can be used on its behalf before the ECJ.”
Ironically, both the Commerce Ministry’s Energy Department and the Agriculture Ministry’s Environmental Services have repeatedly assured the House that there is no scientific basis for the concerns voiced by MPs which resulted in the original prohibitory clause.
When the 2005 legislation was passed, also when the 2007 amending legislation was voted down, several MPs argued that the environment should be protected from GM organisms. This ignored the basic fact that importing biofuels derived from GM plants posed no such danger.
[SIDEBAR]
Biofuels can be used as a fuel in their basic form or blended with petrol or other products refined from crude oil. Liquid biofuels – bioethanol and biodiesel – are already being used by transport industries worldwide, reducing the amounts of petrol and diesel being consumed.
Biodiesel is typically made by chemically reacting vegetable oil (from plants such as oil palm, soybean, sunflower or algae) or animal fat (tallow) with an alcohol. Biodiesel is meant to be used in standard diesel engines and so is distinct from the vegetable and waste oils used to fuel converted diesel engines.
Bioethanol – the most common biofuel worldwide – is produced by fermenting sugars derived from wheat, corn, sorghum, sugar beets, sugar cane, molasses and any sugar or starch that can be used to make alcoholic beverages. Brazil and the United States jointly accounted for 89 percent of the world’s ethanol fuel production of around 66 million litres in 2008.
The use of agricultural feedstocks to produce biofuels has been criticised for diverting food away from the animal and human food chain. The argument is that this leads to food shortages and price rises as the world’s population keeps rising.
