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Source: ENDS Europe Daily
The European parliament's industry committee will approve several key changes to a draft EU directive on renewable energy in a vote on Thursday, after rapporteur Claude Turmes secured cross-party support on Tuesday for a series of compromise amendments.
The Luxembourg MEP told journalists on Tuesday evening that the committee would approve binding national interim targets for the share of renewables in overall generation in the run up to 2020 (EED 01/04/08). There was "no threat" that the committee would dilute the EU's overall 20 per cent target for the share of renewables in 2020, he said (EED 23/01/08).
MEPs will also approve "the principle of financial penalties" for countries that fail to meet their national targets in 2020. The nature and level of the fines would be developed later by the European commission, Mr Turmes said.
The penalties would feed a fund providing guaranteed revenues for countries that exceed their national targets. Mr Turmes says this would provide a strong incentive for countries that outperform their targets and would also avoid a situation in which governments with excess renewable generation capacity simply auction it off to the highest bidder.
The committee will also confirm a binding ten per cent target for the share of renewable energy in transport in 2020, to be met predominantly by biofuels (EED 07/07/08).
But in contrast to the European commission's original directive proposal, MEPs will demand that at least two-fifths of this overall share must come from "non-food and feed competing" second-generation biofuels, or from cars running on green electricity and hydrogen.
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