Recently the EU policy framework to support the use of energy from renewable sources has led to a strong increase of bio-energy use within short timeframes. The increased demand has led to rising imports of wood for energy.
To ensure the sustainability of the policy induced increase of bioenergy use and wood imports for bioenergy purposes, some issues have to be considered.
The biomass should come from sustainable sources.
And the forest biomass shall come from legal sources.!
We have to emphasize that wood as to be legal, but in order to get incentive must be more than legal… but sustainable.
We should therefore clarify that the minimum requirement for the use of wood (for any use) is legal sourcing. Further sustainability criteria should be met only in order to get access to subsidies and incentives.
The European paper sector believes that future bioenergy policy should follow a market-based approach.
Bio-energy development in Europe should be based on non-distortive market rules.
Distorting subsidies should be phased out in a defined time period and subsidies should be strictly limited to the use of wood, which would otherwise not be used for more added-value applications.
The cascading use of wood is a principle, which is naturally followed in a market based approach, while it should lead to specific measures to mitigate subsidy-induced market distortions.
The cascading use of wood principle should be followed in the decision making on bio-energy support mechanisms.