BRUSSELS, Jan 18: An internal European Commission study, criticises an EU plan to boost the use of biofuels in transport, concluding that their costs outweigh the benefits.

A Commission spokesman downplayed the study and insisted that the use of biofuels remained at the centre of its strategy to cut greenhouse gas emissions in Europe.

The unpublished working paper by the Joint Research Centre, the European Commission’s in-house scientific body, makes uncomfortable reading for the EU’s executive body ahead of a meeting on Wednesday where it is to detail a plan for biofuels to make up 10 per cent of all transport fuels in the EU by 2020.

The cost-benefit study looks at whether using biofuels reduces greenhouse gas emissions, improves security of supply and creates jobs and delivers an unenthusiastic opinion on all three counts.

“What the cost-benefit analysis shows is that there are better ways to achieve greenhouse gas savings and security of supply enhancements than to produce biofuels,” says the report. “The costs of EU biofuels outweigh the benefits,” the researchers state.

EU taxpayers would have to fork out an extra 33-65 billion euros ($48-95bn) between now and 2020 if the European Commission proposals go ahead, according to the study.

European Commission spokesman on energy Ferran Tarradellas Espuny stressed that the study was just a working paper and one of several opinions being taken into consideration as talks continued ahead of Wednesday’s decision.—AFP