The European Commission (ec) recently warned it is planning legal action against many eu states that have failed to implement rules to promote biofuels. The 25 eu nations had to turn eu rules on biofuel usage into national laws in 2004. They also had to send a report to the ec with "an indicative target for the share of the petrol and diesel market that will be taken by biofuels at the end of 2005"; the eu directive says biofuels should comprise two per cent of the fuel market. But Estonia, Finland, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Portugal and Slovenia haven't notified the ec about their national laws yet.
While Italy, Luxembourg, and Slovenia have not submitted their reports, those of France and Estonia lacked concrete targets. The ec rejected the targets of seven states as they didn't comply with the eu rules. The countries concerned were Denmark, Ireland, Finland, the uk, Hungary, Poland and Greece. "This is unfortunate since biofuels are crucial to European transport and energy policy as one of the few options for replacing oil-based transport fuels," laments eu energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs.
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