BRUSSELS, BELGIUM — The European Commission published on Jan. 29 a regulation making all imports of biodiesel originating in Argentina and Indonesia subject to E.U.-wide registration by national customs. 
In practice this means that from Jan. 30 all biodiesel and hydro-treated fuels from vegetable oil imported in the E.U. from these two countries have to be notified by importers for registration by national customs in order to ensure that, if all conditions are fulfilled, future anti-dumping duties can be levied retroactively, the European Biodiesel Board (EBB) said.
EBB said it welcomes the adoption of these measures by the European Commission. With the registration of all biodiesel imports from Argentina and Indonesia, the commission achieved an important move to re-establish fair trade for biodiesel in Europe.
“We hope that this will be the first right move to put an end to an unacceptable situation whereby our industry has been heavily injured by unfair imports for too long time,” said Raffaello Garofalo, secretary general of EBB.
The early decision of the commission, which is quite unusual in these cases, is based on sufficient prima facie evidence provided by the industry on the exporters’ artificially low prices resulting from dumping and subsidy practices, as well as on the risk of further injury in case imports are not properly registered.
With respect to blends, importers are now obliged, by the regulation published, to indicate to customs the proportion of the total content of biodiesel in the blends, for subsequent registration. The registration measures will remain in force for the next nine months, meanwhile investigations will continue in the next weeks to establish provisional and definitive duties against dumped imports from these two countries.
A parallel complaint for anti-subsidy is also on-going and additional import duties are also expected from the outcome of these supplementary investigations on biodiesel product unfairly subsidized in Argentina and Indonesia and which is then shipped to Europe, EBB said. A decision on provisional duties both as a result of the anti-dumping and anti-subsidy complaints lodged by the EBB last summer is expected in the next few months and by the end of May, at the latest.
EBB intends to confirm its determination to track and oppose any attempts to undermine the international trade of sustainable biodiesel to the E.U. 
“The European biodiesel industry is an important pillar of the E.U. green energy economy, guaranteeing directly or indirectly more than 400,000 jobs in the E.U. We are deeply convinced that all unfair practices damaging and distorting the E.U. markets of biodiesel are to be rejected as undermining the great value of our industry for fighting global warming and improving E.U. independence and security of supply,” Garofalo said.