Ron van Erck, policy officer for renewable energy policy at DG Energy, told the FO Lichts World Ethanol Conference in Geneva: "The first theoretical date for a voluntary scheme to be approved is April 2011."
Voluntary schemes are a way for biofuels supplier to prove that they comply with the sustainability criteria stated in the new Renewable Energy Directive.
The EU also said that nine voluntary schemes have been submitted for approval and that it has made recommendations for changes and is currently waiting to received revised version.
In addition, the definition of highly biodiverse grassland, which is still missing in the RED, will not be defined before the end of 2011 and economic operators in the biofuels markets in Europe would not have to worry about it until then, van Erck said.
With regards to default values, he said a final decision on updating the greenhouse gas default values table has not been made, but that the EU intends to update these values every two years.
When it comes to the submission of national action plans, Poland, Hungary Belgium and Estonia still haven't submitted their plans, van Erk said, adding that the EU had already launched infringement procedures against these member states.
