Europe’s latest energy package is not a biofuels strategy. In AccelerateEU, the European Commission is responding to a familiar European problem: fossil fuel dependence. The trigger this time is renewed pressure from the Middle East, higher import costs and concern over transport fuel availability. The Commission says 57% of the energy consumed in Europe still comes from imported fossil fuels, and that the EU imported around EUR 340 billion of fossil fuels in 2025. It also estimates that, after the Middle East conflict and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz in March 2026, the EU spent an additional EUR 24 billion on fossil fuel imports.
Europe is not only talking about buying fuel from somewhere else. It is talking about using the crisis to speed up a move away from imported fossil fuels altogether. Most of that story is about electrification, grids, heat pumps, storage and renewable power. That is where most of the political attention will go.
Still, clean fuels appear in the text in a way that feels different from the usual climate-policy discussion. The Commission talks about jet fuel and diesel availability. It talks about refinery capacity. It talks about aviation disruption, freight costs, agriculture and fisheries. Then it says it wants to increase domestic EU production of sustainable biofuels. Biofuels are not being presented here as a nice addition to climate policy. They are being pulled into the harder world of fuel security. Can planes keep flying? Can food logistics keep moving? Can existing diesel fleets continue operating if fossil fuel markets tighten? These are not 2050 questions. They are near-term operational questions.
The scale of that challenge is easy to underestimate. Europe is not trying to replace a niche fuel market. It is trying to reduce exposure in one of the largest transport-fuel systems in the world.
In 2023, transport accounted for 32% of final energy consumption in the EU, making it the largest end-use energy sector, ahead of households and industry. Road transport accounted for 73% of transport energy consumption, or 10,974 petajoules. Air transport used 1,866 petajoules, water transport 1,810 petajoules and rail 217 petajoules. Put another way, Europe’s transport system consumed about 14,900 petajoules of energy in 2023, equivalent to roughly 355 million tonnes of oil equivalent. It is enormous, and it is still overwhelmingly liquid-fuel dependent.
Road transport tells the story most clearly. Eurostat reports that, in 2023, motor gasoline and gas or diesel oil together accounted for almost 90% of EU road-transport energy consumption. Renewables and biofuels accounted for 6.7%. Despite fast growth in electric vehicles, it is still a small share of road energy use. In 2024, battery-electric cars accounted for 13.6% of new EU passenger-car registrations, but only around 2.3% of the passenger-car fleet. That is why liquid fuels still dominate the road-energy system, even as electrification accelerates
Europe already has a real biofuels market in land transport. It is not starting from zero. Ethanol is blended into gasoline, up to E10, which contains up to 10% ethanol by volume. Biodiesel is blended into diesel, commonly within FAME blending limits. Renewable diesel, including HVO, has a different role because it is closer to a drop-in diesel substitute and can be used at higher blend levels or, where approved, as a neat fuel.
USDA FAS estimated that EU bioethanol consumption reached 6.58 billion litres in 2023, while biomass-based diesel consumption, including biodiesel and renewable diesel, reached 17.98 billion litres. It also estimated that about one third of domestically produced biomass-based diesel was produced from waste oils and fats.
The aviation section makes the vulnerability even clearer. AccelerateEU notes that around 40% of EU jet fuel consumption is imported, and that roughly half of those imports pass through the Strait of Hormuz. The Commission’s proposed response includes a Fuel Observatory, closer coordination with airlines, airports and fuel suppliers, and work on alternative jet fuel supply.
None of that guarantees a rapid SAF build-out. It does not solve the cost problem. It does not solve feedstock scarcity. It does not make a difficult project-finance case disappear. But it does change the conversation. SAF is no longer only a decarbonisation product. It is starting to look like part of aviation resilience.
The same is true for sustainable maritime fuels. The Commission says SAF and sustainable maritime fuels should be accelerated, and it raises the possibility of extending ETS support for SAF and exploring a similar mechanism for EU-produced maritime fuels. Yet, this is not proof of success. It is a signal of direction. Europe wants more control over the fuels that keep its hard-to-electrify transport sectors running.
Biomethane gets a similar treatment. The document says biogas and biomethane can play a more strategic role in replacing imported fossil fuels, especially where electrification is difficult. It says existing biomethane plants could increase production by about 10% to 30%, and it points to on-farm and cooperative projects that turn waste, residues and manure into energy and fertilisers.
That is probably one of the more practical parts of the package. It links energy security to farming, waste, fertiliser and local income. The Annex carries the same idea into implementation language, with support for biogas and biomethane production, clean farm-level energy installations and recycled nutrients.
The Annex also shows how bioenergy appears in shorter-term policy measures. It gives the example of a EUR 500 million industrial heat fund to help industry convert from fossil fuels to biomass, wind and solar. It also identifies double-sided auctions for eSAF production under the eSAF Early Movers Coalition as a good national practice. Taken together, the message is clear enough. Europe is not saying that biofuels will replace oil. It is saying something more limited and more interesting: sustainable fuels may have to become part of the energy-security toolkit, especially where electrification is slow, infrastructure is constrained or fuel continuity is mission-critical.
That is a useful shift, but it is not a solution by itself. The current land-transport biofuels market gives Europe a platform. Ethanol in E10, FAME biodiesel and HVO already reduce fossil fuel use. They also prove that renewable liquid fuels can be integrated into mainstream fuel systems. But the existing domestic volumes are still too small to insulate Europe from a major diesel or jet fuel shock.
Biofuels should not be treated as a single bucket. Ethanol, FAME biodiesel, HVO, biomethane, SAF and sustainable maritime fuels all sit in different parts of the system. They face different feedstock constraints, different infrastructure requirements and different commercial logic. The question is not simply, “How much biofuel can Europe produce?” The better question is, “Where does each biofuel or sustainable fuel add the most resilience?”
Asia should read this carefully. Europe has the unfortunate habit of producing ambitious energy documents that later run into slow permitting, high costs, public resistance, weak coordination and uneven implementation across Member States. AccelerateEU may face all of that. It may overestimate how quickly supply chains, public funding, feedstock systems and certification can move.
Asia has many of the same vulnerabilities, often in sharper form. Many economies in the region import large volumes of diesel, jet fuel, LNG, LPG or fertiliser. Many also have large agricultural, food-processing and municipal waste streams. The connection between those two facts is becoming harder to ignore.
If residues, wastes and by-products can be turned into certified fuels, they are no longer just environmental liabilities or export commodities. They become part of an energy-security portfolio.
That matters for Southeast Asia. It matters for India. It matters for Japan and Korea, where energy import dependence is a strategic concern. It matters for China, where scale and supply-chain control are central. It also matters for aviation and maritime hubs such as Singapore, where future competitiveness may depend partly on access to credible low-carbon fuels.
The difficult part is that “biofuels for energy security” can easily become a slogan. Not every biofuel improves security. Not every feedstock is sustainable. Not every domestic project is better than an imported fuel. Poorly designed policy can push up feedstock prices, encourage questionable sourcing or create assets that only survive on subsidy.
That is why certification will become a dividing line. The European Commission emphasises the transition towards advanced biofuels from sustainable feedstock. For Asian producers, that matters. Access to premium European markets will increasingly depend on traceable feedstock systems, auditable carbon data and credible chain-of-custody controls. There is also a trade warning here. Europe wants more homegrown clean energy and more EU-produced sustainable fuels. That does not close the door to Asian supply, but it does mean Asian producers should not build their entire strategy around exporting into Europe. The better strategy is to build Asian demand as well.
AccelerateEU may or may not deliver what Europe hopes. The current document leaves many things unresolved. It does not provide a detailed biofuels roadmap. It does not settle the feedstock issue. It does not remove the cost gap for SAF or sustainable maritime fuels. It does not prove that Member States will move fast enough. The old model was about securing fossil fuel flows. The emerging model is messier. It is about electrification where possible, and credible clean fuels where molecules are still needed. It is about using domestic resources without pretending they are unlimited. It is about certification, infrastructure and demand creation. It is about building resilience before the next shock, not after it. Asia should not assume Europe has found the answer. It has not.
But Asia should notice the question Europe is now asking: how much energy security can be built at home, from resources already available?
