European Parliament Blocks Soybean Oil's High-Risk Biofuel Classification

The European Parliament voted to adopt a resolution objecting to European Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/2680, which would have classified soybean oil as a high indirect land-use change (ILUC) risk feedstock under the Renewable Energy Directive. The vote passed 388 to 248, with 24 abstentions, blocking the classification from taking effect.

What the Blocked Regulation Would Have Done

The Commission adopted the delegated act on 10 April 2026, amending existing ILUC rules under Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/807. High-ILUC-risk feedstocks face a declining contribution toward renewable energy targets under the Renewable Energy Directive; sources describe the blocked act's mechanics somewhat differently, with one describing a progressive reduction running up to 2030 and another describing soybean oil ceasing to count from 2030 onwards, but the shared substance is that the classification would have curtailed how much soybean oil could count toward EU biofuel targets going forward. To take effect, a delegated act needs neither the Council nor the Parliament to object within a formal scrutiny period; Parliament's vote used exactly that mechanism to stop it.

Why the Commission Proposed

This in the First Place ILUC risk classifications are meant to capture an indirect effect: when a crop grown for fuel displaces food or feed production, and that displaced production expands into new land elsewhere, potentially including forests or other carbon-rich land, rather than the fuel crop itself directly causing deforestation. The Commission's own evidence for classifying soybean oil this way pointed to global soybean expansion, citing regions including Latin America, South-East Asia and West Africa.

The Case Against the Classification

Industry group Donau Soja specifically argued the Commission's methodology failed to distinguish European-origin soybean oil, much of it traceable, deforestation-free and certified, from the global soybean expansion the Commission's evidence actually described, and called for the Commission to reassess soybean oil's status as a co-product of soybean meal production (soybean cultivation is driven primarily by demand for meal, with oil as a secondary output), applying a regional, origin-based assessment rather than a single global classification.

Separately, a broader coalition including Coceral, Copa-Cogeca and the European Biodiesel Board welcomed Parliament's vote in more general terms, framing it as support for evidence-based policymaking and coherence between the EU's renewable energy, agriculture and food security objectives, without detailing the same origin-based technical argument. Critics also pointed to a policy contradiction: the EU's own Protein Strategy, adopted the day before this vote, aims to expand European protein crop production, including soybeans, while this regulation would have simultaneously restricted one of the outlets, biofuel use, that makes growing them commercially viable.

What the Vote Does, and Does Not Settle

Parliament's objection blocks this specific delegated act from entering into force; it does not by itself establish an alternative methodology or resolve the underlying disagreement over how ILUC risk should be assessed for soybean oil. Industry groups have called on the Commission to develop a new, scientifically robust framework, meaning the Commission retains the option to bring forward a revised proposal addressing the origin-based and co-product concerns raised, rather than the question being closed.

Source: World Grain, 10 July 2026.