(Bio)Fueling Injustice? - Europafrica

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2.3. The role of European policies A number of recent reports have pointed out that the role of domestic actors in land grabbing might be more important than was what initially suggested. 37 However, in Africa, the situation can greatly vary from a country to another. 38 And as the World Bank highlights, “as local businesses may act as fronts for foreigners, the share of land acquired by foreigners may be larger than reported.” 39 The EU and its Members States have an influence in driving land grabbing in several respects. The Monitoring report identified several ways in which European authorities are involved in land grabbing. It underlined how EU policies directly and indirectly stimulate the factors that increase demand for land (food crisis, financial crisis, energy demand). Indeed, a number of European companies are involved in acquiring land for food, agrofuels or speculation in Africa, sometimes with the support of EU governments which may provide diplomatic, financial or other support to private deals. The report also analysed the relationship between foreign aid and development assistance, and between trade and land grabbing, showing how the EU has been promoting policy reforms such as land privatisation or international investment protection regimes, which facilitate land grabbing. The large majority of these findings are still valid, and little had been done since the publication of the Monitoring report to address these concerns. Recent evidence confirm that the EU and EU Member States are still involved in land grabbing, either indirectly by creating the conditions for or not regulating EU-based companies investing in land, or directly by encouraging large land deals. With regards to the first type of involvement, a January 2012 report by Friends of the Earth demonstrates how European companies, investment funds and sovereign wealth funds are increasingly investing in land to hedge their price risks, driving land grabs. 40 This report reviewed 29 institutions from 9 European countries, and concludes that a significant number of financial institutions across Europe appear to be involved in financing land grabs directly or indirectly, sometimes with explicit links to human rights abuses. This is notably the case of HSBC, which invested in a company linked to forced evictions in Uganda. 41 The Oakland Institute (OI) has also reviewed in detail the impacts of the investments of some EU funds, such as the UK based company Emergent Asset Management, which has acquired over 100,000 ha of arable land in over a dozen Sub-Saharan countries, where it controls all aspects of food production and distribution for global markets, including unlimited water rights. 42 The Oakland Institute even found that several Scandinavian churches made land investments in countries like Mozambique, in schemes that involved thousands of hectares of illegally acquired land. 43 Regarding the direct involvement, it is clear that European policies have large implications beyond EU borders. The independent Research Centre OPERA for instance presented in May 2010 a report titled “'EU Agricultural Production and Trade: Can More Efficiency Prevent Increasing 'Land-Grabbing' Outside Of Europe?” which shows that in 2007/2008 almost 35 million hectares of land beyond European borders was used for the benefit of Europeans, with the EU evolving into the single most important importer of agricultural commodities and food, 44 and this trend is likely to continue. 45 The Oakland Institute, for example, studied the involvement of the 28
Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC) –the UK government’s development finance institution – and the Finnish Fund for Development Cooperation (Finnfund) which were involved in two projects covering 20,450 ha in South Sudan. 46 The European Investment Bank (EIB), the EU’s financing institution, has also been identified as being involved in large land acquisitions with negative impacts, for instance in Uganda. 47 Throughout all of these studies, one of the clearest dimensions of the involvement of the EU and its Member States in land grabbing is through their biofuel policies. The rest of this report will therefore focus on this aspect, which allows to touch upon the links between various EU policies and land grabbing, and to analyse precisely EU and EU Member States’ responsibilities. As was mentioned above, this focus is also motivated by the fact that the EU is currently undertaking an assessment of the social impact of its biofuel policy, and this report aims at making a useful contribution in this analysis. 29
Page 1 and 2: (BIO)FUELING INJUSTICE? Europe’s
Page 3 and 4: Executive summary Adding value to t
Page 5 and 6: The EU has various strategic intere
Page 7 and 8: or animal feed is turned over to gr
Page 9 and 10: Methodology: combining authoritativ
Page 11 and 12: Detailed recommendations To the EU
Page 13 and 14: d. Support sustainable small-scale
Page 15 and 16: plans, so that biofuels mandates an
Page 17 and 18: 5.2. Linking Europe biofuel policie
Page 19 and 20: List of boxes, figures and tables T
Page 21 and 22: RAI Principles for responsible agri
Page 23 and 24: ange of recent sources, including f
Page 25 and 26: 2. The evolution since 2010: the ri
Page 27: 2.2. A growing opposition Faced wit
Page 31 and 32: Mozambique 10% ethanol and 5% biodi
Page 33 and 34: - standards for distribution of bio
Page 35 and 36: To summarise, the EU and its Member
Page 37 and 38: 4. Case studies Three case studies
Page 39 and 40: squirrels which damaged between 60%
Page 41 and 42: not, or not adequately, consulted,
Page 43 and 44: The Markala Sugar Project will also
Page 45 and 46: Peasants’ Conference against Land
Page 47 and 48: unit is “currently providing majo
Page 49 and 50: 5. How European biofuel policies dr
Page 51 and 52: iofuels between 2003 and 2006 (6.6
Page 53 and 54: iofuels production should thus alwa
Page 55 and 56: ecological and social impacts in pr
Page 57 and 58: occur in these regions.” 232 Howe
Page 59 and 60: 5.2.4. Making land a bankable inves
Page 61 and 62: 6. The social, human rights and env
Page 63 and 64: While agrofuel related crops are gr
Page 65 and 66: should be remarked however that the
Page 67 and 68: project”. In particular, the repo
Page 69 and 70: it has nevertheless been shown abov
Page 71 and 72: deductions to the company.” 348 G
Page 73 and 74: mechanisms in African countries to
Page 75 and 76: specialised in EU affairs suggests
Page 77 and 78: climate change in June or July 2012
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sometimes partial. 418 The findings
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Another argument of the EU for its
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8. The EU and EU Member States’ v
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However, whereas the Commission spe
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esources towards this goal. 479 Yet
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conclude with absolute certitude wh
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When potential negative impacts are
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Access to remedies ETO Principle 37
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9.2. The way forward: EU and its Me
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Sources ActionAid and Friends of th
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European Commission and Joint Resea
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environmental data for the biofuels
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Global Subsidies Initiative (GSI) o
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United Nations Special Rapporteur o
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AFRICAN NATIONAL OIL CORPORATI ON S
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ITAL SENEGAL SARL BBE SA (BERTOLA B
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LONHRO Agriculture (Subsidiary of L
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Annex III. Jatropha related project
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services delivery project of the Di
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Source: Africa Europe Faith and Jus
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GERMANY Flora EcoPower ETHIOPIA Oro
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Investor country SWEDEN Sekab UNITE
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SWEDISH SEKAB Bioenergy Tanzania Lt
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KINGDOM BELGIUM Felisa Investor cou
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Finally, a number of cases studies
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political, economic and social back
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Endnotes 1 A. Graham, S. Aubry, R.
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31 For an overview of the intrsumen
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68 The Commission is preparing a "E
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100 Merian Research and CRBM, “Th
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149 FIAN Germany, “Land Grabbing
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193 C. Bowyer and B. Kretschmer,
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230 J. W. van Gelder with L. German
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264 P. B. Matondi and P. Mutopo,
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298 L. Cotula, “Land deals in Afr
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342 Bread for All, “Concerns of B
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375 K. Havnenik, “Grabbing of Afr
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419 E.g. “While inheritance laws
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456 European Commission, “Increas
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international organisations” in J
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521 United Nations Special Rapporte
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