Indonesia is increasingly concerned with the European Union’s energy directive along with a recent anti-dumping measure, which Indonesia claims has restricted imports of palm oil biodiesel from Indonesia. Indonesia has repeatedly expressed this concern at the WTO council for trade in goods meetings.

Both Malaysia and Argentina have expressed their support for Indonesia.

Global palm oil production is dominated by Indonesia and Malaysia.?These two countries together account for around 85 to 90 percent of total global palm oil production. Indonesia is currently the largest producer and exporter of palm oil worldwide.

Indonesia is concerned with two measures which has been enacted by the EU and certain member states: (1) measures to promote the use of energy from renewable sources and to introduce a mechanism to control and reduce greenhouse emissions; and (2) measures to establish support schemes for the biodiesel sector.

These measures establishes a sustainability criteria with which biofuels and bioliquids must comply in order to be taken into account when measuring compliance with the targets of the EU Member States in the field of renewable energy and in order that these biofuels and bioliquids may benefit from the incentives for their use. In order to be considered sustainable, biofuels and bioliquids must, among other criteria, result in the saving of at least 35% of greenhouse gas emissions with respect to fossil fuels.

Earlier in May 2013, Argentina has requested consultations with the EU along with certain member states over the same measures at issue (D443). Argentina claims that the measures that were enacted by the EU affect the importation and marketing of biodiesel (make short summary of the Argentinian claims based on the request for consultation) http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds443_e.htm. Similar to Indonesia, Argentina is also a top biodiesel producer.  In this case Indonesia is acting as third party.

Indonesia has two options to participate in the proceedings against the EU – either by requesting to join the consultations along with Argentina or initiate a separate proceeding against the EU.