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n a desperate attempt to safeguard the long-term interests of the palm oil industry, the government is seeking support from the Vatican to lobby against the European Union’s plans to ban biodiesel imports.

Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan visited the Holy See on April 25 to meet with Cardinal Peter Turkson, director of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

During the meeting, the cardinal expressed his concerns over the fate of oil palm farmers and the millions of people whose livelihoods depend on the industry, Luhut said.

“He particularly questioned what would happen to these people, who are mostly Muslims, if they don’t have an income,” he said in a statement.

During the 40th anniversary summit of the ASEAN-EU cooperation in Manila late last year, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo pointed out that at least 17 million Indonesians relied both directly and indirectly on the palm oil industry, with 42 percent of existing oil palm plantations owned by smallholders.

Luhut added that the cardinal had proposed the idea to hold a seminar on palm oil at the Vatican’s Pontifical University in May.

The event is slated to gather European organizations, multinational companies, oil palm growers from Indonesia and Malaysia and religious groups.

The minister recommended inviting Indonesia’s largest religious groups, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, due to concerns over the emergence of radicalism caused by poverty.

Turkson, who hails from Ghana, is often considered a top Vatican cardinal and part of Pope Francis’ inner circle.

The pope himself is widely known for having a strong concern for environmental issues. In 2015, he released Laudato Si (Praised Be), a provocative encyclical on the environment that criticizes consumerism, irresponsible development and environmental degradation.

Last October, the Argentina-born Catholic leader implicitly criticized the United States for withdrawing from the Paris agreement on climate change, which he considers a way to curb the effects of global warming.

Luhut’s lobbying in the Vatican came at a time when Europe, where Catholics remain the largest religious group, is deliberating concrete moves to restrict purchases of palm oil.

Earlier this year, the EU Parliament approved draft measures to phase out the use of palm oil, which it attributes to deforestation, in motor fuels by 2021.

Indonesia is the world’s largest producer of the commodity, which is used in a wide range of applications, from soaps to biofuel. The archipelago is also home to the world’s third-biggest tropical rainforest after the Amazon and Congo basins.

In addition to environmental issues, Indonesia has faced repeated allegations from the EU over unfair trading practices linked to palm oil, including the government’s provision of subsidies to the industry and anti-dumping measures.

Indonesian Palm Oil Producers Association (Gapki) spokesman Tofan Mahdi said the seminar in the Vatican would be part of a long-term campaign to change Europe’s widespread perception of palm oil as a major cause of deforestation of tropical forests.

“Will the Europeans’ perception regarding palm oil change after the one-day seminar? No, but we hope their minds will be more open after that,” he told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

In February, the association met European Palm Oil Association (EPOA) chairman Frans Claassen in Jakarta. He proposed a communication strategy to improve the commodity’s image in Europe and vowed to pave the way for Indonesian palm oil groups to hold talks with European stakeholders.

Tofan said the Vatican-backed seminar would be a good start, because the Holy See held a wide influence in Europe.

Gapki executive director Danang Girindrawardana added that the seminar would focus on the role of palm oil in poverty alleviation in Indonesia, as well as in the country’s effort to attain its sustainable development goals (SDGs). He underlined that the industry’s social impact remained underexplored.