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Lawyers at Indonesian palm oil agency up to bat against EU
Indonesia’s palm oil fund agency has used up Rp 37.7 billion (US$2.7 million) in “promotions” this year, which includes paychecks for advocates amid the country’s lawsuit against the European Union at the World Trade Organization.
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Workers harvest oil palm fruit at PT Kimia Tirta Utama’s oil palm plantation in Siak regency, Riau. (Antara/FB Anggoro)
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ndonesia’s palm oil fund agency has used up Rp 37.7 billion (US$2.7 million) in “promotions” this year, which includes paychecks for advocates, amid the country’s lawsuit against the European Union at the World Trade Organization.
The agency’s promotion budget for the year was shown at Rp 214 billion, according to an Indonesian Oil Palm Estate Fund (BPDP-KS) presentation shared with the media on Thursday.
“The Trade Ministry is the leading sector for the charges. We support [the ministry] financially through funding for lawyers, travel and such,” the agency’s president director, Dono Boestami, said during a press conference on Thursday.
Indonesia announced on Dec. 8 that the country had filed a lawsuit with the WTO against the EU’s palm oil policy, which is alleged to be “discriminatory” toward the nation’s palm oil.
Indonesian Trade Minister Agus Suparmanto said authorities sent an official request for consultation on the following day to the EU to initiate the lawsuit against RED II.
Previously, the EU had set a new tariff on Indonesian biofuel – from 8 to 18 percent – effective for the next five years, claiming that the local biodiesel received an unfair subsidy.
“I saw this as a trade war, as discrimination toward palm oil,” Dono told the press, adding that the EU only imposed the tariff on palm oil and not any other vegetable oil, such as rapeseed or sunflower seed oil.
