"Felix Austria" - Don't make the same mistake as the German government did when introducing this "moonshine" that contributes to the hunger in the world.
Normally, Austrian polititians repeat a lot of prior German governmental actions, such as privatization of public services. Today was different. The Austrian Minister for Agrarian and Environmental Affairs, Nikolaus Berlakovich, has halted the introduction of 'bio-ethanol fuel' E10 at the pumps for 'his' Alpine republic.
How come? Brains sent by heaven, or just common sense?
Well, the EU is currently re-evaluating its 'politically correct' stance toward conversion of 'food to fuel'. The EU has been subsidizing this non-sense program to the delight of EU farmers who had then converted their fields for fuel production in order to get more cash by being 'fuel producers', thus reducing their space for nutritional purposes.
But, the EU is NOW planning to phase out this allegedly environmentally friendly approach by 2020.
The EU "good-people", really naive in thinking of effectiveley tackling the CO2 issue, are quite disenchanted by reality because the carbon footprint of burning down the rain forests in order to make room for corn and suger cane fields is counter-productive to "climate amelioration". To the contrary, this conversion produces more CO2 in developing nations, and produces more hunger to the despair of hungry people. Is this humane?
When Germany's Foreign Aid Minister, Dirk Niebel (FDP), visited some very poor African countries, he suddenly was enlightened by the lack of humanitarian sensitivity the "food for fuel" program really implies.
His wake-up call has obviously resonated in the brains of some big heads in Brussels and Strasbourg, and obviously in the Austrian minister's consciousness as well.
But, the b.s. has been going on in the U.S. for years - making some 40 per cent of corn production assigned to bio-ethanol fuel production of E15 petrol at the pumps. Isn't it the top of insanity?
The Austrians would have been very wary as well as the Germans were when this 'E10 moon-shine' had been introduced in installments in the eastern and southern parts of Germany before it also reached the northern and very populous western parts of the Federal Republic.
E10 has been still a non-seller at the pumps in Germany since despite being cheaper by 3 to 4 euro-cents per liter (or some 20 US-cents per gallon). E5 is enough for German consumers who don't wanna damage their older cars (5+ years) by this new formula of E10 stuff.
Mr. Berlakovic, thank you for having the guts to make this step.
The Austrian consumers and the Austrian automobile club ÖAMTC have already been applauding this brave move of a minister who would have liked to distribute goodies to farmers but ultimately came to a common sense evaluation.
