The European Union is preparing to impose trade duties on biofuels imported from the United States to prevent American producers from putting European producers of biodiesel out of business. The European Union and the United States generously subsidize their biodiesel industries. But European producers complain that producers in the United States benefit twice: from subsidies by the federal government to produce the biodiesel and again from subsidies granted by individual European governments when it is sold in Europe. Peter Power, the spokesman for the EU trade commissioner, Catherine Ashton, said the normal procedure in such trade disputes - where the European Commission proves that goods have been sold below cost and that EU industry has been harmed - was for the commission to impose provisional duties. He said that any definitive measures, lasting five years, would need approval by EU governments within four months.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/02/23/business/biofuel.4-436100.php