Thursday’s thundering Financial Times editorial on the food crisis unfortunately arrived too late to change opinions on the 13th floor of the Berlaymont, the European Commission nerve centre. The day before the call for a pause in the push for biofuels was made Jose Manuel Barroso, Commission president, defended the policy.

He said the use of crops for fuel had so far had little effect on higher food prices. It can’t be often that the Commission disagrees with its multilateral brethren, the IMF, World Bank and United Nations.

Barroso said the push to increase biofuels to 10 per cent of the EU transport fuel mix by 2020 will continue. In fact, by creating a market for sustainable biofuels the EU could improve their production round the world, he said.

Perhaps he will listen to the EU’s own scientific advisers. On Thursday advisers to the European Environment Agency called for the target to be scrapped.

“The overambitious 10 per cent target is an experiment, whose unintended effects are difficult to predict and difficult to control,” they said.

However, Barroso did warn of a human tragedy caused by high food prices and called on EU countries to lift their giving to affected countries.

The link between the EU policies and food shortagesis beginning to worry some in the Berlaymont. It is seeking to end export subsidies that see cheap food dumped on poor countries. However, there are still many high tariff barriers that prevent poor farmers exporting to the EU. Doubtless this debate will become a centrepiece of the haggling over the mid-term review of the common agricultural policy this year.

France is already talking about the need for “food security” while Franz Fischler, former agriculture commissioner who keeps on top of the issues, told me recently that Europe has a duty to feed itself and the world.

Meanwhile, Andris Piebalgs, the energy commissioner, has been making the case for stimulating investment in farm productivity through the biofuels target.

He wrote in a recent blog post: “Substantial tracts of arable land lie fallow since the collapse of the collective farming system used during Communist times in many of the new Member States. The EU’s ambitious but realistic 10% target will provide the market pull stimulation that these farmers need to face a future market based agricultural economy and less dependence on EU subsidies.”

But with Gordon Brown among others calling for a change of stance, I wouldn’t advise any farmer to start sowing the seeds of biofuel crops until they are sure of exactly what they will reap.

The thaw between Poland and Brussels has sent a chill down spines in Lithuania.

Donald Tusk, the new Polish premier, arrived at the European Commission and parliament on Tuesday to show that his country was back in the centre of Europe. The era of the Kaczynskis, “the terrible twins”, picking fights with Brussels, was over.

The fear in Vilnius is that he may stop picking fights with Russia, too, leaving the Baltic republics, which only recently threw off the Soviet yoke, alone in the ring with the bear. Talks on resolving the Russian blockade of Polish meat, which in turn have held up a new EU-Russia partnership agreement to Brussels’ ill-concealed annoyance, start next week.

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It doesn’t usually take long before the glitz of a European Union summit rubs off. Commitments signed up to amid a fanfare of rhetoric quickly become tarnished. There was a fascinating glimpse behind the shiny green paintwork of the target of sourcing 20 per cent of energy from renewable targets this week – and it wasn’t pleasant. The Guardian newspaper got hold of a government memo showing British bureaucrats are already looking for ways to erase what their leaders signed up to in March. They are lobbying governments and senior Commission officials for a “flexible” interpretation of whatever individual target the UK is assigned, so they can build solar farms in Africa or count nuclear generation. Investing in renewable sources at home is just too expensive.

It would be understandable if the Brits, like the poorer eastern Europeans, had tried to sabotage the idea from the outset. But instead Tony Blair, burnishing his green credentials, welcomed it.

Another "groundbreaking, bold" commitment (Mr Blair’s words), to source 10 per cent of transport fuels from plants by 2020, looks every bit as ugly.

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Weird to see Gerhard Schroeder in Brussels in his job as a businessman/lobbyist for the Russian/German gas industry, especially when you’re more accustomed to watching him throwing his weight around here as Germany’s chancellor.

On Wednesday he was in town representing Nord Stream, the Baltic Sea pipeline project which will run between Russia and Germany, cunningly bypassing Poland. The infrastructure is a joint venture led by Gazprom, the Russian state-controlled gas giant, with two German companies.

As one scornful EU official said: "How nice of him to come to Brussels. Isn’t he an employee of Mr Putin these days?"

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On the face of it, the European Commission had some shocking news for shareholders of Eon and RWE in Germany, OMV in Austria and similar listed energy groups across the region. The Brussels regulator on Wednesday vowed to break up all energy suppliers that are also active in managing networks such as grids and pipelines. It argued that the combination of the two businesses stifled competition.

Given the Commission’s sweeping powers to initiate legislation, scrutinise mergers and pursue antitrust infringements, such a step is certainly not beyond Brussels’ reach. That would mean forcing some of Europe’s biggest groups not only to sell off priceless assets but also to face much sharper competition from smaller rivals.

And yet, this shocking news somehow failed to strike fear in the hearts of investors. RWE’s shares actually gained slightly, while Eon and OMV posted only minuscule falls that mirrored the broader market. What’s up? Don’t traders read the newspaper?

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It’s almost mid-January in Brussels and there has not been a single frost in the city. People are shedding their winter coats, trees are sprouting leaves; a rose made an appearance in my garden last week. It doesn’t take a climatalogical genius to realise something is going on, and at long last Europe’s policymakers seem to be taking it seriously.

As recently as last May, José Manuel Barroso did not even mention climate change as one of his top priorities; now it is the cornerstone of almost everything the European Commission does, and is at the heart of Wednesday’s announcement of a new EU energy policy.

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In its drive to get us all to do our bit to combat climate change, the European Commission has adopted a pithy slogan: "Turn down. Switch off. Recycle. Walk." It seems, however, that Europe’s functionaries are reluctant to comply with the second of these four edicts.

Photographs passed to the Financial Times show several of the EU’s most illustrious buildings - including the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers’ Justus Lipsius building - lit up like Christmas trees in the middle of the night. The Committee of the Regions is incandescent.

The pictures, taken at the behest of the European Lamp Companies Federation, have surfaced as Europe’s energy ministers convene in Brussels to vote on the Commission’s action plan for energy efficiency. The draft conclusions declare that "the public sector should play an exemplary role" in fostering energy efficiency.

The action plan - which activists fear may be watered down by ministers - is intended to sketch out how Europe could cut its energy consumption by a fifth by 2020 through switching to greener technologies and adopting such energy efficient habits as, say, turning out the lights.

Barbara Helfferich, the Commission’s environment spokeswoman, says the images should not detract from the overall decline in the electricity used by Commission buildings. A strict eco-management pilot scheme is under way, complete with targets to render the EU’s activities greener. The scheme has, Ms Helfferich adds, "sensitised personnel to switch to more environmentally-friendly behaviour".

Tom Burgis

Jos Manuel Barroso is facing one of the biggest decisions of his time as European Commission president: whether to take on entrenched industrial and political interests in order to break open the continent’s energy market.
After interviewing him - on-the-record and privately - for over 90 minutes I have the impression he is gearing up for a fight.
Mr Barroso says in his FT interview he wants to break the grip of Europe’s monopolistic energy suppliers, which control both the supply and distribution of electricity and gas in their home markets. Legislation is expected early in 2007.
But how tough will he be? Will he go for a full-frontal attack and demand the complete unbundling of the supply and distribution operations of companies such as Eon and EDF - or settle for some half measures?

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