The new EU Nature Restoration Law, passed with a razor-thin vote, is now facing protest from a coalition of over 200 organisations across Europe in a #RestoreNature Campaign urging the Council and the Parliament to strengthen funding and protect farmers, forestry owners and fishermen.
After the European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen’s Green Deal was passed in 2019, Von der Leyen described the deal to The Parliament Magazine as “Europe’s man on the moon moment” — the plan was “very ambitious,” yet very carefully planned, and would “reconcile the economy with our planet,” she said.
Now, on June 22, 2023, the Nature Restoration Law, writes Ajit Niranjan, the Guardian’s Europe environment correspondent, represents a “core pillar” of Von der Leyen’s Green Deal. Yet, the proposed NRL is a considerably weakened version of the original law.
Filipe Ataíde Lampe, the Project Manager for “Connecting Europe,” and Jule Zeschky, Project Assistant at the European Policy Centre, co-edited the following commentary on the European Commission’s proposed law:
“First proposed in June 2022 by the European Commission as part of the European Green Deal and its 2030 Biodiversity Strategy, the Nature Restoration Law aims to bring healthy ecosystems back to Europe. It has now been adopted by the European Parliament following a bumpy path.”
The EU Nature Restoration Law (NRL) may have been passed by the European Parliament, but the decision was far from unanimous. During the European Parliament’s Plenary vote on June 22, the Nature Restoration law underwent some “very serious weakening.”
In a nutshell, this weakening is twofold — it stems from monetary and conceptual conflicts within the law, which resulted in the law being passed by “razor-thin” margins. These conflicts arose out of a series of amendments brought to the EU Parliament.
The monetary issues revolve around funding: “On funding there were two main amendments, one rejected [and] one adopted.” Amendment 84, which was rejected, required Member States to utilise various funding sources, including Union funds, to finance restoration actions and create a nature restoration fund within the multi-annual financial framework.
Amendment 11, which was adopted, called on the Commission to outline funding availability and needs within 12 months, including compensation measures for landowners, without specifying that a dedicated instrument or nature restoration fund needs to be created. In essence, where rejected Amendment 84 would have guaranteed funding for the restoration of nature plan, adopted Amendment 11 provides a hazier vision of how funding will be secured.
It is for this reason that farmers, forest owners and fisheries take issue with the proposed law. In this sense, the conceptual “weakening” of the NRL revolves around how it will interact with the agricultural community.
With only a “razor-thin 324-312 vote with 12 abstentions” taking the NRL through to the trilogues — informal tripartite meetings on legislative proposals between representatives of the Parliament, the Council and the Commission, which aim to reach an agreement between the Council and the Parliament — the way in which the law will be adopted is still undecided.
Neatly summarised in a statement by Sergiy Moroz, Policy Manager for Water and Biodiversity at the European Environmental Bureau (EEB):
“Civil society continues to support the EU decision-makers as they edge towards agreement on the first Nature Restoration Law for Europe. However, the devil is in the detail – this law can put nature on the path to recovery only if it obliges governments to take effective measures to recover species and habitats severely impacted by intensive agriculture, forestry and fisheries. Only an ambitious EU law offering real solutions to tackle biodiversity and climate crisis could fulfil the EU’s international commitments to protect and restore nature.”