Today the EU Parliament decides on the nature conservation law. Supporters believe there is no alternative, critics fear disadvantages for agriculture. The outcome of the vote is completely open.
Yesterday, opponents and supporters of the planned EU nature conservation law faced each other again – in the EU Parliament and before it. The opponents came with dozens of tractors in front of the parliament building in Strasbourg, the supporters came with Greta Thunberg.
While the Swedish climate activist appealed to MPs to vote for the strongest possible regulation, the proposal leads to a dead end, according to the president of the farmers’ association, Joachim Rukwied. The parliamentary debate that followed showed that opinions in the plenary also differed widely. Today the parliament decides on the law.
Criticism and total blockade
The EU Commission wants to green cities, reforest forests and wet moors again. Brussels wants to save endangered species and landscapes with the renaturation law. By 2030, at least one-fifth of land and sea areas are to be rehabilitated. It is not only about nature conservation areas, but also about cultivated areas.
Opponents of the project fear that agricultural land would also disappear. According to CDU European politicians, the Commission is paying too little attention to farmers. They also describe the bill as poorly crafted.
Normally, in such cases, the pro-European groups in the EU Parliament try to change the templates in their favor. With the renaturation law, however, the EPP parliamentary group, in which the members of the CDU and CSU sit, is opting for a total blockade. She asks the Commission to write a new draft. Brussels rejects this, pointing out that the law would not come before the European elections next June.
Climate activists stand in front of the European Parliament and demonstrate for the “Nature Restoration Law”.
Central to the Green Deal
The law, against which the EPP is mobilizing, is a central part of Ursula von der Leyen’s Green Deal, the plan of the Commission chief for Europe’s sustainable transformation. The CDU politician is thus facing resistance from her own ranks in an important area.
According to the Greens, the EU needs the law to stop species extinction and achieve its climate goals. Ultimately, a tenth of the emission reduction is to be achieved via forests and soils, which absorb and store carbon. If these are damaged, they even release CO2 into the atmosphere.
The commission replies to critics that the member states should play a central role in the implementation of the planned law. Thousands of scientists have rejected arguments by opponents of the law in an open letter. In it they write, among other things, that the greatest risks to food security come from climate change and the loss of biological diversity.
Strategy for new majorities?
But the debate extends far beyond nature conservation. At the end of last month, the draft did not get the necessary majority in the lead environmental committee, because the EPP members voted against it with right-wing populists and right-wing extremists.
Greens and SPD suspect behind this a strategy by EPP parliamentary group leader Manfred Weber, with a view to the time after the European elections, to organize new majorities to the right of the center. Whether the draft for the renaturation law will get a majority in the plenary session will be revealed at midday.
The result of the vote is completely open and depends on how many dissenters there are in the ranks of the EPP, Liberals and Social Democrats from the respective group line. It is also unclear how the EU institutions will proceed if the project fails in Parliament.