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A key piece of legislation in the EU aimed at protecting and restoring natural ecosystems was dealt a major setback on Monday, with its removal from the agenda for an approval vote in the European Council after failing to maintain the necessary support by member states to enable its approval.
The legislation, the Nature Restoration Law, included a mandated target for EU countries to implement measures to restore at least 20% of the EU’s land and sea areas by 2030, and for all ecosystems in need of restoration by 2050.
The approval by the Council would have been the final major step required to pass the new law, and is normally viewed as a formality, after the text had already been agreed upon in a deal between the Council and Parliament, and was subsequently approved by parliament last month. Leading up to the scheduled vote, however, several member states, including Austria, Belgium, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden indicated that they would oppose or abstain. With the vote already at risk, Hungary subsequently announced that it would oppose the law – despite the support from Hungarian MEPs who voted to approve its adoption in Parliament – indicating that the legislation would not reach the majority required to succeed.
The failure of the Nature Restoration Law at the Council puts the future of the legislation at risk, with little ability to renegotiate the law given the upcoming EU elections in June. EU Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries Virginijus Sinkevičius added that the EU is now at risk of “going to COP16 empty-handed,” referring to the 2024 UN Biodiversity Conference later this year.
The Nature Restoration Law was first proposed by the European Commission in June 2022, with an objective to restore ecosystems, habitats and species across the EU’s land and sea areas, with studies indicating that more than 80% of European habitats are in poor shape.
The law includes specific requirements for different types of ecosystems, covering wetlands, grasslands, forests, rivers and lakes, as well as marine ecosystems such as seagrass and sponge and coral beds.
Additional regulations under the legislation include a requirement for member states to set out measures to reverse the decline of pollinator populations, put in place restoration measures for organic soils in agricultural use constituting drained peatlands, viewed as one of the most cost-effective measures to reduce emissions in the agricultural sector and improve biodiversity, an efforts-based requirement to prevent significant deterioration of areas subject to restoration that have reached good condition, and to achieve an increasing trend in urban green areas.
The failure at the Council marks the latest in a series of challenges over the course of advancing the Nature Restoration Law, after it only narrowly survived the parliamentary approval process last year, with opposing politicians claiming that the proposals would threaten food security and agriculture, and would work against Europe’s clean energy and climate goals, by reducing capacity of energy sources such as hydropower and biomass. In order to achieve approval in Parliament, the final legislation included a series of adjustments from the initial proposal, including the addition of a new article ensuring that the law does not block renewable energy infrastructure projects overwhelmingly in the public interest, and requiring the EU Commission to provide data on conditions necessary to guarantee long-term food security. Even with these changes, the law only narrowly passed the final approval vote in Parliament in February.