How the European environmental legislation ended up in limbo

The European Commission’s proposed Nature Restoration Law is a key element of the EU Biodiversity Strategy, and is intended to address the fact that around 81 percent of Europe’s natural habitats are in poor condition. At present, it’s not clear if we should refer to the proposed law in the past or present tense. Despite strong opposition from the European Parliament’s largest political group, the European People’s Party (EPP, right), and after many compromises, the law managed to obtain the approval of the Parliament back in February 2024. All that remained was EU Council approval, which seemed certain until Hungary decided to change its vote at the last minute.

As the Irish Times explains (and laments), “opportunistic politics” has left the law “in limbo”. While the law was “welcomed and promoted by an exceptionally broad coalition of citizens, NGOs and businesses after extensive consultation”, the Times editorialist writes, “the rationale was not communicated effectively to many farmers [...]. So the European People’s Party saw an opportunity to exploit farmers’ legitimate grievances in advance of the EU elections, and campaigned virulently against the law. The EPP diluted some of its most vital provisions, often misrepresenting them.” Back in November 2023, Lorène Lavocat concluded in Reporterre that the right had “sabotaged” the law and rendered it a “flop”. 

There remains one more chance to save the law (albeit in its compromised form): all it would take is for one country that abstained or opposed the law to change its mind by 17 June, at the last council meeting of the Belgian presidency. As Caroline O'Doherty reports for the Irish Independent, a “last-ditch” effort to save the law is being led by Ireland’s Environment Minister Eamon Ryan (Green Party), with the support of his counterparts from Germany, France, Spain, Denmark, Luxembourg, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Slovenia, Estonia and Cyprus. “Restoring ecosystems is essential to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change, and to safeguard European food security,” the appeal to Europe’s lawmakers reads. “Our failure as EU leaders to act now would fundamentally undermine public faith in our political leadership at home and internationally.”

In a recent article about forestry in Sweden, the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation argues that the fate of the Nature Restoration Law (as well as the future of Sweden’s forests) will also heavily depend on the composition of the European Parliament after the European elections. 

A consequence of calling the current crop of anti-establishment political parties “populist”, is that it leaves people with the understandable impression that all of their positions are popular. While the Nature Restoration Law was mainly opposed by countries where the populist right have significant popular backing (Italy, Hungary, Sweden, Poland, Netherlands), the populations of these countries are in fact overwhelmingly supportive of the law. 

Dutch outlet Biojournaal reports that the Nature Restoration Law is “supported by 75 percent of citizens in countries that do not support the law”. The findings emerge from a survey conducted by Savanta for the RestoreNature Coalition (a coalition of four NGOs, BirdLife Europe, ClientEarth, EEB and WWF EU). 70 percent of respondents in Finland, and 69 percent of those in Netherlands and Sweden, agreed that the law should be adopted.

The majority of respondents also agreed that a decline in European nature and biodiversity would “have negative long-term effects on people, farming and the economy”. More broadly, in Belgian daily Le Soir, Michel De Muelenaere looks at the latest Eurobarometer results, and observes that more than three quarters of Europeans feel that environmental issues have an impact on their everyday lives and health. This figure rises to eight in ten in Belgium, and between 88% and 98% in Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Portugal and Italy. The results also show that 84% of Europeans agree that “EU environmental legislation is necessary for protecting the environment in their country”.

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Belgium was in fact forced to abstain from approving the Nature Restoration Law, due to opposition from the traditionally more right-leaning and Eurosceptic Flanders region, as Belgian farming news website Landbouwleven explains. As mentioned above, the fate of the law depends on the final meeting of the Belgian Council presidency. Thus, in an open letter published on 29 May and addressed to Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo, more than 70 businesses and business associations call on the Belgian presidency to ensure the “urgent” adoption of the law. There are in fact strong arguments for the law being good for business. 

Quoted by Landbouwleven, Ursula Woodburn, director of CISL Europe and the Corporate Leaders Group Europe, declares that “well-designed, nature-positive policy will create new economic opportunities, cut emissions, enhance resilience towards climate disasters, and improve health globally”. More concretely, the business leaders’ open letter explains that “the European Commission’s impact assessment for its proposed EU Nature Restoration Law found that for every €1 invested in nature restoration, €8 to €38 is gained thanks to climate change mitigation, prevention and reduction of natural disasters, improved water quality, cleaner air, healthier soils and boosting people’s overall wellbeing.”

On the scientific front, Stéphane Foucart in Le Monde reports on the open letter signed by a dozen scientific societies and networks condemning the European Union’s regression on environmental issues. “In particular,” Foucart notes, “the authors criticise the abandonment of the regulation on sustainable pesticide use, the lowering of environmental standards in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), the abandonment of the Legislative Framework for Sustainable Food Systems (FSFS), the plan to lower the requirements of the Nitrates Directive, and the failure to pass the Nature Restoration Law”. The open letter was uploaded on 29 May to Zenodo, an open repository for scientific research supported by CERN and (in the past) the European Union’s Horizon 2020 project. According to the letter’s signatories, “an anti-environmental spirit seems to prevail among too many of the EU’s decision-makers. This is worrying for several reasons: Firstly, because much of the justification for these decisions is based on misinformation. Secondly, because these decisions seem to be strongly influenced by the particular interests of specific sub-groups and economic corporations within a narrow spectrum of society.”