Most MEPs on the European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) welcomed, on Monday 6 December, the EUs Soil Protection Strategy 2030 as a promising step forward, during a first exchange of views with the European Commission.
This is an opportunity for the EU institution to clarify the package of legislative and non-legislative measures presented on 17 November as part of the European Green Deal and Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 (see EUROPE 12834/2).
All political groups, except the ID group which did not take the floor, welcomed the fact that the Commission had heeded Parliament’s call in April to finally provide the EU with a legislative framework, similar to what already exists for air and water, albeit with some nuances (see EUROPE 12708/9).
The right asked for assurances that the principle of subsidiarity would be respected, as did Pernille Weiss (EPP, Denmark). She recalled that the Parliament had voted for 100% respect of this principle and the rights of landowners. “The Extended Impact Assessment must be based on scientific arguments and the Commission must then propose what we can do best at European level”, she said.
Along the same lines, Alexandr Vondra (ECR, Czech Republic) added that “it is not the Commission’s role to prescribe to Member States how they should achieve the targets. Member States are best placed to know what works and what does not”.
On behalf of the European Commission, Humberto Delgado Rosa said he was aware that this was “a crucially sensitive issue” and assured MEPs that an impact assessment would identify the areas in which subsidiarity would apply. He added that common provisions could be applied everywhere, with a refinement to take account of local specificities.
On the left, MEPs mainly asked for clarification on the timetable for the implementation of the announced initiatives, in particular for the law on soil health scheduled for 2023.
Petros Kokkalis (The Left, Greece) and Manuela Ripa (Greens/EFA, Germany) called for the law to be presented as early as possible in 2023 so that it could be adopted during this legislature. “It is an emergency to mitigate climate change”, said the former.
“We have lost a lot of time”, said the latter, delighted that the German coalition government had announced that it was in favour of legislation and hoping that France, Austria and the Netherlands would also take this position.
Delgado Rosa said the Commission wanted to start work in the first quarter of 2022 and present an impact assessment in 2022 so that the proposal could be ready in the first half of 2023.
The impact assessment will scrutinise the identification of soil pollution, using a risk-based approach, for decontamination, he said.
Replying to Martin Hojsík (Renew Europe, Slovakia), who asked where the Commission stood in its work to revise Directive 2009/128/EC on the sustainable use of pesticides, the Commission representative said that the revision proposal was scheduled for 2022 (see EUROPE 12639/21).
Concluding the debate he presided over, Bas Eickhout (Greens/EFA, Netherlands) said the European Parliament was eager to see further action to protect soil and acknowledged that “subsidiarity is a major problem”. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)