Members of the European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) appeared divided over the European Commission’s proposal to include greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector (excluding CO2) in the scope of the EU regulation (2018/841) on Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF), on Wednesday 26 January, when Ville Niinistö (Greens/EFA, Finland) presented his draft report.
Speaking on behalf of his colleague Motreanu Dan-Ştefan (Romania), the EPP group’s shadow rapporteur on this dossier, Norbert Lins (EPP, Germany) supported the Commission’s approach. Like Peter Liese (EPP, Germany), he criticised Mr Niinistö’s proposal to exclude agriculture from the regulation (see EUROPE 12862/4).
Delara Burkhardt (Germany) and Manuel Bompard (France), shadow rapporteurs for the S&D and The Left groups respectively, welcomed the rapporteur’s proposal.
The two MEPs also supported the idea of including sub-targets for net greenhouse gas reductions for croplands, grasslands and wetlands.
Laura Huhtasaari (Finland), shadow rapporteur for the ID group, described as unrealistic the rapporteur’s proposal to set an EU-wide target of -490 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent in net carbon removals by 2030 (compared to -310 million in the Commission’s original proposal).
Anna Zalewska from Poland, shadow rapporteur for the ECR group, expressed serious reservations about Mr Niinistö’s draft report. In particular, she was critical of the proposed calculation of Member States’ contribution to the overall EU target, as unfair to some countries.
See the draft report: https://bit.ly/3FZd1mk (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)