On the night of Thursday 9 November, the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union and the Commission reached a provisional political agreement on the proposal for a regulation on nature restoration. Nine hours of negotiations (2pm-11pm) successfully concluded the third ‘trilogue’ on this flagship legislation of the ‘European Green Deal’, which aims to reverse the alarming loss of biodiversity and contribute to the EU’s climate objectives (see EUROPE 13288/10, 13281/13).
The goodwill shown by the negotiators in reaching agreement on the terms and conditions of the flexibility required enabled this result to be achieved on legislation that had been under discussion for a year and was narrowly saved in July (see EUROPE 13221/1).
This regulation was proposed to set legally binding targets for each of the ecosystems - forests, agricultural land, marine, freshwater and urban ecosystems listed in Annexes I and II of the regulation - with a view to restoring at least 20% of the EU’s terrestrial and marine areas by 2030 and all ecosystems in need of restoration by 2050.
The agreement maintains the general objective of restoring at least 20% of the EU’s land and marine areas by 2030.
Under the compromise, Member States will have to put in place measures to restore at least 30% of the natural habitat types in poor condition. However, the co-legislators agreed that, until 2030, countries should give priority to Natura 2000 sites (a pan-European network of protected natural areas) rather than agricultural land when implementing measures.
Countries will also have to establish measures to restore at least 60% of habitats in poor condition by 2040 and at least 90% by 2050. Additional flexibility has been added for very common and widespread habitats.
Non-deterioration requirement. There will be an obligation to prevent any significant deterioration in areas subject to restoration that have achieved good status and in areas containing the terrestrial and marine habitats listed in Annexes I and II. This requirement would be based on effort and measured at the level of the type of habitat.
Agricultural ecosystems. On this point, which was the most thorny (Article 9), the compromise provides for an approach based on efforts, not results. Countries will have to put in place measures to achieve a positive trend based on indicators by the end of 2030, and every 6 years thereafter. Countries can choose two of the following three indicators: - prairie butterfly index; - the proportion of farmland with highly diverse landscape features; - the stock of organic carbon in the mineral soil of cultivated land.
30% of drained peatlands should be rewetted by 2030 (1/4 of which should be returned to their natural state), 40% by 2040 and 50% by 2050. However, Member States will be able to reduce the percentages of rewetting if there is a significant risk to infrastructure, buildings, climate adaptation or other public interests and if there is no other land available for rewetting. (Art. 9.4).
Emergency brake. Restoration obligations for agricultural land may be suspended if food safety or agricultural production are threatened. This temporary freeze, to be decided by the Commission, may not exceed one year.
Pollinators. Countries will have to define measures to reverse the decline in pollinator populations by 2030 at the latest. On the basis of the Commission’s delegated acts to establish a scientific method for monitoring pollinator diversity and populations, they will have to monitor progress at least every 6 years after 2030.
Forest ecosystems. The Member States will have to put in place measures to improve the biodiversity of forest ecosystems and to obtain, at national level, increasing trends for certain indicators, such as dead wood on the ground and standing wood and the common forest bird index, taking into account the risk of forest fires. Countries are invited to contribute to the planting of at least 5 billion additional trees by 2030 at EU level.
Urban ecosystems. Member States will have to increase urban green spaces until a satisfactory level is reached. They will also have to ensure that there is no net loss of urban green space and urban green cover between the entry into force of the regulation and the end of 2030, unless urban ecosystems already contain more than 45% green space.
Rivers. Countries will be required to identify and remove man-made barriers to surface water connectivity in order to transform at least 25,000 km of watercourses into free-flowing rivers by 2030 and maintain restored natural river connectivity.
National restoration plans. EU countries will have to draw up national plans to be assessed by the European Commission to measure the progress made. They will first submit plans covering the period up to June 2032, with a strategic overview for the period beyond. By June 2032, plans would be submitted for the 10 years up to 2042, with a strategic vision up to 2050, followed by plans for 2050 by June 2042.
The Member States will be able to take account of the diversity of their socio-economic and cultural needs, regional and local characteristics, population density and the specific situation of the outermost regions.
Revision clause. In 2033, the Commission will assess the application of the regulation and its impact on the agriculture, fisheries and forestry sectors, as well as its wider socio-economic effects, and may revise it.
Spain’s Minister for Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, said she was proud of the “indispensable agreement [...] on [...] the first [law] of its kind”. “If we want to be resilient, if we want a Europe that is carbon neutral, if we want social justice, we need to restore nature”, she told the Congress of the Party of European Socialists.
The provisional agreement still has to be approved by Parliament and the EU Council.
A fairly positive reception from the political groups. The European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) will give its opinion on 29 November. The constructive attitude of the political groups gives reason to hope for support.
“70 years after the start of the European project, a European law is needed to combat the loss of biodiversity”, said rapporteur César Luena (S&D, Spanish). “The agreement reached is an important collective moment”, he added.
Christine Schneider (EPP, German) welcomed the “positive changes made” to the European Commission’s text and was delighted that the compromise negotiated “no longer has much in common with the ideological approach, practically infeasible and a disaster for farmers, forest owners, fishermen and local and regional authorities, especially in densely populated areas”.
France’s Anne Sander, from the same group, nonetheless felt that we should remain vigilant about the emergency brake, “because the Commission will have control over this mechanism, the activation of which is still rather unclear”, and about the dead wood indicators, which “have been maintained, although the risks of forest fires are taken into account”.
“Until now, we had rules to protect the most outstanding natural areas, but we didn’t have any to restore nature where it was already degraded. This is now the case with this unprecedented law. As with the European climate legislation, we have organised the restoration of nature for the coming decades and, for the first time in Europe, we have created governance for the restoration of nature”, emphasised Pascal Canfin (Renew Europe, French).
Jutta Paulus (Greens/EFA, German) welcomed the fact that “a political agreement has been reached” and said she was “relatively confident” that the ENVI Committee would be able to reach a united vote of support. “The Commission and the EU Member States will be able to go to COP28 in Dubai with an important element in curbing the climate crisis and adapting to the climate”.
The European Commissioner for the Environment, Virginijus Sinkevičius, welcomed “a balanced agreement”. He stressed the potential of this future regulation: “Healthy nature means adequate supplies of clean water, cleaner air, cooler cities during heatwaves, buffer zones against storms on our coasts and plentiful sources of food”.
Maroš Šefčovič, the vice-president responsible for the European Green Deal was equally satisfied ahead of COP28 in Dubai and the UN conference on biodiversity in December. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang with Mathieu Bion)