The S&D, Greens/EFA and The Left groups in the European Parliament – helped by a third of the liberals in the Renew Europe group and a few defections within the EPP – ultimately managed to salvage the interinstitutional agreement on the ‘Nature Restoration’ Regulation (see EUROPE 13356/9) at the plenary session on Tuesday 27 February. In the end, the majority obtained was slightly larger than expected (329 votes in favour, 275 against, 24 abstentions), despite the fact that the EPP, on the eve of the vote, had announced that it would not support the agreement, even though it had been watered down considerably compared to the original legislative proposal.
“I was surprised by the EPP's lack of loyalty. We opted for a degree of flexibility in order to achieve a consensus. Unfortunately, the EPP, or some of its members, have instead embraced the rhetoric of the far right. It is sad and deplorable that the right has embarked on this dynamic”, said the rapporteur for the dossier, César Luena (S&D, Spanish), after the vote.
Before the agreement was formally approved by the European Parliament, the voting session began with a motion to reject the agreement, initiated by the ECR group. This was rejected by 345 votes to 273, before the decision to open the way to new amendments – also initiated by the conservatives – met with the same fate (414 votes against, 201 in favour, 12 abstentions).
The call made the day before by the European right to join with the far right and the conservatives, and vote against the text was therefore not enough to reject the text, even though several voices had told EUROPE, a few hours before the vote, that a rejection would probably “probably mean the death of the text”.
“If we have won the battle for the nature restoration law, it is because part of the European right has been able to resist the alliance with the anti-ecological populism of the far right, and the many false and misleading attacks on this text. Thank you to the EPP MEPs who voted to put an end to the disappearance of living things”, said Pascal Canfin (Renew Europe, French). His group was divided when the time came to vote, with almost 30% of MEPs voting against the text.
Ninety percent of habitats covered by the text restored by 2050
As a reminder, the agreement approved requires Member States to restore at least 30% of the habitats covered by the text, such as forests, grasslands and wetlands, rivers, lakes and coral beds, from ‘poor’ to ‘good’ condition by 2030.
This figure is set to rise to 60% by 2040 and 90% by 2050. As advocated by the European Parliament during the interinstitutional negotiations (‘trilogues’), EU countries should give priority to Natura 2000 areas until 2030. National restoration plans detailing how Member States intend to achieve the targets will also have to be drawn up.
Member States will also have to reduce emissions from the agricultural sector and restore at least 30% of drained peatlands by 2030, 40% by 2040 and 50% by 2050.
An emergency brake has also been incorporated into the agreement so that targets can be suspended under exceptional circumstances, such as when food production required for EU consumption is under threat.
In addition, Member States will have to focus on biodiversity and make progress on at least two of the three indicators: the grassland butterfly index, the share of agricultural land with high-diversity landscape features and the stock of organic carbon in cropland mineral soil.
Furthermore, as birds are considered to be good indicators of the overall state of biodiversity, measures to increase the common farmland bird index must also be taken within the EU. (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)