The European Parliament’s Committee on Environment (ENVI) is preparing for the hearing of the Commissioner-designate for the Environment, Jessika Roswall, scheduled for early November. The MEPs have already drafted a series of written questions, published on Monday 7 October by our colleagues at Contexte, which will provide a clearer picture of her priorities and her commitment to the Union’s environmental policies.
These questions cover five main themes. Among them: water resource management. Europe’s water resilience strategy is a key issue, with questions on how Ms Roswall plans to tackle the problems of water scarcity, efficiency and pollution, while taking account of specific national circumstances, particularly in agriculture. The link between ecosystems and water is also highlighted.
MEPs are therefore expecting concrete proposals as part of a future ‘Circular Economy Act’, in particular on measures to stimulate demand for secondary raw materials and create a genuine single market for waste. They are asking whether this new act will go beyond the existing legislative framework, for example by targeting sectors such as critical raw materials or textiles.
The revision of the REACH regulation(Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) is also on the agenda. MEPs want Jessika Roswall to clarify how she intends to simplify this framework while strengthening health and environmental protection, particularly with regard to perfluoroalkylated substances (PFAS).
Jessika Roswall will be faced as well with the challenges of updating the bio-economic strategy to ensure that it contributes both to Europe's economic competitiveness and to the environmental objectives of the European Green Deal.
MEPs also call on the Commissioner-designate to commit to the full and timely application of existing nature protection legislation. In addition, they question whether a fund dedicated to nature restoration should be set up in the next multiannual budget framework to guarantee adequate funding for these policies.
These questions, which must be submitted to the Commissioners by 10 October at the latest, have to be answered by 22 October, before the hearings which will take place between 4 and 12 November. (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)