According to the Belgian Council Presidency, the European Union’s environment ministers have passed the renaturation law that has been the subject of months of debate. The decisive factor in the vote on Monday in Luxembourg was that Austria’s climate protection minister Leonore Gewessler voted for the law against the will of conservative Chancellor Karl Nehammer. With the law, the EU wants to reverse environmental destruction in the member states.
The law obliges EU countries to restore at least 20 percent of the damaged land and marine areas by 2030 and all threatened ecosystems by 2050. More trees are to be planted and moors and rivers are to be restored to their natural state. Negotiators from the member states had already agreed on this with members of the European Parliament in November. The agricultural sector in particular is critical of the law.
The final approval of the 27 EU countries for this agreement was actually considered a formality. However, the situation in the Council of Member States was close until the very end: Italy, Finland, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and Hungary spoke out against the law, according to diplomats. Belgium abstained. The necessary qualified majority of at least 15 member states and at least 65 percent of the EU population was therefore only achieved with Austria’s approval.
The Federal Chancellery in Vienna, run by the conservative ÖVP, threatened on Sunday with an action for annulment before the European Court of Justice (ECJ), which could overturn the law. “I know that I will encounter resistance in Austria,” said Climate Protection Minister Gewessler in Brussels. However, she is relaxed about the possibility of a lawsuit. “I am convinced that now is the time to pass this law.”
The project was the subject of long and intense debate. The EU Commission proposed the so-called Renaturation Act almost exactly two years ago. According to official figures, around 80 percent of habitats in the European Union are in poor condition. In addition, 10 percent of bee and butterfly species are threatened with extinction and 70 percent of soils are in poor condition.
While environmentalists, numerous scientists and companies supported the law, there was great resistance, especially from Christian Democrats and farmers’ associations. Critics fear that the cuts would be too great for farmers and thus have an impact on food production in the EU. In order to address these concerns, the law was significantly weakened during the negotiation process.
The EU countries and the EU Parliament had actually already agreed on a compromise in November. According to this, farmers will no longer be obliged to make a certain percentage of their land available for environmentally friendly measures, something that farmers had feared.
