Contested Nature Restoration Law passes EU Parliament, despite last-minute revolt

A coalition of centre-right, far-right and national conservative EU lawmakers have failed to vote down the EU’s controversial nature restoration law amid a surge of farmers’ protests and European elections looming.

With Europe’s ecosystems continuing to degrade, Brussels proposed a comprehensive fix-all law in 2022, with the aim of restoring 20% of EU land and maritime areas. In 2023, the proposal’s ambition proved too much – centre-right EPP lawmakers, the bloc’s biggest party, protested, winning concessions on ambition and timelines.

The hollowed-out version of the law was adopted by the EU Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday (27 February) as 329 lawmakers voted in favour, with 275 votes against.

A win for Spanish centre-left S&D lawmaker Cesar Luena, who was in charge of negotiating a compromise in Parliament and could be seen cheering. A pair of green lawmakers were seen hugging it out in the hemicycle.

“The Restoration Law is not a law against anyone, but in favour of nature,” Luena stressed before the vote. 

“The law to restore nature is on its way … It’s a blow to the conservatives; their alignment with the right wing has backfired,” said green EU lawmaker Michael Bloss who hails from Germany.

NGO Bird Life Germany called the vote “an important ray of light” amid political efforts to roll back nature protection in Europe.

What political forces contributed to his law’s near downfall? A last-minute revolt orchestrated by the centre-right.

Despite having co-negotiated the law, EPP chief Manfred Weber said, “the Nature Restoration Law is badly drafted and was never up to the task in front of us” on Tuesday.

His party attributes its newfound opposition to the law to empathy with farmers. “We do not want new and more forms of bureaucracy and reporting obligations for farmers,” the group said.

The spokesman for the group’s president, Dirk Gotink, said: “If the French President is really serious about his concerns for farmers, he should call on his MEPs in Renew to do the same.” The French-led liberal Renew Europe group is to the left of the EPP.

A liberal-to-right-wing alliance is usually guaranteed to be able to vote any EU law down – but with liberals split and Ireland’s centre-right lawmakers breaking with their party line, the law survived to see the light of day.

An emergency for nature 

Around 80% of Europe’s natural inhabitants are in a poor state, mainly due to intensive exploitation of the seas and land, which is destroying ecosystems. 

For German Green MEP Jutta Paulus, “We should see the Nature Restoration Law as a starting point and an integral part of the biodiversity strategy and our climate objectives”, before adding that “MEPs should listen to science and give farmers the opportunity to adapt to a resilient and sustainable agricultural system”.

According to a study published in PNAS in May 2023, 20 million birds have disappeared from Europe every year for the past 40 years. 

Over the last decade, at least 70 to 80% of insect populations have disappeared from regions dominated by human activities and intensive agriculture, according to an international study coordinated by Anders Moller and published in Avian Research in 2021.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 30-50% of carbon-rich ecosystems need to be restored to limit global warming to less than 2° degrees.

The European Commission estimates that restoring natural environments would generate around €1,860 billion, at an estimated cost of just €154 billion.

European objectives

The European Nature Restoration Law sought to restore species populations by improving and extending their habitats.

To achieve this, specific targets have been set for pollinating insects, forest ecosystems, urban ecosystems, agricultural ecosystems, marine ecosystems and river connectivity. 

For example, under the proposal, European countries will have to reverse the decline in pollinator populations by 2030 at the latest, and aim for a measured increase at least every six years thereafter.

The bloc will be required to take measures to revitalise at least 30% of peatlands by 2030 and 50% by 2050.

In addition, three billion more trees will have to be planted in the EU, and at least 25,000 km of waterways will have to become free-flowing again.

However, an “emergency stop” clause had been included in the text, at the EPP’s behest, to allow the targets for agricultural ecosystems to be suspended in exceptional circumstances.

This clause could have been activated when the availability of land is no longer sufficient to ensure agricultural production that meets European food consumption – in a nod to farmers.

[Edited by Nikolaus J. Kurmayer/Nathalie Weatherald]

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