EU Nature Restoration Plan Postponed Indefinitely

Destruction in the Carpathian forests in Hungary observed by Greenpeace environmental activists and experts on May 31, 2023. Max Zielinski / Greenpeace

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The European Union’s nature restoration law, which had set out to restore 20% of land and sea areas in the EU by 2030, has now been postponed indefinitely after a vote to pass the bill on Monday was canceled.

The nature restoration law was initially proposed in June 2022 and has spent the last several months going through the legal approval process in the EU. But following protests by farmers and a withdrawal of support from Hungary, the EU canceled the vote. 

“It seems that we don’t have a qualified majority anymore because… Hungary has changed its vote. We have to understand why they do that,” said Alain Maron, a regional climate minister for Belgium, as reported by The Associated Press.

The European Commission had already previously weakened environmental regulations, including the proposed nature restoration law, because of the protests. Laws on sustainable farm practices, such as crop rotation and reduced use of pesticides, have been weakened or scrapped altogether, The Associated Press reported earlier this month.

“The agricultural sector is a very important sector, not only in Hungary, but everywhere in Europe,” said Anikó Raisz, Minister of State for Environmental Policy and Circular Economy of Hungary, as reported by Reuters.

The decision to cancel the vote to pass the nature restoration law also comes ahead of elections for the European Parliament that are to take place this June.

According to the European Parliament, about 80% of EU habitats are in poor condition. The bill would have worked to restoring 90% of these degraded habitats to a “good” condition as well as enacting protections to prevent further degradation.

“We condemn all Member States who are not supporting the law — at best, it suggests a deep failure to understand the situation we are in and what it means for the rights of citizens,” the #RestoreNature coalition, which includes BirdLife Europe, ClientEarth, European Environmental Bureau (EEB) and World Wildlife Fund (WWF)-EU, shared in a statement.

An online public forum on the law in 2021 showed “overwhelming support” from over 110,000 people and organizations, according to Carbon Brief. The law was agreed upon in November 2023 and passed a European Parliament vote in February 2024. 

The vote that had been planned for Monday was to formally adopt the law via the European Council. This final step is typically considered a formality; however, in the case of the nature restoration law, environmentalists are concerned over whether it will come to vote again at all. The #RestoreNature coalition is calling for lawmakers to adopt the law before the EU Parliament takes its summer recess.

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