The Nature Restoration law passed yesterday, by a narrow margin, the critical vote in the European Parliament, so that this transcendental initiative of the European Green Pact will be able to continue its legislative process.
The plenary session of the European Parliament managed to circumvent the veto attempt that the European People’s Party had submitted to this law of the European Commission. The text has had the support of socialists, liberals, greens, the left and some popular MEPs, who supported the rule despite the frontal rejection that the group has expressed in recent months.
The European Parliament will now have to negotiate the final details with the Council of the EU, where the Member States have already agreed on a common approach. Until the last moment the bill has been opposed by the extreme right and the European People’s Party (EPP), as well as by large farms.
The final text was accepted by 336 seats in favor, 300 against and 13 abstentions, after including 129 amendments added to the report prepared by the Spanish César Luena (PSOE). “This law is good even for those who have voted against it. Special thanks to scientists and young people, because they are the ones who have convinced us that we had to have this law and we are going to have it”, said Luena, relieved after passing the uncertain parliamentary examination.
The Eurocámara manages to overcome the obstacle that the position of the president of the EPP, Manfred Weber, has caused. “The extreme right and Manfred Weber’s operation have failed,” said the president of the European Parliament’s Environment Committee, the liberal Pascual Canfin, on his Twitter profile.
“We have fought for our convictions and we have been very close”, Manfred Weber added before stressing that it has been an “empty victory” for the defenders of the law, since many accepted amendments lower the content of the text.
The proposal aims to help restore European habitats, 80% of which are in poor condition and sets, to achieve this, specific legally binding objectives and obligations, with recovery measures covering at least 20% of land areas and EU marine areas by 2030, and all ecosystems in need of restoration by 2050.
The file has been politically poisoned since the president of the EPP, the German Manfred Weber, turned this project to protect biodiversity into a thrown weapon against the European green agenda. In this approach against the community Executive there is also a personal confrontation between Weber, who in 2019 failed in his attempt to become president of the European Commission, and his compatriot and political family partner Ursula Von der Leyen, who succeeded.
“When we talk about the Green Deal, when we talk about restoring nature, for once let’s not think about the next elections, but about the next generation,” said the vice-president of the European Commission responsible for climate policy, the social democrat Frans Timmermans.
The third vice president and minister for the Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, was “very satisfied” by the rejection of the European Parliament to the veto of the European People’s Party to the law, like the environmental groups.
