The approval of the EU Nature Restoration law, which seeks to protect biodiversity and recover the continent’s ecosystems, was left up in the air after Hungary joined the group of critical countries the night before last and thus made it impossible for a majority in favor of approve it. The Environment Ministers should have put the final seal on the regulations this Tuesday, but the file, which already generated reluctance in seven other governments, was blocked pending new work that would find a way out of the text.
During a public debate, the Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, Virginijus Sinkevicius, criticized the “deadlock” situation in which the regulations now remain and warned that it sends a “disastrous signal” to the rest of the world that harms the credibility of community institutions. “I am deeply concerned not only about the political consequences of not concluding this key agreement, but also about the disastrous signal we would send on the credibility of our institutions,” he said.
“The EU will lack the most important tool to fulfill its commitments and obligations,” he denounced before pointing out that the club runs the risk of attending the COP16 on biodiversity in October “empty-handed.”
The law was approved two weeks ago by the European Parliament in a tight vote that overcame the majority rejection of the European People’s Party (EPP) and also had a fragile balance between member states, since seven of them had problems with the provisional agreement . The group formed by Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Belgium and Italy did not then have enough strength to block the law, but the change in Budapest was enough to avoid a qualified majority in favor.
The Secretary of State for the Environment of Hungary, Aniló Raisz, defended that the protection of nature is a national competence, that its application entails higher costs and that it is necessary to seek greater support for the law from the agricultural sector. “We cannot accept more economic and administrative burdens for the agricultural sector, we cannot forget the situation in which it finds itself,” justified the Italian Deputy Minister of the Environment, Vannia Gava, while Finland also referred to its costs and Austria pointed to the rejection of some of its states.
Countries such as Germany, France, Portugal, Estonia, Denmark and Ireland intervened in favor of the law, and there was talk of “shame” and “disgrace” for the EU.