The Nature Restoration Law managed to overcome a critical vote in the European Parliament this Wednesday, by a narrow margin, 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 has rejected the veto of the European People’s Party to the law of the restoration of nature, a text that has had the support of socialists, liberals, greens, the left and some ‘popular’ MEPs who supported the norm despite the frontal rejection that the group has manifested in recent months.
The European Parliament will now have to negotiate the final regulations with the Council of the EU, where the Member States have already agreed on a common approach on a bill that is directly opposed by the extreme right and the European People’s Party (EPP), as well as the large farms.
The plenary first voted on a key amendment to reject the entire text, which fell with 312 ballots in favor, 324 against and 12 abstentions to thunderous applause from the liberal, socialist and green caucuses, united in their defense of the bill.
Next, the European chamber scrutinized one by one the 129 amendments added to the report prepared by the Spanish César Luena (PSOE), to finally vote on the entire text, which was accepted by 336 seats in favor, 300 against and 13 abstentions.
“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,” Luena said from his seat, relieved after passing the uncertain parliamentary examination.
The text returns to the Committee on the Environment to move on to three-way negotiations (trilogues) with the Council — which has already adopted its position — and the Commission. “Friends and friends, go ahead”, he has influenced, visibly moved.
The European Parliament has finally managed to block the veto of the EPP, promoted by its president, Manfred Weber, against a law that Brussels has repeatedly described as one of the pillars of the Green Pact, promoted by the president of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, with whom he shares political family.
“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, who celebrated the result of the vote as “a true moment of happiness”.
Along the same lines, the MEP from the European Greens group, Ernest Urtasun, has stated that the EPP has made a “ridicule” after its “climate denialism” has emerged “resoundingly defeated” from the vote this Wednesday, while that he now hopes that the three-party negotiations will unblock “as soon as possible” and allow an “ambitious” text to be adopted.
“We have fought for our convictions and we have been very close”, Manfred Weber added at a press conference, in addition to pointing out that it is an “empty victory” for the defenders of the law, since he considers that many accepted amendments lower the text content.
The ‘popular’ MEP Peter Liese has defended that the law has been “weakened” after being approved. “I am disappointed, of course, but at least our commitment was not in vain,” he admitted in a message on social networks in which he assured that he will continue to work for the inhabitants of rural areas.
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 marine areas of the EU by 2030, and all ecosystems that need restoration by 2050. The Law for the Restoration of Nature is based on a proposal launched in December by the European Commission to match the passage of the community block to the agreements on biodiversity reached in United Nations COP15.
But the file, which is also opposed by the big agricultural businessmen, represented by the Copa-Cogeca platform, has been politically poisoned since the president of the EPP, the German Manfred Weber, turned this biodiversity protection project into a thrown weapon against the green agenda, in what is interpreted as a position taken by the Christian Democrats in view of the European Parliament elections in June 2024.
In this approach against a “star” law of 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, that got it.
That is why the project has received so much attention since its first legislative steps, with agonizing and tight votes in the parliamentary commission on the Environment and in plenary session -where the famous activist Greta Thumberg was present- although only the mandate for the Final negotiation with the Council.
“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,” the vice president of the European Commission responsible for climate policies told reporters after the vote. , the Social Democrat Frans Timmermans, who once again reached out to the PPE to negotiate the content of the proposal.
The popular ones assure that the law threatens food security, forces peasants to cede part of their lands to preserve biodiversity and compromises the deployment of renewable energy infrastructures, while the extreme right assures that it is the product of “climate fanaticism”.
However, 21 MEPs from the PPE broke voting discipline and supported the processing of the Nature Restoration Law, a failure for Weber’s order that also raises questions about his future as head of the Christian Democratic political family.
The initiative was supported by social democrats, greens, the left and most of the liberals, as well as other agricultural platforms, the international scientific community, hunters, renewable energy companies, a wide assortment of multinationals and close to a million citizens, who have signed a petition in favor of the law.
They argue that it does not set mandatory targets, will improve agricultural production in the long term and prioritizes the installation of green energy infrastructure, among other arguments.
The objective now is that Parliament and the Council can agree on the final regulations on the Nature Restoration Law before the end of the year, in negotiations that will take place during the Spanish presidency of the Council of the EU.
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 nature restoration law that has gone ahead in a “tight” vote ” despite all the hoaxes and lies” of the right and the extreme right.
“In the end, the MEPs have voted in favor of life, nature and to continue investing in people because we are investing in people,” he said in Valladolid, where Ribera chairs the informal meeting of the ministers of the Environment and EU energy.
For Ribera, the proposal finally approved is not what he would have liked since it is “undervalued” with respect to the initial intention. In any case, he describes it as “very important that it be maintained” in order to work in this direction in all the European institutions.
The vice president has said that precisely this nature restoration law is “one of the most irritating” just like climate change, which she sees as necessary to face “head on.”
Ribera has lamented that the right and extreme right in Europe have tried to make the nature restoration law a symbol of opponents of the “social contract with people who may feel concerned about change.”
In this sense, he has described as “enormous irresponsibility” what the right is “playing” with, which pretends “that the problem of climate change does not exist” and the ultra-right, which he says goes “much further” and questions data, science, measurements, reality.
For this reason, he has stressed that the political leaders and the institutions must be with the farmers, with those who live in the rural world, looking for a way to reinforce the income that they can receive precisely for working in this context in which biodiversity, forests, agriculture must be allies and in an area in which water is “an essential factor”.
“Looking the other way may mean not having water available when it is needed,” Ribera warned, reiterating his description of “enormously irresponsible” for those who deny climate change because they do not like droughts or hail. “Climate change is not going to stop because we don’t like it,” she has said.
In this way, he has defended that the best way to successfully face the fight against climate change is to give a “very committed” response to people, to water, to soil quality and to people who feel all this as “a threat”.
He does not see, therefore, “very successful” killing the messenger, questioning science or meteorologists. “That is profoundly regressive,” says Ribera, who affirms that ignoring the problem is a “tremendous mistake.”
