(Updates throughout)

EU environment ministers reached an agreement on Tuesday on the proposal for a nature restoration law, moving ahead of the divided European Parliament in the bloc’s parallel lawmaking process.

Member states agreed a united line on the bill to put in place recovery measures that will cover at least 20% of both the EU’s land and sea areas by 2030, and all ecosystems in need of restoration by 2050.

LESS SPECIFIC

The ministers want the law to require nations to revive by 2030 at least 30% of habitats in terrestrial, coastal, freshwater, and marine ecosystems that are deemed not in good condition – grouping together a target in a more flexible approach compared to the original European Commission proposal that sets out goals for each habitat group.

Further out, member states want to set restoration measures on at least 60% by 2040 and on at least 90% by 2050 of the area of each habitat group that is not in good condition.

The ministers want to weaken the bill by providing an exception for marine areas that have soft sediment habitats, giving no 2030 goal and lower percentage requirements for 2040 and 2050 than the Commission proposal.

While the original proposal contained specific obligations based on ecosystems, the Council of member states seeks to introduce flexibilities.

For urban ecosystems, the Council version would replace quantitative targets with an obligation for member states to achieve an increasing trend in urban green areas “until a satisfactory level is reached”.

The ministers maintained the ‘no net loss’ requirement – where no net loss of urban green space and of urban tree canopy cover should occur by 2030 compared to when the regulation enters into force, unless urban ecosystems already have over 45% of green space.

But they want lower targets for rewetting of peatlands, so as to restore 30% of drained peatlands under agricultural use by 2030 and 50% by 2050, with the possibility for member states that are heavily affected to apply a lower percentage.

More flexibility in the use of indicators to monitor forest ecosystems was also introduced by ministers.

For high-diversity landscape features in agricultural ecosystems, like hedges, tree rows, patches, ditches, ponds or fruit trees, the Council added the possibility to focus measures on those that are necessary for the preservation of biodiversity.

Finally, they added an obligation for member states to ensure that restored river connectivity should be maintained.

Member states, however, complained about a lack of data on habitats’ conditions and agreed that quantitative restoration measures would only apply to areas where the condition of habitats is known.

For terrestrial habitats, member states would have until 2030 to determine 90% of the condition of the habitats. For marine habitats 50% of the knowledge gaps would have to be closed by 2030. The condition of all habitats would need to be known by 2040, except for soft sediment where the deadline is extended to 2050.

NON-DETERIORATION

For areas of habitats subject to restoration measures, member states agreed they would ensure that significant deterioration does not occur.

In areas already in good condition or where restoration measures are not yet implemented, particularly outside the Natura 2000 network of protected areas, member states would endeavour to put in place necessary measures to prevent significant deterioration.

This would translate into a results-based obligation for the former and a weaker effort-based obligation for the latter.

In the past weeks, some members of the European Parliament have worried that this principle “could create issues” for the availability of land for things like housing and renewable energy.

As a consequence, the Commission tried to accommodate these concerns by suggesting that the non-deterioration provisions “can be reformulated to make the obligation effort-based” in that the law would require measures to be put in place but not a specific outcome.

The Commission also suggested that regional and local specificities could also be taken into account by the executive when assessing national restoration plans – a further flexibility.

CLIMATE VS BIODIVERSITY?

The Council position is seeking to add a new article explaining that energy from renewable sources is presumed to have “an overriding public interest”..

This should apply to planning, construction, operation of plants, as well as their connection to the grid and the related grid itself and storage assets.

This means that they would benefit from a derogation to the obligations of continuous improvement and non-deterioration.

In addition, member states would be able to exempt these projects from the obligation to demonstrate that less damaging alternative solutions are available, if a strategic environmental assessment has been carried out.

To secure alignment with the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive, currently under revision, member states also want to restrict the application of these exemptions in accordance with the priorities set in their national integrated energy and climate plans.

A similar assumption have also been outlined in the Commission’s proposed Net Zero Industry Act, where strategic technologies would be given priority funding and fast-tracked permitting.

The Council position also sought to clarify that plans and projects for the sole purpose of national defence can be presumed as having an overriding public interest and may be exempted, but that member states should put in place measures to mitigate the impacts.

HARD BALANCING

By adopting their general approach, ministers wanted to set “a balance between keeping ambitious goals for nature restoration and providing flexibility for member states in the implementation of the regulation, while keeping a level-playing field and reducing administrative burden”.

The Commission proposed the nature restoration law in June 2022, suggesting for the first time to adopt measures to not only preserve but to restore nature.

The bill has split members of the European Parliament, with several cross-party committees rejecting the bill outright while last week’s ballot in the environment committee (ENVI) was postponed ahead of its decisive vote due to a lack of time although many line-by-line amendments had been weakened. 

“I am glad that we have found a way to bring this file to a general approach,” said the Swedish minister for climate and the environment, Romina Pourmokhtari, chairing the ministerial Environment Council meeting.

“This text is a solid basis for negotiations with the European Parliament,” she added.

During a press conference in the evening, Pourmokhtari added that the ministers “considered having longer discussions and discussing it further”, but they “made significant progress during a short amount of time by setting the goal of reaching a general approach”.

“We listened carefully to all of the concerns and remarks being raised and truly tried to do our best in finding that delicate compromise that will not lower the ambitions of the proposals at the cost of getting a bigger majority,” she said.

The general approach will serve as a mandate for negotiations with the European Parliament on the final shape of the legislation before it can pass into law.

On the same day, ministers held two policy debates on proposals at an earlier stage in their scrutiny: on a proposal to reduce CO2 emissions from new heavy-duty vehicles progressively in 2030, 2035 and 2040, and on a proposal for a directive on air quality.

By Emanuela Barbiroglio  – emanuela@carbon-pulse.com