(Updates with further details and reaction)

The European Parliament’s environment committee (ENVI) rejected its amended text of the disputed nature restoration bill on Tuesday by the narrowest possible margin, passing the divisive legislation onto an uncertain development in the full assembly.

The bill as originally proposed by the European Commission would set binding targets to restore degraded habitats and lost species covering at least 20% of the EU’s land and sea areas by 2030, but it has been fiercely contested by conservative politicians who fear it would threaten food security.

In a resumed voting process following the last session being postponed earlier this month after getting around 80% of the way through hundreds of amendments, the full bill as amended received 44 votes in favour and 44 against in ENVI today in Brussels.

Several cross-party parliamentary committees have already rejected the Commission bill outright in interim opinion votes, but ENVI’s initial voting session on June 15 prevented an outright rejection – also by a 44-44 margin – enabling the committee to have a line-by-line ballot on over 1,000 amendments.

“We stopped them rejecting the bill altogether and they were not able to do this, in a way we have already won and we have managed to get this text discussed in plenary,” said Cesar Luena, an MEP from the centre-left S&D group who as rapporteur is steering the bill through Parliament.

The full assembly is now due to vote on the bill at its plenary session July 10-13. With no ENVI position to take forward, parties are likely to submit new amendments from scratch or revisit positions from the various committees.

In a parallel scrutiny process, EU member states last week managed to agree their united position on the bill, giving them a mandate to negotiate a final text with the Parliament and Commission in a trilogue process expected to start in earnest in the autumn.

EMOTIONS RUNNING HIGH

In press conferences following the vote, ENVI’s chair Pascal Canfin of the centrist Renew party accused Manfred Weber, president of the centre-right EPP, of “manipulating” the vote as multiple EPP members were replaced ‘substitute’ MEPs to ensure that the party unanimously rejected the amended bill.

According to the voting list, 7 out of 23 of the EPP MEPs that voted today were regular ENVI members but rather pre-designated ‘substitutes’ who are entitled to replace their colleagues on occasion.

Of these, five are members of the Parliament’s agriculture committee, many members of which have been vehemently opposed to the bill and considers it a threat to the bloc’s food security.

Canfin said that he believed if the full EPP ENVI members had been allowed to vote, this would have reflected “the diversity of positions in the ENVI committee better,” and that the law may not have been rejected.

He also said that Renew party members had been allowed to vote how they wanted and no party line had been adopted.

Four Renew members voted against adopting the final report, including the Swedish MEP Emma Wiesner, who had previously voiced her concern over the file to Carbon Pulse.

“There are many reasons … but the biggest flaw with this law is that it has an ‘one size-fits-all approach’ on things like targets, definitions and ambitions,” she said in an emailed response earlier this month.

“It doesn’t leave it up to member states to decide, which [can] lead to a positive change for one member state in a certain article [but] can be negative for another member state.  Member states can therefore be forced to finance restoration of land that does not need to be restored,” Wiesner added.

The EPP’s ENVI leader Peter Liese and EPP ‘shadow’ rapporteur Christine Schneider both said they were not happy with the result but believed it sent a strong signal to the European Commission to withdraw the bill and propose a new one.

“This is not the time for celebration I want to underline, even though we in the EPP group have supported rejection … the whole EPP Group supports the objectives of the European Green Deal,” said Schneider.

But, “the Nature Restoration Law’s chosen approach is the wrong way to go. The proposal is impractical. It’s backward looking and we also think it has ideological programmes,” the German MEP added.

Schneider called on Commission climate chief Frans Timmermans to withdraw the law and come up with a new one, with Liese also emphasising that the EPP had “only once in 27 cases we gave a red light to a proposal [that is part] of the Green Deal.”

ENVI’s lead rapporteur in charge of steering the nature bill through the Parliament was more conciliatory in his language, looking ahead to the Parliament’s plenary session.

“It’s now down to dialogue and negotiation, I reach out my hand,” said Cesar Luena.

Luena also appealed to Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen – an EPP member – to make a statement about the law, as she has been silent on the disputed proposal.

“I have a lot of esteem from Von Der Leyen, my party elected Von der Leyen along with other parties, we supported her Green Deal … and now her political family is moving away from that deal.”

Luena said he remained optimistic that a deal could be reached in plenary and that the proposal would pass and therefore enable the Parliament to negotiate a final version with the Commission and Council of member states.

By Rebecca Gualandi and Emanuela Barbiroglio – rebecca@carbon-pulse.com