Updated with reactions throughout.

European lawmakers have just two days to come to a decision on nature protection measures, with a vote due at next week’s plenary session on a law to restore at least 20% of the bloc’s sea and land areas by 2030.

Members of the European Parliament, MEPs, will then exchange their views on July 11 and vote on 129 amendments the following day.

The Commission’s proposal has been the subject of much back and forth over the past few months.

After an initial postponement, the Parliament’s environment committee, ENVI, was unable to filter the amendments presented by the different groups, while other committees rejected the opinions on it.

A source close to the Parliament told Carbon Pulse that no one has made a request to postpone the vote to September, which in any case would be “totally useless” as the divisions are now here to stay.

MEPs can still choose to send the dossier back to ENVI before next Tuesday’s debate and Wednesday’s vote.

“Majorities are too variable, because in a week, a lot can happen,” the source said.

Besides that, voting over 100 amendments would take a long time and result in a “Frankenstein” legislation, they added. 

When there are more than 50 amendments, the Parliament’s president, Roberta Metsola, can also decide they are too many to continue.

The debate has already given observers a glimpse into next year’s electoral campaign and potential coalitions and highlighted how some MEPs have been suffering from “regulatory fatigue”.

In June, co-ordinators from S&D, the Greens, Renew Europe, and the Left found common ground to save the file. Since then however, parties have shifted and centrist Renew members in particular appeared to be divided over the last vote in ENVI.

After Friday’s briefing in groups, there may now be a slightly clearer idea of what will happen in the plenary, but for now, all groups have shut their doors and are conducting internal talks.

“It is unfortunately too early to answer any of the questions as negotiations are ongoing,” the Greens’ Jutta Paulus said.

Similarly, Emma Wiesner from Renew said she “wishes to refrain from talking about the nature restoration law in the media for now”.

At the same time, ENVI’s chair Pascal Canfin wrote on Twitter that Renew Europe tabled the Council general approach on Nature restoration law, hoping “that we will give us more chance to win the plenary vote next week”.

The office of Cesar Luena (S&D) said they are working on the compromises agreed with the four groups to improve and strengthen them in order to get a majority.

During a briefing on Thursday morning, his colleague Mohammed Chahim told the press they believe they’ll win by 5-20 votes.

The centre-right EPP, meanwhile, insisted it wants “the European Green Deal to be both ‘green’ and a ‘deal’”.

The EPP’s Peter Liese said: “We are united in our position to reject the Nature restoration law next week.”

According to NGO Fern, the whole package has become “a pawn in a political game”.

The organisation noted that MEPs had until around midday on Wednesday to propose amendments and reminded “it is vital that they keep the ambition to restore forests and other ecosystems high”.

Opting for a new review will be entirely up to the European Commission.

PEACE OFFERING

Meanwhile, two new proposals for a so-called “Food and Biodiversity package 2.0” came out on Wednesday.

The text included measures to:

• establish two categories of plants obtained by New Genomic Techniques (NGT): those comparable to naturally occurring or conventional plants, and others with more complex modifications;
• give incentives to steer the development of plants towards more sustainability;
• ensure transparency about all NGT plants on the EU market;
• offer robust monitoring of economic, environmental and social impacts of NGT products.

The Commission also suggested a sustainable use of plant and soil natural resources, with the ultimate goal to achieve healthy soils by 2050, and measures to reduce, reuse, and recycle textile waste.

According to the Greens, however, a large-scale commercialisation of genetically modified plants “would have wide and long-term implications for the broader sustainable and equitable development of European agri-food systems”.

In a press briefing earlier this week, the party presented a study showing that GMOs “would lead to higher seed prices, less seed breeding innovation, and a reduced availability, diversity, and choice of seeds”.

The launch was going to be “a bit of a political give and take”, said Greens MEP Bas Eickhout.

“This GMO deregulation was clearly given to the EPP in the hope that they will lower their resistance, maybe even on the nature restoration law,” he argued.

“The European Commission has tried to do soil directives before and they always got stuck in the Council, which doesn’t seem to be the case this time anymore, because Germany and France are not opposing it, but then there is still the question mark about the level of ambition in the proposal.”

Eickhout suggested “the level of ambition is really declining because of pressure from the EPP” and a “power struggle” at the heart of the grouping between the group’s chair Manfred Weber and the Commission’s president Ursula von der Leyen, who also comes from the same party.

“This has not so much to do with the contents of the proposals because the EPP has never really done any negotiations,” Eickhout said, reminding that the EPP left the negotiating room when a new opinion was discussed.

“The Commission is a bit naive to think that this proposal will change the course of [Weber’s] behaviour, but I do hope that it will also stimulate some discussion within the EPP with those members that are not so happy with this kind of confrontational course against von der Leyen that Manfred Weber has set in.”

A spokesperson for the Commission told Carbon Pulse the executive “won’t be saying anything before the plenary” and “no changes” are in sight.

Asked about compromises, the climate commissioner Frans Timmermans said that, “as long as we can get a discussion about the content of the proposals, I think we can get there.”

“I urge [MEPs] to see if they could find a compromise like we also did,” he added.

“Now I believe we have all the elements necessary for those different positions to perhaps come closer together, we try to build bridges between these different positions, and perhaps these proposals could help.”

This constitutes the second attempt to reconcile with the law’s opponents and it may be the last, since the Commission had already circulated an exploratory non-paper showing some openness to adjust.

Liese, however, denied any possible link between the new proposals and the nature law.

”This was never our position,” he added.

BEST IS YET TO COME

Only a rejection in a second plenary reading of the nature restoration bill would be without appeal, forcing the Commission to withdraw the bill as it is.

This has happened twice in the past, on GMOs and software patents.

“But we are in a little-explored area where the interpretations do not totally coincide and nothing is totally automatic,” the Parliament’s source said.

EU environment ministers, on their side, reached an agreement last month.

They proposed a law to require nations to revive by 2030 at least 30% of habitats in terrestrial, coastal, freshwater, and marine ecosystems that are deemed in poor condition – grouping together a target for a more flexible approach compared to the original proposal that sets out goals for each habitat group.

There was no formal vote, but – based on the ministers’ declarations in the public session – Austria, Belgium, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden could not support the general approach.

The Council of member states is now ready to start the trilogues with the European Parliament to finalise the bill, a spokesperson explained to Carbon Pulse.

It would be better not to “prejudge how the dynamics of the trilogue will go” and both institutions “in general have stronger support for some aspects of their mandate than others and also mandates evolve throughout the negotiations”, the same person said.

The Council, Parliament, and Commission ultimately need to agree on the text for the bill to pass into law.

By Emanuela Barbiroglio  – emanuela@carbon-pulse.com

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