The European Parliament’s position on the highly contested nature restoration bill remained in the balance on the eve of a crunch vote on Tuesday, with efforts to craft a compromise struggling to gain traction.

The 705-strong assembly is due to vote on the bill at noon Strasbourg time on Wednesday, with proponents still scrambling to get enough votes to secure a majority not to reject it outright after three interim committee votes failed to adopt positions on the proposal to restore at least 20% of the bloc’s sea and land areas by 2030.

The Council of member states has since piled pressure on the Parliament by adopting its own united ‘general approach’ in a parallel lawmaking process, leading MEPs from the centrist Renew Europe group to attempt to rally around a similar position.

Observers told Carbon Pulse that the most likely outcome is a vote in favour of this compromise, which would require nations to revive by 2030 at least 30% of habitats and groups together targets for more flexibility.

Should the Parliament fail to adopt a position, the lawmakers would try again at committee stage, with only a second full Parliament rejection vote capable of killing the bill outright.

For months, the centre-right EPP group – the largest in the Parliament with over a fifth of the members – has been attempting to do just that, arguing that the bill would threaten food security by putting undue strain on farmers. 

This is very rare, with an outright rejection only occurring twice in the past, on GMOs and software patents.

Wednesday’s ballot will first see the MEPs vote on a motion to reject the Commission’s proposal, then vote on the Council’s text, and only then to line-by-line voting on over 100 amendments.

Given the sheer number of amendments, the Parliament’s president Roberta Metsola may opt to filter these down to below 50, according to the Parliament’s rulebook. 

Even if a position is adopted, the divisive nature of the bill means the MEPs may opt to send the text back to the environment committee (ENVI) to establish a firmer position rather than being fast-tracked on to trilogue talks to finalise the bill with the Council and Commission, a Parliament spokesperson said on Monday.

RENEW DILEMMA

With leaders of the EPP and other right-wing groupings opposed, and ‘progressive’ left-leaning groups backing the earlier ENVI position, the spotlight has fallen on the divided Renew party as potentially holding the balance of power despite only being the third biggest group with 100 members.

During a debate on the bill on Tuesday, Renew chair Stephane Sejourne of France said his group “is painfully trying to do the impossible” and announced “a strategy to achieve a majority and avoid a rejection” ahead of the vote.

“We took an initiative, which we feel provides a way out for the parliament as a whole and provides the conditions for unanimity around this file to avoid it being rejected,” Sejourne said later in a press briefing, adding that he hoped the compromise could appeal to the wider assembly as well as just Renew members.

But Sejourne was yet to convince all of his own party colleagues. 

Swedish Renew member Emma Wiesner said the compromise was “not enough”.

She told Carbon Pulse that the “Parliament will most likely accept the Council position as its own, and that is way better than the proposal ENVI voted on last month”.

Wiesner and other party members have tabled three additional amendments they want to pass alongside the compromise position.

In particular, they suggested that Article 4.2 “should be about restoring damaged habitats, not changing huge areas of non damaged nature”,  Article 4.7 “needs to be clarified”, and Article 9.4 “needs to be changed to give member states a bigger say in how rewetting of farmlands should be done”.

”If these three amendments pass, and Parliament accepts the Council position as its own, then we can vote for the proposal to pass, otherwise we have no other option than to say no in the final vote,” she explained.

UNRECOGNISABLE

On Monday, opening a meeting of the EU’s 27 environment ministers, the EU commissioner for environment Virginius Sinkevicius told journalists that, if the proposal is eventually rejected by the full Parliament, there won’t be a new one put forth ahead of the expiry of the current Commission formation in mid-2024.

“If the current proposal is rejected, with the Council general approach, so basically member states saying that we need this legislation, we are ready to work and implement it, the Commission has not enough time to propose a new proposal,” the Lithuanian commissioner said.

Sinkevicius, who is a member of the conservative party the Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union, added that the proposal needs to be seen as part of a whole suite of bills on food waste, textile waste, soil health.

“We have to understand that we have to find the measures that of course would not create anxiety among our farmers,” he added.

“But I think the biggest anxiety that is now among our farmers is the current drought that they will be facing and the decreased outputs of the yields only last year, which has nothing to do with the legislation.”

Teresa Ribera, minister for the ecological transition of Spain, who also spoke at the press briefing, echoed what the commissioner said,  “what we are witnessing and seeing is a bit shocking, members of the parliament saying that they do not want to discuss a proposal, not even to improve it,” even as European leaders have agreed on a stance.

“I don’t recognise some political groups of the Parliament asking for less Europe, less comfort, less security, plus, less common good, common interest being developed by the European institutions,” said Ribera, who is chairing the Council on the issue for the rest of the year.

Sinkevicius also mentioned noted that the EU was putting at risk its international credibility, referring to the COP15 UN agreement in Montreal last year where the world agreed to restore 30% of the natural habitats by 2030. 

“If we don’t manage to walk the talk, but only be ambitious internationally, but domestically we don’t manage to follow, this also puts a great shadow on our credibility.”

“A BLOW FOR NATURE PROTECTION”

Meanwhile on Tuesday, the Parliament adopted its position on a revised Industrial Emission Directive (IED).

MEPs backed the Commission proposal to extend the obligation to reduce pollution to mines and large installations manufacturing batteries, except for those exclusively assembling battery modules and battery packs.

They also voted to include pig farms with more than 2,000 places for production pigs (over 30 kg), or with more than 750 places for sows and poultry farms with more than 40,000 places for poultry, as well as farms with more than 750 livestock units (LSU).

But going against the Commission’s proposal, MEPs decided to not extend the obligations to cattle farms.

Campaigners Greenpeace Europe noted that this exception will allow “the largest and most toxic” farms “to continue polluting our air, soil and water”.

“The industrial farming lobby’s enduring influence in the European Parliament means super-polluting farms that pack in animals in horrid conditions will continue to poison our air, soil and water,” Greenpeace agriculture policy director Marco Contiero said.

“It’s a major blow for the future of sustainable farming, effectively rewarding polluting industrial agriculture and making it harder for small and medium family farms to operate within nature’s limits.”

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