Europe hits resistance in race to finalise green laws

BRUSSELS – Increased political resistance to new EU laws to protect the environment has left the European Commission fighting to keep intact its vision for Europe’s green transition.

Ahead of elections in the European Parliament in June next year, the European Union is racing to finish legislation that includes two landmark nature Bills – binding targets for countries to restore damaged natural habitats and a goal to halve chemical pesticide use by 2030.

Much EU environment legislation has been passed over the last two years, but the appetite on the part of some lawmakers and member states for more is waning and farming groups say further change must be conditional on more financial support.

Brussels proposed the nature measures last June. Opposition has mounted in recent weeks, as EU countries and lawmakers prepare for the final negotiations. The European Parliament’s biggest group, the European People’s Party, has called for the nature law to be scrapped saying it would hurt farmers.

“It’s just too much. People are frustrated with new rules every year,” EPP lawmaker Peter Liese said.

The Commission proposal gives countries discretion to decide how and where to reverse biodiversity loss. But that flexibility, Dr Liese said, makes it impossible for farmers to prepare.

“No farmer can predict what’s happening on his land, what kind of rules he has to follow, in the next years,” Dr Liese said.

Other EU green proposals have also met resistance. And as the elections approach, unfinished laws are piling up. Their fate would be unclear under a new EU Parliament with a different composition.

French President Emmanuel Macron this month suggested a pause on new European environment regulation, to give industries time to absorb recently-agreed laws.

The Commission last week delayed another scheduled package of environmental proposals, plus a Bill on microplastic pollution. A Commission spokesperson declined to comment on the reason for the delay.

Meanwhile, EU countries are pushing to weaken proposed pollution curbs for farms and methane emission limits for energy producers. Some capitals want to scrap new car pollution limits, and the EU’s renewable energy targets are deadlocked by an argument over whether nuclear energy can be included.

Nature and climate link

In the last two years, the Commission, whose make-up will also change following next year’s parliamentary elections, has proposed more than 30 laws designed to deliver green goals. The aim is to steer countries towards the EU’s target to have zero net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Most have been successfully passed, including tighter CO2 limits for cars, higher CO2 costs for industries and requirements to expand CO2-absorbing forests.

Many of the remaining Bills are focused less on planet-warming CO2 emissions than on other environmental calamites – pollution, the collapse of bee and butterfly populations, or Europe’s poor soil health.

EU officials say these crises are just as important as climate change, and are inextricably linked.