The Nature Restoration Law needs to be sent back to the EU Commission for a “thorough review”, Copa-Cogeca has said.
The umbrella group for European farmer organisations and European agri-cooperatives has welcomed today’s (Tuesday, June 27) decision of the EU Parliament’s committee on environment to reject the proposed legislation.
No majority could be found for an amended proposal with the committee deadlocked at 44-44 on the issue, and thus it has also rejected the European Commission’s original proposal.
The committee will now recommend to a full (plenary) sitting of the parliament that the proposed law be rejected. That vote will take place in Strasbourg in the middle of July.
Copa-Cogeca
Copa-Cogeca said this third rejection of the proposed legislation, following the EU Parliament’s agriculture and fisheries committees, “sends a clear message to the EU Commission that it needs to withdraw its initial proposal and present a realistic alternative”.
“This is an unparalleled example of a rejection in three separate European Parliament committees.
“Members of the committee clearly saw that this is not about the ‘if’ we need a restoration law but about ‘how’ this law is designed.
“Currently, under this law, the ‘how’ has not been rationally or realistically thought out,” the group said.
In a open letter, Christiane Lambert, president of Copa, said that the opposition to the proposed legislation does not concern the objective to be achieved – restoring nature.
She said the criticism is focused on “an initiative that is poorly constructed, has no dedicated budget and has been the subject of remarkably unproductive consultations between the European Commission and those who will have to put it into practice”.
Lambert said that the focus should be on the strong signal from the EU Parliament “who have tried hard to make this text more acceptable and pragmatic, but it could not work due to the poor state of the original proposal”.
Copa-Cogeca called on all MEPs to respect the outcome in the committees and reject the current Nature Restoration Law in the plenary (full) session and send the proposal back to the commission for a thorough review