Today’s (Thursday, June 15) voting session of the environment committee of the European Parliament on the Nature Restoration Law has been postponed until June 27.
Faced with a vast amount of amendments to be voted on, the committee exceeded its allotted session time – even after a 15-minute extension.
The committee will continue voting on amendments later this month.
This means there is still no clarity on whether the environment committee will adopt or, like the agriculture committee and fisheries committee before it, reject the proposal.
Irrespective of whether the committee adopts or rejects the proposal, it will come before a plenary (full) session of the parliament next month, where further voting and amendments can take place, as per the parliament’s procedures.
However, the final decision in the environment committee will have significant sway, and its final decision is likely to be an indicator of how the plenary will vote.
At the start of this morning’s procedures, a motion from the European People’s Party (EPP), of which Fine Gael is a member, which would have seen the proposed law rejected by the committee, was itself rejected – but only because the vote was tied at 44-44, with no abstentions (tied votes are deemed to be a defeat of a motion).
Despite the rejection of its motion, the EPP is taking this tied result as an indication of a lack of majority and general support for the Nature Restoration Law in the environment committee – a committee that generally favours environmental and ‘green’ legislation.
One EPP member of the committee, Esther de Lange, said on Twitter after the postponement: “After three hours of voting the numbers of the day are 44-44… It looks like there is no majority for the [environment committee] report on the Nature Restoration Law.”
Following the vote on the EPP’s motion, the committee began voting on dozens upon dozens of amendments, many results of which were very close, and in several cases were also tied 44-44.
Some votes were met with cheers, while others were met with groans.
The process will continue on June 27.