EU Commissioner Frans Timmermans stands in front of a snow-covered fir tree, wearing a woolen hat, and motions to Santa Claus that he has to leave his homeland. He will soon no longer be allowed to manufacture his toys in the far north of Europe because Brussels wants to turn the whole area back into mere nature.
Without workshops for gifts. This is suggested by a photomontage that members of the conservative EPP recently posted on the Internet. Officially under the logo of their party. It’s about the law of restoring nature.
This is part of the so-called Green Deal and is one of the most important environmental policy projects of the EU – and one of the most controversial. By 2030, at least 20 percent of all damaged land and sea areas in Europe are to be restored to their original state.
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The member states are also to irrigate dried-up moors and allow 25,000 kilometers of straightened rivers to flow freely again. Great, think the Greens. A catastrophe, say the Conservatives.
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Members of the European Parliament voted in favor of the law on Wednesday. The majority was narrow, 324 to 312 votes. Still, it was a triumph for Timmermans and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, a staunch supporter of the plan.
Likewise for the members of the Greens and for Greta Thunberg, who had tirelessly promoted the law. For the conservatives around Manfred Weber, the head of the EPP, the result means a defeat. Weber lost the showdown.
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Von der Leyen’s “Green Deal”
“Of course I’m disappointed,” said Peter Liese, the environmental policy spokesman for the EPP. He has seldom experienced that the opinions between people in the countryside and in the “Brussels bubble” are so far apart.
Liese believes that what Parliament has decided is ignored by the citizens. The President of the German Farmers’ Association, Joachim Rukwied, takes a similar view. He said: “This close result is a missed opportunity for effective conservation in cooperation with farmers.”
The Greens, on the other hand, seemed euphoric after the vote. “The nature restoration law is good for the climate, good for biodiversity, good for farmers and good for the economy,” said party negotiator Jutta Paulus.
Weeks of argument before the vote
The vote was preceded by weeks of controversy. The law failed in three parliamentary committees: fisheries, agriculture and the environment. Only now, in the plenum, has it been successful. However, MPs watered it down.
On Wednesday they voted for hours on more than 100 changes and canceled, for example, a regulation according to which tractors and combine harvesters should no longer drive on ten percent of European fields, but trees should grow and ponds be created.
Why is the law so controversial? The EPP warns it is putting a strain on Europe’s farmers and jeopardizing global food security. Their argument: The war in Ukraine – a country that is a major grain exporter – is already leading to shortages.
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Now the fields in the EU should not shrink as well. The EU Commission, on the other hand, believes that the law will help in the fight against climate change. Because forests bind carbon dioxide. If you don’t plant more trees, according to the authority, Europe is likely to miss the big goal of becoming the world‘s first climate-neutral continent by 2050.
In addition, intact nature protects against droughts, fires and floods, which helps farmers in the long term. A few days ago, 6,000 scientists signed a letter supporting this position. “Restoring nature,” it says, “is central to improving food security.”
But Wednesday was not just about agriculture and nutrition. It was also about politics. Weber, the head of the EPP, was one of the loudest opponents of the law. Some think he wanted to annoy Ursula von der Leyen. The head of the commission – and party friend – regards the Green Deal as her most important project.
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According to this reading would be Weber’s resistance had been part of a power struggle. Others say that Weber just wants to address an important issue before next year’s European elections and sees an opportunity to present himself as a defender of the farmers, as a bulwark against more bureaucracy from Brussels.
One thing is certain: It was the first major revolt against the Green Deal. In the past, almost all parties in the EU Parliament had supported the project, the Christian Democrats, the Social Democrats, the Liberals, the Greens and the Left anyway.
Weber’s EPP has so far approved 32 out of 34 environmental laws. The only other exception besides the Nature Restoration Act was: the end of cars with internal combustion engines.
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