Despite farmers' protests, EU approves Nature Restoration Act

Despite the impetuous and participatory protests of farmers throughout Europe which have been taking place since January, the European Parliament yesterday officially adopted the first Nature Restoration Act with 329 votes in favour, 275 against and 24 abstentions.The Law, which provides for restore at least 20% of degraded terrestrial and marine ecosystems of the EU by 2030 and the almost total restoration by 2050, was supported by the entire centre-left spectrum of the European Parliament, while it was opposed by conservative parties, in particular by the EPP (European People's Party), within of which only 25 MEPs out of a total of 177 voted in favor of the law.The latter constitutes an important pillar for achieving the objectives of the European Green Deal on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and their elimination by 2050.However, farmers see the newly approved legislation, the Green Deal and the CAP (European Agricultural Policy) as one threat to their livelihood and to agriculture itself:Hundreds of tractors poured into Brussels on Monday, blocking the city's streets and attempting to break through police checkpoints near the European Commission headquarters.Other protests also occurred in Spain and Poland.

As for the agricultural ecosystems, the Wildlife Restoration Act predicts to increase the percentage of agricultural area with characteristic landscape elements with high diversity, the stock of organic carbon in cultivated mineral soils and to take measures to improve the index of common avifauna and butterflies, as well as reduce the use of products chemical plant protection products.Furthermore, it also requires you to restore at least 30% of drained peatlands by 2030 (at least a quarter will need to be rewetted), 40% by 2040 and 50% by 2050 (with at least a third rewetted), as peatlands are one of the cheapest solutions to reduce emissions in the agricultural sector.However, these regulations – in particular the one on peatlands – also imply for farmers reduction of arable land and therefore a reduction in production which would lead, at the same time, to an increase in food costs and a significant increase in imports of products from abroad.This is one of the many points contested by workers in the agricultural world:the importation of agri-food products from countries that do not provide for the rigid environmental regulations imposed by Brussels, in fact, represents a form of unfair competition to the detriment of European farmers.For these reasons, the Law also provides for an emergency brake which, in exceptional circumstances, will allow the objectives relating to agricultural ecosystems to be suspended if these objectives reduce the cultivated area to the point of compromising food production and making it inadequate for EU consumption.As regards other ecosystems, the text provides for the restoration of at least 25,000 km of rivers, turning them into free-flowing rivers and planting three billion trees.

Another aspect contested by farmers is the excessive bureaucratic burden to be able to carry out their work and obtain European subsidies:it is one of the reasons why, according to the statements of some MEPs, the EPP voted against the Law.“We don't want new and increased forms of bureaucracy and reporting obligations for farmers […] Let farmers farm,” said Siegfried Mureșan, a Romanian MEP from the conservative group.According to the head of the EPP, Manfred Weber, however, the law was "poorly drafted".«The EPP Group is fully committed to climate change and also to the biodiversity objectives also agreed at international level, but this law does not respond to these problems», he stated to journalists in Strasbourg.

Following the complaints, at the beginning of February, the European Commission responded to the farmers' requests:Ursula von der Leyen, in her speech to the Strasbourg Parliament, announced the withdrawal of the legislative proposal on the reduction of the use of pesticides, also opening up to new public subsidies for those who work in the countryside.However, with the approval of the Nature Restoration Law it seems that Brussels has quickly backtracked by abandoning the openings granted to farmers, and therefore making the "green transition" more difficult, in the absence of adequate economic support and bureaucratic simplification that makes the EU's ambitious environmental objectives progressively achievable.

[by Giorgia Audiello]