Surroundings|Austria’s change of heart guaranteed the passage of the regulation.
Finland the opposed EU restoration regulation has been passed at the last possible moment. The regulation went through when Austria, which changed its mind, voted in favor of the regulation on Monday at a meeting of EU environment ministers in Luxembourg.
The regulation aims to stop the progress of nature loss in Europe. It stipulates that 20 percent of the EU’s land and sea areas must be restored, i.e. improve the state of nature closer to its original state.
The regulation is enacted because the trend towards endangerment of European habitats and species has not stopped with national measures.
In Finland, most of the required actions are related in one way or another to improving the condition of bogs and water bodies, even though the national debate has revolved around forests.
The show has been toned down considerably from the original. In its current form, the member countries have a lot of say in how and where the restoration is carried out.
Restore option the stages have been exceptionally varied.
The regulation was already approved in the so-called trilogy negotiations, which means it had the support of the member states, the EU Parliament and the EU Commission.
All of Finland’s EU representatives voted for it, except for the representatives of the center and basic Finns. The MEPs of the coalition also eventually turned to the side of the relaxed regulation.
However, the Finnish coalition-led government remained in its negative position until the end and voted against the decree. The government’s main justification was that restoring Finland’s nature as required by the regulation would cost too much.
In the end, the regulation remained on the table at a stage where it is normally a mere formality: the representatives of the member states did not confirm it in the Council, when Hungary, which previously supported the regulation, withdrew its support.
In the background, election pressures in many countries and the desire of the coalition’s EU group EPP to limit environmental regulation under the pressure of farmer protests also played a role.
of the EU Belgium, the country holding the presidency, has tried to find a majority behind the regulation until the end, even though the European elections have already taken place. Belgium has also tried to get the Finnish government’s head to turn around without success.
The new parliament has not started its work yet.
In the end, Belgium found the majority it wanted with the help of Austria.
Minister of the Environment representing the Green Party of Austria Leonore Gewessler published an update on the message service X on Sunday, in which he said that the ministers owe acceptance to future generations, because “without a healthy nature, there is no healthy and happy life”.
Gewessler said he will vote for the ordinance, even though he does not have the support of the rest of his cabinet.
Monday at the meeting, powerful speeches in favor of the regulation were made by representatives of Germany and Denmark, among others.
In the opinion of many ministers, it was the credibility of the EU Council as a whole: the achieved negotiation results must be adhered to.
Danish Minister for the Environment Magnus Heunicke said that the EU Parliament has kept its part of the agreement and now it is time for the Council of Ministers to do its part.
Minister of the Environment of the Czech Republic Petr Hladík emphasized that it is “Europe’s own homework” that Europe must do if it intends to maintain its credibility in international climate and nature negotiations.
The next summit of the UN Convention on Nature will be held in Colombia in the fall. The signatories of the agreement – including Finland – agreed at the previous Kunming-Montreal meeting in 2022 that 30 percent of the world’s land and sea areas must be protected to some degree in order to stop the loss of nature.
The Czech minister emphasized how widely European citizens support the regulation. Environmental organizations in a recent survey 75 percent of the citizens of countries opposed to the regulation supported it. In Finland, the support was 70 percent.
Finland environment minister Kai Mykkänen (kok) brought up the regulation “disproportionate costs for Finland” in Luxembourg.
“Finland has a lot of the types of nature that the articles refer to,” Mykkänen reasoned.
He repeated Finland’s negative position, but added that if the regulation is approved, he hopes the EU Commission will take care that the implementation will not be too expensive.
Opposing in addition to Finland, the representatives of Hungary, Italy and Sweden, among others, gave speeches. Italy and Sweden stated that the regulation had developed in the right direction.
However, the Italian representative emphasized the regulation’s “administrative and financial burden for farmers”.
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