The Green Deal lives to see another day. But clouds are darkening.
By Jorge Liboreiro and Sándor Zsíros
There’s nothing like a good cliffhanger – is there?
The European Parliament served high drama on Thursday morning during a closely-watched session of the environment committee that was so packed that some attendants were left standing on the side-lines or sitting down on the floor.
The top issue on the agenda: the Nature Restoration Law, an ambitious climate proposal that aims to rehabilitate the European Union’s degraded habitats and lost species.
In normal times, restoring nature would be considered a righteous, imperative mission to make up for the excesses of human greed and preserve the rich biodiversity of the landscapes that surround us all. But these are not normal times.
The Nature Restoration Law has become Europe’s most controversial piece of legislation as a result of a relentless opposition campaign launched by conservative parties, who claim the law will endanger the livelihoods of farmers and fishers, disrupt supply chains, push commodity prices further up and even exacerbate food insecurity in North Africa.
No other group personifies this opposition better than the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), the parliament’s largest formation. Its aversion to the Nature Restoration Law has become so profound that ahead of Thursday’s vote, the group filed a motion to reject the legislation in its entirety, without discussing further amendments.
The radical move, supported by hard- and far-right parties, drastically raised the stakes for the environment committee, which has never rejected a piece of the European green Deal in such a summary manner.
Fearing the worst, NGOs doubled down on their outreach engagement to defend the legislation and debunk the EPP’s claims, which they describe as plain disinformation. The charities found a surprising ally in the private sector: in the lead-up to the crucial vote, CEOs and top executives from 50 companies, including IKEA, Nestlé, H&M and Unilever, released a joint letter urging lawmakers to pass the law, provide legal certainty for businesses and foster innovation.
“Our dependence on a healthy environment is fundamental to the resilience of our economies and, ultimately, our long-term success,” the CEOs wrote.
The stage was set for a showdown.
On Thursday morning, both sides seemed confident the vote would go their way. The committee’s chair, Pascal Canfin, moved quickly through the agenda until reaching the Nature Restoration Law. The first point: either throw the law in the bin or continue the traditional legislative cycle.
Canfin opened the vote and the packed room suddenly turned quiet. The electronic tally showed 44 votes in favour and 44 against, meaning the EPP’s vote had failed by one single vote. The result prompted applause from socialists and greens, who loudly cheered the legislation’s survival. Next to them, conservatives looked stone-faced and remained quiet.
Once the euphoria faded, the committee turned to the enormous list of amendments that each party had submitted, a process that extended for almost three hours. By noon, MEPs realised they had run out of time because the plenary session next door was about to begin and their presence was required in the hemicycle.
Canfin took the floor and announced the vote would continue on 27 June, when the committee is set to convene again. The cliffhanger was admittedly unsatisfactory for such a dramatic day and ensures the charged political fight will rage on.
“It was real crazy,” César Luena, the socialist MEP who acts as rapporteur of the Nature Restoration Law, told Euronews right after the session was over. Luena hailed the first vote as “very good news” and denounced the EPP for dragging the parliament into the party’s internal tensions.
“Nature is not guilty of this fight, of this problem, of the EPP’s electoral strategy,” Luena said.
Visibly disappointed, Christine Schneider, the German lawmaker who leads the EPP’s opposition push, pointed the finger at Frans Timmermans, the European Commission’s vice-president in charge of the Green Deal, whom she appeared to accuse of coaxing undecided MEPs.
“This is a consequence of a very badly-made law,” Schneider told Euronews. “We said over nine months what we want, and this now is the result of the work from Vice President Timmermans and it continues today with the vote.”
To be continued.
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