The initiative came from the Commission President: shortly before Christmas, Ursula von der Leyen proposed lowering the protection status of the wolf from „strictly protected“ to „protected.“ The EU should advocate this within the framework of the Bern Convention of the Council of Europe. In a second step, the Commission would then have amended the Habitats Directive accordingly, thus enabling more active management of wolf populations. This would mean significantly more removals, i.e. not just the shooting of conspicuous specimens.