Renaturation: Environmental Council gives green light

The general direction on the Nature Restoration Law, eagerly awaited by EU parliamentarians, was approved by the Environment Council on Tuesday. The yes vote on the NRL, as the Nature Restoration Law is known in Brussels circles, was previously unclear. With three countries „opposed“ (the Netherlands, Poland and Austria) and five „reluctant“ (Finland, Italy, Malta, Denmark and Belgium), according to sources close to French Environment Minister Christophe Béchu, the EU Council was initially „quite divided“. In the end, Poland, Italy, Finland and Sweden voted against the text. Austria and Belgium abstained, and the Netherlands requested a postponement of the adoption of the text.

Given this division, it was not even clear last week whether the vote on the regulation would make it onto the agenda of environment ministers. The Swedish EU presidency had „hinted“ early last week that it might remove the text from the agenda of yesterday’s meeting, according to sources close to the French minister. In response, Béchu and his counterparts from Germany (Steffi Lemke), Spain (Teresa Ribera) and Luxembourg (Joëlle Welfring) wrote to Swedish Minister for Climate and Environment Romina Pourmokhtari on June 13 to express their „concern“. The four ministers highlighted in particular the signal that the adoption of the general approach could send to the European Parliament, which is largely divided on the issue, especially the EPP.