Brussels
On Tuesday, the member states of the European Union reached an agreement on the legislation regarding the restoration of nature.
The environment ministers of the EU countries formed the general view of the Council with a qualified majority of the member states at their meeting in Luxembourg.
The general view is the position of the Council, which it defends in discussions with the European Parliament.
Finland was represented at the meeting by the Coreper I ambassador Tuuli-Maaria Aalto. He was at the meeting as the minister’s representative, because the government has changed in Finland today.
In its position, the Finnish Government previously drew attention to the high costs of the proposal for Finland. According to the current estimate, they are around 750 million euros per year. Previously, the annual costs were estimated to be 931 million euros.
The State Council proposed to the parliament that Finland’s position should be to abstain from voting.
Since the government changed on the same day as the council meeting, the role of the parliament’s large committee was emphasized in Finland’s decision-making. The large committee deals with the preparation of national policy related to European Union membership.
“This was a rare situation related to an election cycle. After the meetings of the large committee, I have received verbal instructions by phone from the chairman of the committee From Heikki Autto. According to these instructions, Finland did not support the presidency’s compromise proposal in the Council,” Ambassador Aalto told reporters.
So Finland did not abstain from voting, but voted against.
The general view of the Council was passed by a qualified majority of the member countries. According to Aalto, seven member countries had major concerns about the presentation.
Sweden, Finland, Poland, Italy and the Netherlands voted against. Austria and Belgium abstained from voting.
Vice President of the Commission Frans Timmermans noted, according to Aalto, the concerns of many countries that were critical of the presentation in his closing speech.
“He expressed his desire to continue the dialogue with the countries.”
The Parliament’s position has not been formed
The proposals of the EU Commission need approval from both the member states and the parliament to become law.
The European Parliament is in complete chaos because of the restoration regulation.
The goal of the EU Commission’s proposal is to reduce nature loss and improve the state of nature. It is one of the most important parts of the EU’s Green Deal. However, the largest group in the parliament, the EPP, has opposed the proposal because it believes it threatens food security.
The European Parliament’s environmental committee voted on its position last Thursday. The three-hour meeting had to be interrupted because the plenary session of the parliament started.
The EPP group did not get enough support behind it to overturn the proposal. Therefore, the committee voted on the proposed changes. Their consideration will continue at the committee’s next meeting on June 27.
At the plenary session in July, the groups of the parliament will bring their own proposals to the table on what version of the regulation the parliament could approve. The vote is already expected to be not only chaotic but also sloppy.
There have been flexibilities
The position of the Council of Member States is that the EU should introduce recovery measures that cover at least 20 percent of the EU’s land areas and 20 percent of its sea areas by 2030 and all ecosystems in need of restoration by 2050.
According to Ambassador Aalto, Finland’s concerns have been taken into account in the Council’s position. The strict ban on degradation and the restoration goals of natural habitats have been flexibly achieved. With the help of flexibilities, it is possible to calculate the costs of the regulation.
Voluntariness has been added to the forest indicators. It helps to take into account the national conditions of different countries.
The high proportion of green space in Finnish cities has also been taken into account.
Environmental advisor Olli Ojala from the Ministry of the Environment said that the commission’s new cost estimate, 750 million euros per year, concerns the costs of restoring natural habitats. It does not take into account the flexibilities achieved in the negotiations.
“This is very likely the maximum cost estimate. When we start implementing this, we will certainly be able to take advantage of synergies between different measures. With the same measure, it is possible to influence the improvement of several different habitat types.”
According to Ojala, a large part of the costs of the necessary measures has already been spent annually in Finland, especially in water management.