The Netherlands does not want 'procedures and legalisation' in EU nature restoration

The Dutch Environment Minister Christianne van der Wall (Nature & Nitrogen) says that the EU Commissioners Timmermans (Climate) and Sinkevicius (Environment) still see sufficient room for negotiation and willingness to compromise to continue negotiations on the Nature Restoration Act.

In the trilogue negotiations with the European Commission and European Parliament, she expects to be able to get rid of the 'further juridification of nature policy' from the already stripped-down deterioration ban.

Van der Wal said in Luxembourg on Tuesday afternoon, after the EU Environmental Council, that the European Commission has already made many relaxations, but that it would have preferred that EU chairman Sweden had removed the proposal from the agenda.

But a qualified majority of (major) EU countries thinks the proposal is ripe enough for a final round of negotiations with the European Parliament, without a final vote now.

Van der Wal repeated that she supports the main objective of nature restoration because the Netherlands has had some catching up to do over the past twenty or thirty years. She did not want to vote against the proposal and would have abstained if necessary.

When asked whether she will now press for support from her Dutch VVD party colleagues in the European Parliament, she said that she expects to speak with many EU politicians about parts of the proposal in the coming weeks.

The chairman of the European Parliament's envi environment committee, Frenchman Pascal Canfin, called the ministers' decision to support the proposal a boost for his committee, which is due to take a position next week (June 27). Last week the votes were tied: 44 against 44.

Minister Van der Wal expressed his satisfaction that the EU Supervisory Directors are weakening the 'obligation of results' from an 'obligation of results' to an 'obligation of best efforts'. The EU Commissioners also want to prevent an imminent construction obstruction; that is why the individual member states are given more control over what will be allowed or not. 

But Van der Wal still has objections to such a 'project-by-project approach'. In a small, densely built-up country with many Natura2000 sites and nature areas, she says she still fears 'all sorts of licensing hassles, procedures and legalization of nature'.

Without going into detail, she said that the individual countries should not only be given the space to partly decide for themselves about the content (of nature policy), but also about how this should be organized (differs per country). She said that she will try to get that done with some like-minded countries, such as Belgium, Finland and Malta.