The permanent representatives of the EU countries have decided by a majority that the European Commission will initiate a procedure at the Bern Convention to lower the strictly protected status of the wolf. However, Germany still imposes procedural conditions, which means that this is not yet certain.
Farmers across Europe, particularly in Western Europe, have long been calling for tougher measures to protect their livestock from wolf attacks. According to a report by the European Commission from 2023, livestock losses in Spain, France and Italy account for half of the total damage in the EU. Germany, Greece and Croatia also report significant damage to livestock from wolf attacks.
A majority emerged among EU ambassadors as Luxembourg and Portugal joined the countries pushing for adjustment this week, and as Germany partially changed its position. Current rules provide for the shooting of wolves in exceptional cases, but rural livestock farmers in particular are calling for the reopening of hunting.
A final vote took place on Friday at the EU Ministerial Council for Competitiveness, where the ambassadors’ decision was ratified. Brussels must inform the Bern Convention Secretariat by next week at the latest, as the responsible committee meets only once a year. The annual meeting of the Standing Committee will take place in December 2024.
The level of protection of endangered animals and plants has been internationally established since the end of the seventies in the Bern Convention. Several dozen countries have now joined; not only the 27 EU countries but also mini-states such as Monaco and San Marino, four North African countries and several Eastern European non-EU countries such as Romania, Ukraine and Azerbaijan.
Furthermore, the European Union has also laid down the same protection of plants and animals in its own European Bird and Habitats Directives (BHD). The EU countries can indeed amend or withdraw their own BHD, but would be in conflict with the Bern Convention. The ministers of the countries of that Bern Convention meet only once a year.
These dozens of treaty countries each have various endangered plant species and endangered animal species. These are divided into two categories: highly protected and protected. In recent years, these rules have hardly changed. A majority is needed for a treaty change, but the 27 EU countries are not unanimous about it.
Some of these countries do not have any problems with wolves at all, but with other endangered species such as elk in northern and eastern Scandinavia or the brown bear in the French-Spanish Pyrenees and in Romania, Slovenia and Bulgaria. Critics fear that the EU with the requested status reduction will open the door to other countries that want to hunt other species.
Germany now stipulates that the more than forty treaty countries must first agree to the weakening of the protected status, and that this only applies to the wolf and not to other endangered species. Only then, according to Germany, may the EU-VHR Habitat Directive be amended. In addition, the 27 EU countries and the European Parliament must also agree to this.