The European Union has definitively approved this Monday the first regulation in its history that obliges member states to restore natureand not only to protect it, after a tortuous procedure with surprises until the last moment to close a file that almost brought down Hungary and that ended up saving Austria.

On the eve of this Monday’s vote, Vienna moved to the ‘yes’ side and that has allowed the Council of the EU to reach the necessary qualified majority by the minimum: 66.07% of the EU populationjust above the 65% required.

The regulation had already been negotiated and agreed between the States themselves, and also with the European Parliament, which approved it last February in a plenary session. It only required the formal adoption of the Twenty-seven, but it was almost derailed at the finish line by a sudden change of position by Hungarywho joined the detractors in March, when the Council only had to confirm the text.

“Let’s leave our ideology behind and let’s work together“, said the European Commissioner responsible for this portfolio, Virginijus Sinkevicius, in the Council of Environment Ministers who was debating the text. The Euro Commissioner had described the traffic jam as “worrying” for the credibility of the community bodies; criticism that was joined by countries such as Greece, Germany or Denmark, and that the Spanish owner, Teresa Ribera, described as an institutional “horror movie”.

What is this agreement?

In June 2022, the European Commission presented the Nature Restoration Law to repair at least 20% of degraded ecosystems by 2030 and all of them by mid-century, including farmland. The objective is to align community legislation with the United Nations biodiversity agreements, but the text has become a symbol of the ideological battle around the green agenda, gaining intensity as the European elections of the past approached. June 9.

The law has suffered backlash in the Council of the EU and has barely passed a long series of agonizing votes in the European Parliamentwhere it has been the target of an aggressive campaign by the president of the European People’s Party and the group in the European Parliament, Manfred Weber, the influential agricultural lobby Copa-Cogeca and the far-right parties.

Finally, and among other points, the regulation establishes obligations to correct the decline in pollinatorsrecover 30% of peatlands emptied for agricultural use, do not reduce urban green spaces either remove artificial barriers in the rivers of the EU.

Reactions to the agreement

This is the fourth file in the last two and a half years that, once negotiated and agreed, the Council reopens at the last minute, after the Renewable Directive, which blocked Franceand the laws so that vehicles that emit CO2 cannot be sold from 2035 and due diligence for companies, which Germany stopped.

Now, after the Hungarian blockade, the new twist in the script has been carried out by the Austrian Minister of the Environment, the environmentalist Leonore Gewessler, who has once again tipped the balance in favor of biodiversity by interpreting that she is legally enabled to support the text due to a change of balance at the federal level in your country.

“In 20 or 30 years, when I show the beauty of our country to my granddaughters and they ask me what you did, I will tell them that everything I could to preserve it“, said the Austrian Minister of the Environment, the environmentalist Leonore Gewessler, upon her arrival at the council. But her change of position has generated a fracture in the Executive of her country, which is holding legislative elections in September, due to the frontal rejection of her partner government, the People’s Party (ÖVP), which considers that it has not respected federal legislation.

The Austrian Government led by the conservative Karl Nehammer will present an annulment appeal before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), according to the local agency APA. The regulation has finally been adopted with the votes in favor from Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France Croatia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Austria, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, the nay from Italy, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, Finland and Sweden and the abstention of Belgium.

“It is very good news for all Europeans, but for the biodiversity as a whole also at a global level,” Ribera told EFE and other media outlets after the vote, adding that now “dialogue” and “accompaniment” will be necessary, in addition to “a commitment to the primary sector,” which he noted as the sector that most needs living nature.