OceanCare reaction to the vote on the NRL in the plenary of the European Parliament today
Relief and satisfaction that the European Union has been spared the international embarrassment that would have followed if the Nature Restoration Bill had been defeated in the European Parliament.
OceanCare is pleased that the Nature Restoration Act has passed the crucial vote in the plenary of the European Parliament, after the defeat of the proposal of the European People’s Party (EPP) to reject it.
For OceanCare, a rejection by the European Parliament to the possibility for the European Union to have a Nature Restoration Act, apart from being an unfortunate spectacle that would have seriously damaged the image of the EU, it would have had serious repercussions at international level by weakening the progressive role that the European Union, thanks to the spirit of the Green Pact, has been playing in recent years in all forums where negotiations on environmental protection and the fight against climate change have taken place at regional or global level.
With today’s vote in favour of the Nature Protection Act, the European Union can make further progress in implementing the EU’s international commitments, including, for example, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (e.g. target 2 on restoration of degraded ecosystems) and the overall commitment to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
This law, which still has to go through the trilogue process between the Parliament, the Council and the Commission, is a necessary first step to reverse and overcome the decades-long process of human-induced environmental degradation that is devastating the terrestrial and marine ecosystems on which we depend.
However, the Nature Restoration Act has been weakened in the European Parliament, due to the campaign of harassment and demolition to which the EPP has subjected it through numerous amendments, and will have to be improved in the trialogue process and subjected to a new upward revision of its objectives in the next European legislature. OceanCare, committed to the protection of the marine environment, will continue to work for healthy and vibrant seas and oceans.