EU states push past opposition to adopt landmark nature restoration law
Al Jazeera
The law includes legally binding targets and obligations for not only preserving, but restoring natural habitats.
The European Union countries have defeated opposition to greenlight a landmark nature restoration law that commits member states to revitalise at least a fifth of the bloc’s land and sea by 2030.
Twenty of the 27 members of the European Council voted in favour of the legislation on Monday, giving it the two-thirds majority required to pass. The passage of the environmental regulations came despite stiff opposition from several states.
Belgium abstained from the vote. The environment ministers of Finland, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden voted against the law at a meeting in Luxembourg on Monday.
The law, slated to become among the EU’s biggest environmental policies, was passed after Austria’s environment minister, Leonore Gewessler of the Greens party, voted in favour in an unexpected twist after Vienna had suggested it was opposed.
