Three failures have buried the « Nature restoration law », the law
on biodiversity which obliges European countries to protect 20% of the earth's surface o
navy. All in the next seven years, in line with the EU's climate objectives. The law was rejected in sequence by the Fisheries, Agriculture and Environment Commissions. The last no came from the Environment Commission two days ago, the Commission which has a broader power and vision on the issues of the Green New Deal. The next step will be in the plenary session of the European Parliament in July. But now the provision is given for dead. The first victim of the denial on biodiversity is precisely the New Deal which contemplates more protection of land and seabed by 2030. The political positions in the field are clear with the conservatives on one side and the progressive socialists on the other. Paradoxically, the long-term effects on the protection and reorganization of agricultural areas escaped neither side. Italy, which in 2022 reached the figure record of 60,1 billion euros in exports, with the reduction of agricultural land would be reduced by
its positive trend is very much.
Because the farmers are happy with the rejection
Coincidences also have value in economic policy. The day the law was rejected for the third time, an agreement was signed in Rome at the Ministry of Agriculture for the exports of Italian pears in China. Pears sold and eaten in China may arouse sarcasm, but a few days earlier Italy signed another agreement to export beef and is working towards the one on wheat flour. A coincidence with not only agricultural sovereignty, declaimed by the Minister Francesco lollobrigida, but an indication of opposition to the whole system of the New Deal, with which the European right has never gotten along very well. To get out of the tunnel into which the political forces in Brussels have slipped, a new bill is certainly needed. Farmers have no doubts and what Confagricoltura wrote is enough to prove it: what happened to the EU Environment Commission demonstrates "the need to withdraw the current text to start afresh on new and more concerted basis with companies in the sector". It will not be easy to find a balance between the protection of biodiversity and the protection of the Union's agricultural production potential. The umpteenth gap between environmental and agricultural-industrial interests in a delicate passage of the new economy. The disputed law arose from data from the European Environment Agency according to which the80% of habitats it is in a poor state of conservation and 1.677 species are at risk of extinction. The "green" vision of the Agency and the Commission has found strong opposition in the Copa-Cogeca, union that brings together representatives of farmers and agricultural cooperatives. A good ally of the right with demonstrations in Brussels that convinced MPs to be on the opposite side of the ecological transition. There is widespread concern about reducing the ability to produce healthy food, a supply chain that always invoices in Italy 300 billion euros. If the "Nature restoration law" passes, we would be more exposed to imports that we and many NGOs and civil society organizations consider risky." Behind these statements is the dilemma of whether, how and when to open up to exports from the other countries from which they arrive corn, wheat, milk, potatoes, barley, olive oil. Italy applauds the rejection of the law by virtue of that food sovereignty that does not want to compete with climate change and globalisation. The government has launched a consultation publication on biodiversity, but in the end we will have to choose. Demonstrating, perhaps, of knowing how to tackle the Gordian knot between development and environmental protection.