EU lawmakers draft deal in attempt to rescue nature law

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FILE PHOTO: Volunteers wade across a lagoon at dawn to gather flamingo chicks and place them inside a corral at the Fuente de Piedra natural reserve

By Kate Abnett

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Parliament lawmakers from some political groups have drafted a deal to try to pass a landmark EU law to protect nature, which the parliament’s largest group is attempting to block.

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FILE PHOTO: snow, at the Signal de Botrange in the nature reserve of Les Hautes Fagnes (The High Fens), in Waimes

The EU last year proposed measures to tackle the rapid decline in species and the health of Europe’s ecosystems, but has faced political pushback including from the European People’s Party (EPP) group of lawmakers, which opposes the law.

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FILE PHOTO: European flags fly outside the European Commission headquarters in Brussels,

In a bid to salvage the proposal ahead of a parliament committee vote on June 15, other lawmaker groups – including the Socialists & Democrats and the Greens – have devised a compromise.

Their proposed amendments, seen by Reuters, would offer national governments more flexibility to decide which infrastructure projects are allowed to override some of the nature targets.

That could ease concerns raised by Denmark that restoring nature could slow the build-out of wind farms, or the Netherlands’ worry for new housing projects.

Some affected industries publicly supported the law this week, after it came under fire from lawmakers and some governments questioning whether the EU is pushing through too much environmental regulation.

“Nature restoration and the expansion of wind energy go hand in hand,” industry group WindEurope said in a statement on Tuesday.

The lawmakers’ proposal also includes tweaks to attempt to win over EPP lawmakers, such as by deleting a target – which was not binding – to introduce trees, hedges, ponds and other features that support biodiversity in 10% of EU agriculture area.

EPP lawmakers had said that would harm farmers by taking agricultural land out of production, and on Wednesday said the compromise did not go far enough.

The Commission has said introducing more biodiverse features would maintain or increase Europe’s agricultural output, by making farmland more resilient to extreme weather like floods and improving pollinator populations.

The proposal must also pass a July vote in the full EU Parliament, and win support from EU countries, to become law.

(Reporting by Kate Abnett, additional reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Nick Macfie)