More environmental rules under attack: but the pushback to the pushback continues
7 maio 2024
In the run-up to EU elections in June 2024, EU and national politicians are continuing their roll back of the hard-won environmental gains of the European Green Deal. Such developments go against the wishes of most EU citizens, 87% of whom stated that they do not wish to be a party to forest destruction, which is so often paired with human rights abuse. This month it is the groundbreaking EU Regulation on deforestation-free (EUDR) products which was agreed in late 2022, and which bars access to the EU market of commodities such as timber, palm oil, cocoa, beef and soy if they are grown on recently deforested land.
This much-lauded legislation has become a target of the political right and of Member State agricultural ministers, seeking to stoke farmers’ concerns about environmental rules (FW 292), while shifting attention away from the considerable challenges farmers and foresters already face such as droughts and fires. A call to postpone the EUDR’s full application (scheduled for December 2024) has been gathering steam; it was recently aired again in the Member State Working Party of the Environment by Sweden, Czechia, Slovenia, Romania, Bulgaria and Ireland.
A recent leak has shown that the Commission plans to resist these calls. Its legal service has made it clear that postponement of EUDR application cannot be envisaged without revising the legislative act in question. New frequently asked questions will be issued by 30 May, and further guidance published before year’s end. Yet EUDR negotiations have already tarnished the EU’s credibility as partner countries in the global South have noted the EU’s lack of enthusiasm to apply environmental standards to itself.
Political attacks are not limited to the EUDR, of course. Last summer, the Nature Restoration Law very narrowly survived a firestorm of negative political hype (FW 287). The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), the first time EU has translated the principles of human rights into legislation, escaped being scrapped only by a whisker (FW 294). Rules that would have benefitted the climate and spurred reduced meat consumption were dropped.
Pessimism is a luxury we cannot afford. At the April meeting of the Sustainable Cocoa Initiative, Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Heidi Hautala reminded us of the stakes: living wages for small farmers, eradicating the poverty that drives child labour and ending deforestation, halting climate breakdown. Pointing specifically to the CSDDD, she stressed the importance of making operators understand how these issues are linked, and how legislative instruments interact. She underlined the need to involve all stakeholders, and especially women farmers. Practically speaking, companies must adapt business strategies to the living wage requirement; once implemented, mechanisms could be expanded and adapted to other commodities.
Solutions are possible, and should be encouraged – for instance, by the Team Europe Initiative (FW 291) that allocates considerable funding to prevent producer-country smallholders from being side-lined in the scramble to secure a place in EU supply chains.
The red lines of democracy and rule of law are also being battered by politicians unafraid to buck institutional procedures, who disrespect the same legislative accords in which they participated and the broader will of the people, to re-open files until they obtain the answers that suit a small contingency of private interests.
Their victories are losses to nature, the climate, and the creatures who depend on restoring our increasingly unlivable world. These issues cannot be political toys in elections or trade deals. EU institutions must stand by the many citizens who support eliminating human rights abuses and environmental devastation from our markets, and restoring nature at home and abroad. And EU citizens must support the political actors who have the courage to uphold their convictions with our votes, 6-9 June.
Categoria: EU Regulation on deforestation-free products
