The European Union narrowly approved the controversial green deal Nature Restoration Law on Monday, sparking condemnation from farmers’ organizations who fear it will further undermine their ability to feed the continent and make a living. [emphasis, links added]
A vote on the Nature Restoration Law at a meeting of the EU’s Council of Ministers in Luxembourg passed by the “slimmest margin” possible as 20 countries, representing 66 percent of the population of the bloc surpassed the needed majority threshold of 65 percent and therefore passed the long-delayed green deal legislation into law.
The law aims to see EU countries “restore” at least 30 percent of natural habitats to good condition by 2030 and 90 percent by 2050, Euractiv reports.
Farmers, who have staged large-scale tractor protests in opposition to the green agenda favored by elites in Brussels have warned that this will result in massive swaths of arable farmland blocked off, endangering the livelihoods of farmers and threatening the food security of Europe.
The green legislation was also opposed by countries such as Finland, Italy, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden.
The approval of the law came on Monday as Austrian Environment Minister Leonore Gewessler made a last-minute U-turn to back the move.
“This law is pivotal to combat climate change. We need to ensure legal certainty for people using soil and land. We asked member states to give the possibility to work on various points on how to implement it,” she said per Euronews.
The law aims to see EU countries “restore” at least 30 percent of natural habitats to good condition by 2030 and 90 percent by 2050…
Gewessler’s decision to approve the act comes with some controversy, however, with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer saying that she did not consult the government before voting and that the climate minister was “not entitled to commit” the country to backing the legislation.
The national Austrian government, therefore, may launch legal action to overturn the vote.
LTO, one of the leading farmers’ organizations in The Netherlands where the tractor protest uprising against the EU green agenda began in earnest in 2019, said that they were “concerned and indignant” over the passage of the Nature Restoration Act.
The Dutch farmer group criticized the bill for putting further financial demands on the agriculture sector, which has already labored under heavy green regulations both at the national and EU levels and has been suffering with the energy crisis sparked by the coronavirus lockdowns and the Russian war in Ukraine.
They went on to note that the EU also failed to lay out exactly how farmers and others would be financially provided for, with the bill giving Brussels a year after the law is enacted to finalize subsidies.
LTO said: “This is unacceptable. Before legislation comes into force, the financial feasibility/coverage must be known.”
Additionally, they criticized the bill for failing to accurately weigh the costs, arguing that the EU only estimated the costs to governments, while the majority of the costs would be imposed on farmers.
LTO cited an assessment from the Dutch government that found the costs of the green project for the Netherlands alone would amount to around 76 billion euros by 2050, largely borne by farmers.
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Abolish the EU totally return the various European Nations to their original separate Nations
dump the Euro and return them to their original forms of Money