Nature Restoration Law Adopted in Parliament
But also — Germany & China, EU-US Data Act, Bard, Transports
Hi! This is Monday, 17 July 2023, and here’s the EU news you need this week. Feel free to share this newsletter with friends and colleagues, and follow us on Twitter and Linkedin.
The Briefing
On 12 July, the European Parliament narrowly adopted the proposed regulation aimed at restoring Europe's ecosystems, such as forests, farmland, marine and freshwater areas and urban ecosystems. While the adoption of this regulation deals a hard blow to the European People's Party (EPP), the political group is determined to oppose other Green Deal legislation.
CONTENT • The proposed regulation sets binding nature restoration targets for at least 20% of the land and 20% of the sea in the EU Member States by 2030. These benchmarks are set to increase: the restoration measures that Member States will have to implement concern 60% of the habitats to be restored by 2040 and 90% by 2050.
EPP • The adoption of this regulation is a significant win for supporters of the Green Deal. It was nonetheless very uncertain, as the coalition of right-wing parties formed around the European People's Party (EPP) led a vast campaign against the proposal.
After three failures in the parliamentary committee, as well as the rejection by just a few votes of an EPP amendment to refer the proposed regulation back to the Commission, the text was finally passed by a narrow majority of 336 votes in favour, 300 against and 13 abstentions, thanks to the support of the Social Democrats, the Left, the Greens and Renew.
The EPP wants to set itself as a defender of the interests of European farmers, with a view to the European elections in 2024. The political group believes that the obligation to preserve land that the regulation would establish could damage the interests of farmers, risk jeopardising food safety, and prevent the development of wind farms.
Manfred Weber, the leader of the group, argues that a break in environmental regulation is needed in order to prioritise economic growth. The President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola also spoke out against the text, deeming it too restrictive and contrary to the interests of European voters.
Some of the EPP's demands have been incorporated into the text, such as an increase in European subsidies for farmers.
ELECTIONS • This centrepiece of the Green Deal — embodied by the President of the European Commission Ursula Von der Leyen, herself a member of the EPP — has created significant dissension within the party.
As she would be unable to do without the support of her group to run for a second term in 2024, the President of the Commission did not speak on the text, but did meet several MEPs ahead of the vote. Fifteen EPP MEPs finally voted in favour of the text and five abstained, despite the firm opposition of their colleagues.
GREEN DEAL • Although the EPP's campaign against the adoption of this text was unsuccessful, the parliamentary group intends to try to block other measures in the Green New Deal, such as the proposal for a regulation to reduce the use of pesticides and promote more sustainable farming which was finalised by the European Commission on 22 June.
Already last week, the group succeeded in significantly diluting the scope of a Commission proposal to extend the scope of the Industrial Emissions Directive. MEPs lobbied to exclude livestock from the rules on industrial emissions.
AMBITION • In addition, the amended version of the proposed nature conservation regulation is less ambitious than the text proposed by the Commission. The Council of the EU has also adopted a version of the text creating numerous derogations from the proposed measures.
While the Green MEP in charge of the dossier, Jutta Paulus, claimed that "it is better to have a weak law than none at all", some climate activists have voiced their disappointment about the ambition of the regulation.
WHAT NEXT • Frans Timmermans, Vice-President of the Commission and Environment Commissioner in charge of the dossier, will now begin inter-institutional negotiations to finalise a common version of the text. These discussions should be concluded within the next few months.
"Let's think for once about the next generation, not the next election", he said of the forthcoming negotiations.
In Case You Missed It
GERMANY & CHINA • "We don't want to hinder China's economic development or our own," declared Annalena Baerbock, Germany's Foreign Minister, on Thursday 13 July as she presented the country's first-ever strategy towards its biggest trading partner.
The 64-page report, which has been made more flexible at the request of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, rejects the notion of "decoupling" from China, and stresses the need for the country to "derisking", i.e. diversifying supply chains and export markets.
Germany fears becoming too dependent on China, both for its supply chains and for the Chinese market itself. The country also wants to protect itself against unfair Chinese practices, which it sees as a threat to its "security, sovereignty and prosperity". To this end, Berlin strongly encourages its companies to reduce their dependence on Beijing.
The strategy also denounces China's growing authoritarianism due to its repression of civil rights and ethnic minorities. Germany strongly reaffirms its desire to maintain the status quo on Taiwan.
Berlin's approach is in line with that developed by the EU, using the terms that Beijing is a "partner, competitor and systemic rival", but with more moderate economic consequences.
The German strategy on China will nonetheless help the development of a common EU approach to Beijing over the coming months.
EU-US DATA ACT • On Monday, the European Union approved a new agreement on the exchange of personal data with the United States, the Commission having deemed the guarantees provided by the US to be sufficient in light of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
This "EU-US data protection framework" will enable companies to transfer their data freely across the Atlantic. It follows on from its predecessor, the Privacy Shield, which was invalidated in 2020 by the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU).
At the time, the Luxembourg judges ruled that European citizens did not have sufficient means to challenge the use of their data in the United States. The complaint was initiated by Max Schrems, an Austrian data protection activist — hence the name of the CJEU ruling, Schrems II.
Since then, the US and the EU have been seeking an agreement to facilitate data transfers for businesses. The main obstacle to this agreement was the use of data by US intelligence agencies such as the NSA (National Security Agency).
In a presidential decree issued in October 2022, Joe Biden ordered these agencies to restrict their use of European data — something they announced they had finalised last week, enabling the agreement to be concluded.
While this new "adequacy decision" — a decision that guarantees that the third country in question respects data protection to a level similar to the RGPD — underlines "substantial progress" on the US side according to the European Data Protection Committee, Max Schrems has already announced his intention to challenge it before the CJEU by 2024.
BARD • Google's generative AI programme, Bard, is finally available in Europe. After having postponed its release last month, the OpenAI competitor (ChatGPT) has obtained the approval of the Irish CNIL following a "number of modifications (...) improving transparency and (...) certain control mechanisms for users", Graham Doyle, spokesman for the Irish Data Protection Commission, told Politico.
Bard's arrival in the EU was postponed in June after the Irish Data Protection Commission highlighted data protection shortcomings with regard to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
TRANSPORT • On 11 July, the Commission presented its package of measures to make freight transport more efficient and sustainable, outlining three legislative proposals. These measures will contribute to the Green Deal objective of reducing transport sector emissions by 90% by 2050 — freight transport currently accounts for 30% of transport emissions in Europe.
The proposal is based on three initiatives. The first is to improve the calculation of emissions by freight transport companies, for which there is as yet no standard for taking these measurements, which can facilitate greenwashing, according to the Commission. To this end, the European executive is proposing a new framework, CountEmissionsEU.
The second concerns road transport more specifically — which accounts for 50% of goods transported. The Commission wants to increase the maximum size and weight of vehicles to take account of the weight of electric batteries.
Finally, the European executive wants to facilitate rail freight transport — which currently accounts for 50% of European rail traffic — by improving its management and harmonising practices at European level.
What we’ve been reading
In a brief for the IFRI, Vladislav Inozemtsev calls for European leaders to be opportunistic by welcoming with open arms the skilled Russian professionals who have fled their homeland following its invasion of Ukraine.
In Trade Talks, a podcast of the Peterson Institute, host Chad Bown and his guest, the LSE economist Isabela Manelici, talks about industrial policy and the transformation of Romania’s information technology industry. A transcript is also available.
This week’s newsletter is brought to you by Luna Ricci, Guillaume Renée, Clément Albaret, Marwen Ben Moussa, Maxence de La Rochère and Augustin Bourleaud. See you next Monday!