Committee on the Environment, Climate and Food Safety Ordinary meeting
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ENVI European Parliament
Follow its sittingsPierfrancesco Maran
Thank you to the rapporteur. Now we leave the floor to the shadow for two minutes each. We start with Evans Garcia for EPP.
Esther Herranz García
Thank you, Chair. I will speak on behalf of Mr. Canete that is not here, and he's the shadow rapporteur of my political group. We would like to thank Madame Wiesner for her draft report on the Inspire Directive review, which recognizes the need for simplifying legislations to eliminate the contradictions among them. And we also welcome the Commission's proposal and believe this constitutes the best basis for the discussion. We are currently reflecting on how the voluntary contributions of third parties' data could still be addressed in the new version of the directive, and perhaps the Commission can comment on this particular point.
And we look forward to working with the rapporteur as we have done until this moment. And thank you so much.
Annalisa Corrado
Grazie, e I will speak in Italian. E grazie presidente, grazie alla relatrice Emma Wiesner per il lavoro svolto e per il dialogo costruttivo che ha accompagnato questo e anche l'altro dossier fin dall'inizio. Credo che ci sia un punto sul quale possiamo essere tutti d'accordo: una buona politica ambientale richiede conoscenza dei territori e buoni dati ambientali. Questo era il principio alla base della direttiva Inspire nel 2007 e continua a essere pienamente valido oggi. Per chi lavora nella commissione ENVI dati affidabili, accessibili e comparabili a livello europeo sono una condizione indispensabile per prendere decisioni efficaci.
Lo vediamo su temi come il monitoraggio del suolo, la gestione delle risorse idriche, la biodiversità, l'adattamento climatico, dove la qualità delle politiche dipende direttamente dalla qualità delle informazioni disponibili. Ma non si tratta soltanto di sostenere il processo decisionale: c'è un legame diretto con il lavoro che stiamo portando avanti sull'accelerazione delle valutazioni ambientali e delle procedure autorizzative. Dati facilmente reperibili, interoperabili e accessibili significano procedure più rapide, più efficienti e più affidabili, meno duplicazioni, meno oneri amministrativi e una migliore capacità delle autorità pubbliche di valutare i progetti senza ridurre la qualità delle analisi. Guardiamo in linea di principio quindi con favore agli sforzi di semplificazione proposti dalla Commissione in questo campo. Quando esistono sovrapposizioni normative è giusto intervenire, e certamente il contesto è cambiato rispetto al 2007, anche grazie alla direttiva Open Data e al regolamento sui dataset ad alto valore.
Allo stesso tempo comprendiamo e condividiamo le osservazioni espresse nel draft report circa l'importanza che i dati ambientali rimangano effettivamente accessibili, reperibili e condivisibili tra le amministrazioni pubbliche. Va mantenuto quindi un chiaro livello di responsabilità degli Stati membri nell'assicurare che questo avvenga. Vorrei pure aggiungere un ultimo punto. Dobbiamo valutare con attenzione anche gli effetti che le modifiche agli obblighi oggi previsti dalla direttiva potrebbero avere nel tempo su comparabilità dei dati tra Stati membri e rischio frammentazione dei sistemi informativi nazionali. La semplificazione deve preservare e valorizzare gli strumenti e le esperienze che nei diversi paesi hanno già dimostrato di funzionare, contribuendo alla qualità, alla comparabilità e all'affidabilità delle informazioni ambientali.
Sono certa che lavoreremo in modo costruttivo con la relatrice per affinare ulteriormente questo testo e contribuire a costruire una posizione solida del Parlamento in vista del negoziato. Grazie.
Pierfrancesco Maran
Thank you. I don't see any colleague from ECR and Patriots, so I leave the floor to the Greens, Rasmus Nordqvist on behalf of Jutta Paulus.
Rasmus Nordqvist
Yes, thank you, and Jutta Paulus couldn't be here, so I'll speak for her. First of all, I mean, we do agree with the approach from the rapporteur because we have to understand this revision, I mean, it's not just technical housekeeping, it actually goes to the heart of how we actually follow what we're doing on the environmental and infrastructure risk in a really coherent way across the Union. And we should be very careful not to just use simplification here, but actually to see how do we have stronger and better interoperability standards, not weaker ones, and that is really key here. We have, however, two issues that we are a bit curious about, and that is because the Commission is proposing to deleting many articles, but also the Article 11 on network services, Article 17 on data sharing, and we're a bit curious to know whether this is actually totally covered now by the Open Data Directive and really curious to see how the Commission is seeing that. The second point we have, however, is on spatial data where Article 13 deals with the possibilities of Member States to limit public access to spatial data in certain cases.
And we have been contacted by some water service providers who propose that this possibility should actually be turned into an obligation, so that's also something we want to question some more in the work on this file, but we very much welcome the approach by the rapporteur. Thank you.
Valentina Palmisano
Thank you. Now for the Left, Valentina Palmisano.
Grazie. Grazie, Presidente. Voglio ringraziare la relatrice per il lavoro svolto e per l'approccio equilibrato che emerge dal draft report. La direttiva INSPIRE, nata ormai nel lontano 2007, ha trasformato la gestione dei dati territoriali in Europa. Prima infatti regnava la frammentazione, oggi invece cittadini, professionisti, amministrazioni possono consultare online mappe sul rischio idrogeologico, piani urbanistici con un semplice clic.
E questo non è un tema per soli specialisti, perché l'accesso digitale ai dati geografici ha un enorme valore democratico ed economico. Semplifica infatti la vita delle persone, riduce i costi, aumenta la trasparenza.
Semplificare, tagliare la burocrazia, allineare Inspire alle nuove norme europee sui dati. Però semplificare non può significare smantellare ciò che funziona, perché i dati geografici hanno una specificità propria e richiedono strumenti adeguati alla loro natura. Per questo sostengo la linea della relatrice, che non ha accettato passivamente la logica della Commissione. È infatti fondamentale mantenere presidi tecnici minimi per la ricerca e la visualizzazione delle mappe, così come è vitale difendere la condivisione dei dati tra autorità pubbliche per tutelare l'ambiente. E l'open data da solo non basta a garantire la cooperazione tra amministrazioni.
Infine serve un equilibrio sulla sicurezza. È giusto garantire la trasparenza ambientale, ma dobbiamo tutelare le nostre infrastrutture critiche da potenziali vulnerabilità, penso alle reti idriche ed energetiche. Quindi ok semplificare, ma facciamolo senza ingenuità. Anche perché i dati geografici sono a tutti gli effetti una vera e propria infrastruttura pubblica e l'efficacia delle nostre politiche ambientali e la protezione stessa dei nostri territori dipendono da come gestiamo questi dati geografici. Quindi per noi va bene modernizzare questa direttiva, ma facciamolo per dare ai cittadini uno strumento più forte, trasparente e sicuro.
Io credo che oggi ci siano tutti i motivi per dire che siamo sulla strada giusta. Grazie.
Pierfrancesco Maran
Thank you, I don't see any other colleague for catch the eye or the shadow rapporteurs, so we leave the floor to the Commission, there is Eva Malz, head of unit for strategy, digitalization, better regulation and economic analysis from DG ENVI.
Ewa Malz
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, honorable members of the Parliament, thank you very much for having the Commission attend this debate and make some very brief comments in relation to the views expressed. First of all, I want to thank Ms. Wiesner, honorable member, for the report, which is in fact keeping the spirit of the revision of the Inspire Directive as proposed by the Commission. And just to recall the brief, briefly the objective, it is first of all to simplify the technical requirements for making access to public environmental and related data by public administration so that this data can be used and reused in practice by public and private operators. And the second objective is to align the requirements in the Inspire Directive, which govern geospatial data, with the general horizontal data legislation that has evolved very rapidly in the last years. So we have the joint objective to make the implementation of the directive less costly, more effective, and therefore make the availability of and access to spatial data easier both for the public and private operators.
So once again, thank you for keeping the spirit. We take note of the elements that the rapporteur proposes to strengthen and just to confirm that the suggestion made in relation to the accessibility of data and sharing among public authorities in Article 17 of the directive, it is a point that was also flagged to us by member states' administrations and it is a view expressed among the member states discussing it in the Council. So I think there will be a close alignment there between the Parliament and the Council.
We also see a clear call to keep some of the network services as defined in the INSPIRE Directive, whilst perhaps going away from the very strict law-based requirements, but more into more flexible elements that can nonetheless give a harmonized way of providing access to data, viewing services, and also downloading services. So this is also well noted. Finally, we take note of the suggestion to work on the grounds for limiting access to spatial data, and notably in the report, adding an additional ground on the basis of public order, or even the possibility to go as far as excluding certain access to public data. Now, in relation to the comments expressed by the shadow rapporteurs, we took very good note of your concerns. A brief comment perhaps in relation to the third-party data that was referred to by a member of the EPP group.
I want to stress that indeed this term existed or exists currently in the INSPIRE Directive in Article 4. However, as a solution on when a third party, which is not a public administration but a presumably a private entity, should give consent to sharing data, is a matter that is developed and governed in the Data Governance Act. And we know that currently there is an ongoing revision of the Data Governance Act with the ambition to have one piece of legislation governing private data and public data. And hence the recommendation of the Commission would be not to interfere in this parallel revision, but leave this type of solutions to the horizontal data legislation, whereas the vocation of the INSPIRE Directive is to focus on public geospatial data. I am happy to hear broad support to the simplification expressed by most of the shadow rapporteurs.
Thank you very much for that. And again, the many voices to keep some elements that keep the harmonized application of the Directive in Member States are well taken note of, including the practical aspects as mentioned with limiting access to water legislation. I will finish here just to confirm that the Commission looks forward to working closely with the Presidency and the Parliament, and we really hope and believe it is possible to reach an agreement on this revision still this year, as requested by the leaders of the Union. Thank you very much.
Emma Ytterell
Thank you so much, colleagues, for all of your comments. To answer a few from the Greens, we do see the same issues with Article 11 and 17 on the interoperability and the framework for sharing of data, and that's also what we target in this draft report. The same with the water resources and the sensitive data relating to our water and water infrastructure. The same goes for there for Article 13, we also address that in the draft report. Other than that, I want to be very swift and just say I look forward to the future work.
I'm glad that we're sharing the same aim of providing good environment data with good standards, make it available, shareable, and reliable. Thank you so much, and I look forward to continue working on this.
Pierfrancesco Maran
Thank you. So the deadline for amendment will be the 10th of June at 11:00 AM. The vote in ENVI is supposed to be the 10th of September and we should be in the plenary, the first plenary of October. Now we have a break till 4:30 when we will be back with the commissioners.
Jutta Paulus
Good morning, everyone. I would like to welcome you to this meeting of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety. I would like to start by asking you to check that your electronic voting cards are inserted in the voting machines. We have a very busy agenda today, so I would like to start as soon as possible. First of all, I would like to inform you that the meeting is being webstreamed and that the interpretation is available in 22 languages.
I would also like to inform you that the draft agenda has been adopted. We have no objections to the draft agenda. I would also like to inform you that the minutes of the meeting of the 24th and 25th of October have been distributed and are available on the ENVI website. If there are no objections, the minutes will be considered adopted. I see no objections, so the minutes are adopted.
We will now move on to the first item on our agenda, which is the vote on the provisional agreement resulting from interinstitutional negotiations on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on methane emissions reduction in the energy sector and amending Regulation (EU) 2019/942. The rapporteurs for this file are Mr. Pascal Canfin and Mr. Jutta Paulus. I would like to give the floor to the rapporteurs if they wish to say a few words before the vote. Mr. Canfin, you have the floor.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to thank the shadow rapporteurs and the secretariat for their hard work on this file. We have reached a very good agreement with the Council, which will allow us to reduce methane emissions in the energy sector significantly. This is a very important step in our fight against climate change, as methane is a very potent greenhouse gas. The agreement includes ambitious targets for the reduction of methane emissions, as well as measures to improve the monitoring, reporting and verification of these emissions.
It also includes measures to reduce venting and flaring, which are major sources of methane emissions. I believe that this agreement is a very positive step forward and I would like to urge you to vote in favour of it. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Canfin. Ms. Paulus, you have the floor.
Jutta Paulus
Thank you, Madam Chair. I would also like to thank the shadow rapporteurs and the secretariat for their hard work on this file. I agree with Mr. Canfin that this is a very important agreement. Methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas and its reduction is crucial if we want to reach our climate targets. The agreement we have reached is a very good one and it will help us to reduce methane emissions in the energy sector significantly.
I would also like to urge you to vote in favour of this agreement. Thank you.
Pierfrancesco Maran
Thank you, Ms. Paulus. We will now proceed to the vote. The vote is open. The vote is closed. The provisional agreement is adopted with 65 votes in favour, 10 votes against and 5 abstentions.
We will now move on to the next item on our agenda, which is the vote on the provisional agreement resulting from interinstitutional negotiations on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the type-approval of motor vehicles and engines and of systems, components and separate technical units intended for such vehicles, with respect to their emissions and battery durability (Euro 7) and amending Regulation (EC) No 715/2007 and Regulation (EC) No 595/2009. The rapporteur for this file is Mr. Alexandr Vondra. Mr. Vondra, you have the floor.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to thank the shadow rapporteurs and the secretariat for their hard work on this file. We have reached a very good agreement with the Council, which will allow us to reduce emissions from motor vehicles significantly. This is a very important step in our fight against air pollution, which is a major health problem in Europe. The agreement includes ambitious targets for the reduction of emissions of nitrogen oxides and particulate matter, as well as measures to improve the durability of batteries in electric vehicles.
It also includes measures to improve the testing of vehicles in real-world driving conditions. I believe that this agreement is a very positive step forward and I would like to urge you to vote in favour of it. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Vondra. We will now proceed to the vote. The vote is open. The vote is closed. The provisional agreement is adopted with 55 votes in favour, 20 votes against and 5 abstentions.
We will now move on to the next item on our agenda, which is the vote on the provisional agreement resulting from interinstitutional negotiations on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the sustainable use of plant protection products and amending Regulation (EU) 2021/2115.
Jutta Paulus
Good morning, everyone. I'd like to welcome you to this meeting of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety. I'd like to welcome our guests, our colleagues, and those who are following us online. I'd like to start by reminding you that the meeting is being webstreamed and that interpretation is available in twenty-two languages. I'd also like to remind you that the meeting is being held in a hybrid format, with some colleagues participating remotely.
We have a very full agenda today, so I'd like to ask everyone to be as concise as possible in their interventions. The first item on our agenda is the adoption of the agenda. Are there any comments or objections to the agenda as proposed? I see none, so the agenda is adopted. The second item is the Chair's announcements.
I have a few announcements to make. First, I'd like to inform you that the coordinators met yesterday and agreed on a number of points, which will be communicated to you in the usual way. Second, I'd like to remind you that the deadline for amendments to the draft report on the revision of the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive is tomorrow at noon. Third, I'd like to inform you that the next meeting of the committee will take place on the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth of May. Are there any questions or comments on the Chair's announcements?
I see none. The third item on our agenda is the approval of the minutes of the meetings of the thirtieth and thirty-first of January and the first and second of March. Are there any comments or objections to these minutes? I see none, so the minutes are approved. We now move on to the fourth item on our agenda, which is a report back on ongoing interinstitutional negotiations.
I'd like to invite the rapporteurs to give us a brief update on the progress of their respective files. First, I'd like to give the floor to Mr. Canfin, the rapporteur for the regulation on making available on the Union market as well as export from the Union of certain commodities and products associated with deforestation and forest degradation. Mr. Canfin, you have the floor.
Thank you, Chair. I'm very pleased to report that we reached a political agreement with the Council on this very important file on the sixth of December. This is a major step forward in our efforts to combat global deforestation and forest degradation. The agreement we reached is very ambitious and covers a wide range of products, including palm oil, cattle, soy, coffee, cocoa, timber, and rubber, as well as derived products such as beef, furniture, and chocolate. The regulation will require companies to exercise due diligence to ensure that the products they place on the EU market or export from the EU are not associated with deforestation or forest degradation.
We also agreed on a number of important provisions to ensure the effective implementation and enforcement of the regulation, including a benchmarking system to assess the risk of deforestation in different countries and regions. I'd like to thank the shadow rapporteurs and the secretariat for their hard work and cooperation throughout this process. The final text is now being translated and will be submitted to the committee for a vote in the coming weeks. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Canfin, for this very positive update. I'd now like to give the floor to Ms. Polfjärd, the rapporteur for the regulation on the binding annual greenhouse gas emission reductions by Member States from 2021 to 2030. Ms. Polfjärd, you have the floor.
Pierfrancesco Maran
Thank you, Chair. I'm also very pleased to report that we reached a political agreement with the Council on the Effort Sharing Regulation on the eighth of November. This is a key piece of legislation in our Fit for 55 package, as it covers around sixty percent of the EU's greenhouse gas emissions. The agreement we reached sets more ambitious targets for Member States to reduce their emissions in sectors such as transport, buildings, agriculture, and waste.
So, for the next point of the agenda, we have an exchange of view with the commissioners on the communication on wildfire management. I'm glad to welcome Mrs. Jessica Roswall, Commissioner for Environment, Water Resilience and a Competitive Circular Economy, and Mrs. Hadja Lahbib, Commissioner for Preparedness, Crisis Management and Equality, who will present the communication. Dear Commissioner, the floor is yours. Who's going to start?
Commissioner Lahbib.
Hadja Lahbib
Okay.
Thank you very much for your invitation. Jessica and I are very pleased to be with you today. What an excellent teamwork in developing this wildfire communication together, I have to say. A few weeks ago, at the end of April, my phone buzzed. And you know what?
It was a message from my team. Wildfires in Belgium and the Netherlands. Stay alert. This was the end of April, not July, not August, April. The Netherlands requested support through our civil protection mechanism and a few days later, Czechia requested support.
And that has never happened before. Not once in the history of our civil protection mechanism. Multiple wildfire emergency in Europe before May started really. But we shouldn't be surprised. Last summer, over one million hectares burned across Europe, the size of Cyprus reduced to ash.
Almost every single member state was affected as far as north Sweden, your beautiful country, Jessica. And that is why the European Union is taking very strong action. In March we adopted a communication on integrated wildfire risk management, not just on fighting fires, but on the full picture: prevention, preparedness, response and recovery. Jessica will say a few words about the important area of prevention and I will focus briefly on three areas: coordinating, preparing and responding. First, we need to coordinate better.
We need to know who has what, who can do what and where. Too often member states have worked in parallel rather than together. We are changing that through structured exchanges of firefighting experts, shared best practices and stronger coordination at every level of government: local, national, regional and European, of course. Because when one country learns from something, all of us should benefit. Second focus is preparing, making sure we are ready before fires start, not chasing after them.
And that starts with our citizens. We want them to be active in protecting themselves, but to do this they need fast, accurate information. So we are strengthening how we communicate risk with clear warnings that everyone can understand and act on, with no one left behind. We are investing in education, training and real-life simulations because communities that practice together respond together. And we are upgrading our tools.
Our European Forest Fire Information System, fed by Copernicus satellite data, already tracks and maps fires in real time. And we are now expanding it to produce Europe-wide early warning systems and risk maps. And we are integrating AI to protect and predict where fires will start before they ignite. The same technology helping doctors to catch diseases earlier and farmers to protect their crops. This is not science fiction.
It is what will save lives. And third, response is key. When fires break out, speed is everything. And that starts with stronger firefighting capacity. Our rescEU fleet is growing: 12 firefighting planes and five helicopters.
The first aircraft is already stationed now in Romania. And we are also strengthening regional cooperation. The Cyprus firefighting hub will be at the center for joint training and cross-border readiness, bringing together teams from across the Mediterranean before the fire season starts. And we are prepositioning more firefighters in high-risk areas, ready and in place to attack the fires before they spread. Honorable members, I want to leave you with one thought.
We are not at the finish line, but we have taken a very important step forward. Just last month we adopted a proposal for Council recommendations laying out concrete steps member states can take to tackle wildfires together. Europe has a choice: we can treat every wildfire season as a surprise, or we can accept what the evidence and our own eyes are telling us. This is the new reality. We have chosen to prepare and this wildfire communication is a big part of that.
Thank you for your support.
Jessika Roswall
Thank you Chair, dear Pierfrancesco, dear Hadja, honorable members. Also from my side, thank you very much for this opportunity to present and to discuss our communication on wildfires. Hadja already said it, the growing threat of wildfires in Europe demands an urgent our urgent attention. And across Europe, we are witnessing longer fire season, more intense fires and greater destruction. Last year alone, as already said, but I will repeat it, wildfire burned more than one million hectares across the EU, the highest area ever recorded.
And we are having over the last days, we have had again experienced of heatwaves in a big in a big part of Europe. These are no longer isolated environmental issues. Wildfires are closely linked with climate change and prolonged periods of heat and drought, unsustainable land management, biodiversity loss and water stress. They threaten lives, livelihoods, public health, infrastructure and entire local economies. We, me and Hadja, have had the opportunity to discuss this with first responders and citizens on a number of occasions.
And for me, I was most recently in Greece and to discuss this. And needless to say, citizens are increasingly worried about what this means for their future. Because behind every wildfire statistics are destroyed homes, damaged ecosystem, disrupts communities and tragically lost lives. The economic damage alone estimates to around 2.5 billion euros every year. So this is why strengthening Europe's resilience to wildfires is no longer optional, it is a necessity to protecting our citizens, our environment and our economy.
As I said, over the couple last couple of months, we have met with rural communities, firefighters, foresters and scientists across Europe. And one message that has come come through very clearly is that we need a more integrated European approach to wildfire risk management. Wildfires cannot be addressed only when flames appears, so we must move from reacting to better prevention, preparedness and long-term resilience. And that means bringing together different policy areas and actors, from landscape planning and agriculture to risk communication, civil protection and climate adaptation. In Greece last week, I visit a project which is a good example, financed by the RRF, Anti-Nero.
It is exactly about that, it is about clearing forests, maintaining roads, creating firebreaks and restored damaged ecosystem. It's the cooperation that we need to work together. But building on Hadja's remarks, I would like us to focus on prevention, and this is the prevention part is the first line of defense. The most effective way wildfires policies starts with how we manage our landscapes. Fire-resilient landscapes are active landscapes with sustainable farming, forestry and diverse land that use that reduce the build-up of dry vegetation and fuel.
This is why keeping rural areas economically viable is so important, because land abandonment increase fire wildfire risk significantly. Supporting farmers, foresters and local communities is therefore not only an agriculture or regional policy objective, it's also a resilience and security issue.
We also want to strengthen knowledge sharing on effective practices such as prescribed burning and fuel management. Healthy ecosystems are another essential line of defense. Restoring wetlands, peatlands, floodplains and resilient forests can help to slow fires, retain water in landscape and reduce overall vulnerabilities. As Member States implement now the Nature Restoration Regulation, there is a real opportunity to integrate wildfire resilience into the national restoration plans. The Commission stands ready to support this work with technical expertise and guidance.
At the same time, we must ensure that nature conservation and wildfire risk management reinforce each other. And this is why the Commission recently published a new guidance on Natura 2000, Natura 2000 areas and climate change. The guidance explains how wildfire prevention measures, including ecosystem-based solutions such as grazing and prescribed burning, can be implemented in protected areas while respecting conservation objectives. It also shows how EU legislation can be applied in a pragmatic, proportionate and flexible way in emergency situations. But colleagues, wildfires are becoming one of the defining climate risks for Europe.
But they are not inevitable disasters. With better planning, healthier ecosystems, stronger prevention and closer cooperation, we can significantly reduce their impact. Europe has the knowledge, the tools and the expertise, now it's time to act together and I really look forward to the discussion.
Pierfrancesco Maran
Thank you, now we leave the floor to the political group for two minutes each, we start with EPP, Esther Sanz García.
Esther Herranz García
Gracias, señor presidente, señoras comisarias, muchas gracias por sus declaraciones. Estamos de acuerdo en una cosa. Los incendios forestales se han convertido, lamentablemente, en una desgracia común a los 27 Estados miembros. Y usted, señora Hadib, ha dicho una verdad como un templo. Los Estados miembros trabajan de forma paralela, pero no de forma colaborativa.
Y perdemos mucha información y mucho know-how precisamente por la falta de conexión entre esas políticas de los diferentes Estados miembros. Tenemos una serie de claves para el debate. El año 2025, lamentablemente, se ha conformado en una tendencia estructural para los incendios. Los incendios en Europa son estructurales. Y hay unas temporadas que empiezan antes de los incendios y que además duran mucho más tiempo.
Y además, estos incendios son mucho más intensos que antes y la propagación se ha ido a latitudes donde antes no había estos incendios. Así que tenemos que pensar en la prevención. Y ustedes la han mencionado. Paisajes resilientes, restauración de la naturaleza, integración del riesgo de planificación. En la prevención tenemos un problema y la señora Roswall lo ha citado.
Nos ha hablado del gran problema de la prevención con las normas, con la legalidad que tenemos en este momento en redes como la Red Natura o el reglamento de sumideros de carbono. Hay que tocarlo. Hay que dar la oportunidad a la población que vive en las zonas rurales de hacer lo que siempre se ha hecho, por ejemplo, la limpieza de los bosques para evitar que haya mucha masa combustible cuando se va a producir el incendio.
Hay que permitirles trabajar como han trabajado siempre creando cortafuegos, creando herramientas de prevención para evitar que los incendios que lamentablemente se producen incluso de forma natural en el bosque mediterráneo se extiendan a grandes superficies. La dimensión presupuestaria es muy importante porque esto que ustedes plantean está muy bien pero claro llegará con el próximo marco financiero plurianual. ¿Qué hacemos en este verano de 2026? ¿Con qué dotación presupuestaria vamos a contar? Me gustaría que nos aclararan esta duda.
Y en cuanto a la gestión de los incendios que sigue recayendo en los Estados miembros y en mi caso en algunos casos como el de mi país en las comunidades autónomas tenemos que fomentar la colaboración y no de una forma orientativa sino de una forma obligatoria porque esto ya no es un problema político es un problema de sentido común y de dignidad. No podemos hablar de que mantenemos el medio ambiente si somos incapaces de colaborar en su gestión y en este caso los incendios son uno de los problemas más importantes. Muchas gracias.
Marta Temido
Obrigada presidente. Muito boa tarde senhoras comissárias caros colegas. Venho de Portugal um país onde conhecemos muito bem o atual contexto de risco acrescido de incêndios as trágicas consequências que todos os anos transportam e a necessidade de nos adotarmos para prepararmos uma para termos uma estratégia integrada na gestão dos riscos de incêndio. E este ano Portugal tem uma situação ainda mais sensível na medida em que o comboio de tempestades que nos assolou em janeiro deixou combustível que neste momento ainda não foi retirado e que agrava este risco. É por isso que entendemos como muito bem-vinda esta estratégia que hoje aqui discutimos e estas linhas de ação que são propostas.
E obrigada por estas linhas de ação. Mas elas também mostram que é necessário como já disse a colega Hernández García uma coordenação entre aquilo que é o nível europeu e o nível nacional porque temos níveis de intervenção distintos mas que temos que articular. E é por isso que gostava de deixar quatro questões para percebermos melhor como é que podemos articular estes níveis de de coordenação. A primeira questão prende-se com a melhor preparação e com mais dados. O Parlamento Europeu e o Conselho acabaram por levar a que o ano passado a Comissão retirasse a sua proposta de um regulamento de monitorização das florestas europeias.
E a minha pergunta é não deveríamos voltar a insistir na necessidade de ter um regulamento deste tipo? Afinal de contas precisamos de informação. Sem informação não conseguimos gerir adequadamente as nossas florestas e estes estes documentos que hoje analisamos refere-o abundantemente. Depois uma outra questão prende-se com os meios de combate. Já foi referido que eles são apenas a parte da resposta mas são uma parte essencial.
E quando os incêndios deflagram nos nossos países ansiamos por ver chegar os meios aéreos disponibilizados em coordenação com outros países. Diz-se neste documento que até 2028 far-se-á uma avaliação entre os Estados-Membros e a Comissão de como é que vão ser distribuídos reforçados estes meios. Metodologicamente o que é que vai ser considerado? Que informação nos podem dar sobre isto? Uma terceira questão prende-se com o nível da recuperação.
Fala-se neste documento da eventual oportunidade de seguros para ajudar a cobrir os danos decorrentes de incêndios. Será que é o momento de avançar com um quadro europeu para esta matéria? Gostava de ouvir a opinião das senhoras comissárias. E para concluir o tema da monitorização do progresso. Nas últimas linhas do documento refere-se que a Comissão irá avaliar de forma regular o processo alcançado em coordenação com os Estados-Membros.
Mas efetivamente como vai ser feita esta monitorização? Porque é muito importante percebermos e partilharmos a medida em que estamos a avançar ou em que não estamos a avançar neste caminho conjunto. Muito obrigada.
Mathilde Androuët
Merci beaucoup. Il est indéniable et les statistiques le prouvent que les risques d'incendie de forêt ont augmenté ces dernières années dans toute l'Union européenne et aussi en France. Mais il serait réducteur de l'expliquer uniquement par le climat, et c'est d'ailleurs ce que votre communication reconnaît. Ces incendies sont aussi les conséquences de causes sur lesquelles nous attirons également l'attention depuis longtemps, à savoir la déprise rurale, l'abandon des terres, le recul du pâturage, l'accumulation de biomasse combustible, l'insuffisance de débroussaillement. Mais aussi, et très majoritairement, il faut aussi le souligner, de comportements humains irresponsables ou criminels.
Sur ce point, nous pouvons être d'accord : les agriculteurs, les éleveurs, les forestiers, les communes rurales, les propriétaires et les pompiers sont au cœur de la prévention. Tandis que les écologistes qui refusent de toucher à la moindre souche et aux friches et les amateurs de rave parties illégales constituent une menace réelle. Il s'agit donc de tirer les bonnes conclusions. La prévention des incendies ne se fera pas depuis Bruxelles avec des guides, des portails et des indicateurs supplémentaires. Elle se fera par la gestion active des forêts, l'entretien des chemins, le développement de pare-feu, de pâturage, la présence humaine dans des territoires, bref, par plus de ruralité vivante et le soutien aux moyens de sécurité civile.
Pour sauver un massif forestier, en somme, laissez les agriculteurs prospérer. Vous l'aurez donc compris, nous refusons que cette communication devienne un prétexte pour légitimer dans ces domaines un nouveau levier de centralisation européenne. Rappelons qu'un rapport de la Cour des comptes européenne de juin 2025, donc pas si éloigné que cela, estimait notamment que la Commission n'avait qu'une vision incomplète des financements européens consacrés aux incendies et que la sélection des projets ne garantissait pas toujours les actions les plus utiles. L'urgence, ce n'est pas plus de bureaucratie verte. La coopération européenne peut être utile dans le cadre d'une mutualisation volontaire des moyens, des avions, petit rappel tout de même, les nouveaux appareils de rescEU n'arriveront seulement qu'en 2028, et bien sûr des renforts.
Mais la responsabilité première doit rester aux États souverains et aux acteurs de terrain, ce qui est encore plus vrai pour un pays comme la France qui excelle dans la gestion et la conservation de son patrimoine forestier.
Grégory Allione
Monsieur le Président, Mesdames les Commissaires Lahbib et Roswall, chers collègues, merci de cette présentation et merci de cette communication qui a été publiée le 25 mars dernier. D'ailleurs, à peine publiée, cette communication a été suivie de feux dramatiques dans un pays qui n'était pas du sud de l'Europe, mais aux Pays-Bas, avec plus de 500 hectares dévastés dans un pays qui finalement, son nom le porte bien, est beaucoup plus humide que ce qu'il a démontré lors de ces dernières semaines. Et donc c'est contre toute attente que ces phénomènes se passent sur tout le territoire européen dorénavant. Cette communication vient aussi après un terrible été, plus de 1 million d'hectares qui ont été dévastés sur notre territoire. Alors, on est tous à citer ce million d'hectares et personne ne se rend compte de ce qu'il représente.
Pourquoi ? Parce qu'un million d'hectares, c'est entre 100 et 300 millions de tonnes de CO2 qui ont été rejetées dans notre environnement. Et juste pour rappeler aux collègues qui sont ici, 300 millions de tonnes de CO2, c'est quasiment la production de CO2 en une année de la France. En un été, nous avons quasiment rejeté à cause des feux de forêt l'équivalent de la production de CO2 de la France. C'est la raison pour laquelle on ne peut que se féliciter de cette communication et je le rappelle, je participais, j'étais en mission l'été dernier à Ribote et oui, je vois l'évolution du dérèglement climatique et l'évolution des incendies auxquels on fait face dorénavant et contre lesquels on lutte.
Je salue donc cette approche intégrée qui consiste justement à concevoir la prévention, la préparation ainsi que la réponse et surtout la reconstruction lorsque nous n'avons pas réussi au préalable. C'est ce que nous portons également avec l'intergroupe résilience et protection civile que vous consultez régulièrement et je vous en remercie. Alors il y a encore trois exigences qui restent à renforcer. Trois exigences dont la première c'est la souveraineté industrielle. Ça fait plus de 50 ans que l'on lutte contre les feux de forêt avec des avions, des hélicoptères que l'on achète et que l'on acquiert par ailleurs.
La souveraineté industrielle que l'on revendique, que la Commission revendique, pourrait être là aussi dans le cas de la lutte contre les feux de forêt une préférence et il faut l'assumer politiquement. Il y a des projets sur notre territoire européen, en France, en Italie, en Espagne, qui pourraient permettre justement d'avoir des avions et des hélicoptères qui sont européens et qui luttent contre les feux en Europe. Il faut l'assumer politiquement, c'est assumer le choix et la préférence européenne. La deuxième exigence, et vous me voyez venir Madame la Commissaire Hadja Lahbib, 80 % des forces qui luttent tous les étés contre les feux de forêt sont des sapeurs-pompiers volontaires. 3 millions de concitoyens qui s'engagent au travers l'Europe.
Alors qu'attendons-nous pour renforcer leur engagement, reconnaître leur engagement, les protéger ? Parce que ce sont ces femmes et ces hommes qui finalement sont déployés sur le terrain et que vous visitez et que vous rencontrez régulièrement au travers l'Europe. Ils sont en forte attente et là aussi la Fédération des sapeurs-pompiers européens attend que vous puissiez les soutenir. La troisième exigence, c'est la restauration et la protection de nos écosystèmes. On le sait, les terres en bonne santé, vous l'avez dit Madame la Commissaire Roswall, des terres en bonne santé bien gérées sont des territoires plus résilients face aux feux de forêt.
Cet aspect est essentiel et on doit retrouver ces éléments-là dans notre politique agricole commune. Alors oui, cette communication est un excellent point de départ et il faut en faire dorénavant un acte fort. Je vous remercie.
Pierfrancesco Maran
Thank you. Before leaving the floor to Rasmus Nordqvist, we have a few speakers for the catch-the-eye, so I would compact it in a single round. If some other colleagues want to speak, it's the moment to ask. Rasmus Nordqvist.
Rasmus Nordqvist
Yes, thank you very much and thank you to the commissioners for being here on this very important topic. And we really have an issue where I'm a bit puzzled about the reaction coming also in this room because I mean to fight wildfires, there's one thing we can do and that is having healthy ecosystems. It's only through nature-based solutions that we can actually for real fighting this on the long term and make a resilient Europe. And I think my intervention here should be perhaps as much to my colleagues as to the commissioners that when we're cutting down on our green action when it comes to the climate action, we're not answering this threat of wildfires. We're just pushing it even further.
So, so a question to and that's perhaps mostly to to Commissioner Roswall should be, I mean, one thing is the communication, but but how do we actually see this work on nature-based solutions in the coming work from the Commission? I think specifically about the MFF because when we look at the at the CAP, I don't see it as really present there, the work on having resilient ecosystem and nature-based solution against wildfires. And when we see at the specific financing of nature restoration law and also the eco-based the ecosystem, I mean, we don't see the the LIFE program present in in the MFF proposal from the Commission. So, so will we see more action from the Commission also on more real tools and not communication when it coming to restoring nature, creating the the nature-based solution against these wildfires? Thank you.
Pierfrancesco Maran
Thank you. Now we start with the the catch-the-eye. I I wanna add a a question because all the action we have against fires are depending on the country, but some are from civilian authorities, some includes defense in in the way we we try to fight against fires. So I wanna ask you if in this strategy there is what is the reaction about the Member States on the fact that if we need to create a sort of coordination, we should not work only on the civil authority but also on on the defense one because the main purpose is is to block the event, not not to use only some tools. So what is your opinion about it?
What can we do more to obtain a good coordination to have good solution? And on the other point, I think the debate on the budget is crucial in this moment. If we want to obtain result before things happens, we should invest more and better. We are having a big debate on on this point. I'm still worried on the fact that the MFF we are working has less money compared to the one we spend in the last one.
So what is your opinion about it? What can we do more because otherwise we we should fight fires but we want not to have new fires at the beginning. So, now EPP, Pascal Arimont.
Pascal Arimont
Ja, vielen Dank, sehr geehrter Vorsitzender. Zunächst eine integrierte Waldbrandrisikomanagementinitiative ist sehr gut. Wir sind in der Europäischen Union mittlerweile so weit, dass wir diese Initiativen nehmen, dass wir das versuchen zu planen. Dieser dieser Gedanke ist, glaube ich, neu und ist jede Initiative, die wir dazu tun, ist wertvoll. Meinem grünen Kollegen möchte ich sagen, natürlich sind resiliente Ökosysteme ein wichtiges Tool, um Brände vielleicht in der in der Anzahl zu verringern, aber wir sollten nicht naiv sein und sagen, dass nur resiliente Ökosysteme Waldbrände verhindern, denn es gibt immer wieder Waldbrände, die durch Menschen verursacht werden und da müssen wir auch eine Antwort drauf haben.
Ich könnte alles, was mein Kollege Grégory Allione gesagt hat, mit beiden Händen unterschreiben. Alles ist richtig, was die industrielle Kapazität Europas betrifft, diese Fachflugzeuge und Helikopter selbst zu bauen. Noch viel mehr würde ich ihm beipflichten bei den freiwilligen Feuerwehrleuten, aber jetzt sitzen die beiden vielleicht nicht richtigen Kommissare hier, um dieses Problem anzupacken. Vielleicht können aber diese beiden Kommissarinnen ihrer Kollegin Mintsato sagen, dass wir wirklich auf einen einen Schritt weiter hoffen, um Probleme der sozialen Sicherheit bei den freiwilligen Feuerwehrleuten zu regeln. Ein letzter Punkt, wir arbeiten gerade an dem europäischen Zivilrechtsmechanismus, dem UCPM.
Dort ist natürlich auch von Waldbränden die Rede. Was mir aber in diesen in dieser Strategie dann fehlt, ist der grenzüberschreitende Aspekt. Viele Waldbrände sind mittlerweile grenzüberschreitend. Das wird in dieser Strategie nicht angesprochen. Wir haben in den UCPM-Text, glaube ich, 30 Mal reingeschrieben, dass die Mitgliedstaaten untereinander sich informieren müssen und helfen müssen, grenzüberschreitend.
Ich glaube, das ist ein Ansatz. Und zweitens ist in unseren in unserer Sicht, dass wenn wir in nachhaltigen Biosystemen investieren, dass es oft so ist, dass wir dann auf Landwirtschaft stoßen und wir nicht haben wollen oder vermeiden müssen, dass Landwirte in ihrer ökonomischen Tätigkeit nicht zwischen zwei Stühlen sitzen, wenn wir ihnen Auflagen auferlegen, die eine landwirtschaftliche Tätigkeit nicht mehr möglich machen. Also da stehen zwei Interessen gegenüber, das müssen wir versöhnen und ich glaube, die Landwirte sind die ersten, die da mitmachen wollen. Daher die meine beiden Fragen. Erstens, was das Grenzüberschreitende angeht, sind Sie damit einverstanden, dass wir das fest in einen Text reinschreiben, dass man das machen muss?
Zweitens, wie schließen wir die Finanzierungslücke bis 2028? RescEU oder die Dinge, die wir damit finanzieren, gelten ab 2028, aber bis 2028 wird es auch wahrscheinlich brennen. Wie kriegen wir das hin, dass wir da keine Finanzierungslücke lassen? Vielen Dank.
Jeannette Baljeu
Dank, dank aan de commissarissen voor dit belangrijke onderwerp van natuurbranden. Inderdaad, helaas, ik kom zelf uit Nederland, hebben wij dit al in april en mei meegemaakt, grote branden. Het was ook voor het eerst dat Nederland internationale hulp heeft moeten aanvragen en ik wil dan ook graag mijn dankbaarheid uitspreken naar de Fransen, de Belgen en de Duitsers die ons te hulp zijn gekomen en aan de vele vrijwilligers die inderdaad ook hun inzet altijd in dit soort bestrijding van natuurbranden en aan branden algemeen inzetten. Belangrijk dat we met elkaar een uitwisseling doen van informatie. Ik denk dat dat inderdaad een van de speerpunten kan zijn en ook kijken hoe je met voldoende watervoorraden en wateropvang, hoe we daar ook mee om moeten gaan, want zelfs in een waterrijk land als Nederland zien we dat het dan toch soms ook moeilijk is om daar snel toegang allemaal tot krijgen, dus ook dat zou een mooi thema zijn om nog eens verder op door te gaan.
Ik dank u voor uw inzet. Ik denk dat de lijn een hele belangrijke is die de Commissie doet en die ondersteunen. Dank u daarvoor. Helaas zal ik zo meteen vertrekken. Ik heb niet een specifieke vraag.
Het is niet uit disrespect, maar ik moet een trein halen, maar dank u in ieder geval voor de inzet.
Pierfrancesco Maran
Thank you. So this strategy is very important for all of us. We go back to the Commissioner for the reply. Yeah, replying and concluding.
Hadja Lahbib
Thank you, Jessica, and thank you all for your very interesting question. First of all, dear MEP Esther Herranz García, we share the same conclusion, so we are facing the same reality. Indeed, as I said in my opening speech, the season, the wildfire season is starting earlier and earlier each year. It's longer and it can happen from April until October. And this is the reality we are facing today.
Now, when it comes to your specific question on indeed we were used to respond with parallel systems and in not very coordinating way, but we are doing the contrary now with a lot of progress. First, when it comes to exchange of information, we have developed EFFIS, we exchange forest information with all Member States. We have a real-time exchange of data from both partner international space agencies and European own satellites, early accessible to Member States and citizens. And we are developing also standardized risk model, modeling, to help Member States to prioritize prevention measures and issuing also guidelines for integrated wildfire risk into national reporting and thus supporting a consistent European-wide approach. This is very important.
For the next MFF, we proposed, we have proposed a very ambitious budget, 10.7 billion for the UCPM here. So I hope that the trilogue will follow our proposal. And when it comes also to we have prepositioning firefighters, so it means that this summer we will have more than 770 firefighters prepositioned in different countries prone to hazard and mainly to firefighters, wildfire, sorry. And so I visited last year firefighters prepositioned in different countries. It was a very good example of exchange of best practices and experience.
We have also a peer review process where experts, Member States, member of government, representative of governments, but also citizens are gathering together, exchanging best practices. We have also a hub now that was just created in Cyprus for cross-border risks and southern neighborhoods where we were not really able to react last year. We were, the UCPM mechanism was activated by Syria, for instance, and by Israel. So it shows the cross-border dimension of the UCPM mechanism. And yes, it's not political.
I totally agree with you. It is about saving our forest, saving lives, as well saving our planet. And yeah, I will stop here maybe to let Jessica answer and I will continue later.
Please Jessica, the floor is yours.
Jessika Roswall
Thank you, thank you Hadja and thank you everyone for for your questions. I will try to group it. First I got we got a lot of questions on funding, just both on what you how we can use the current budget and the funding just and then also on the next MFF. Just to say that the the EU currently there are several funding streams for for prevention activities in the budget. For example, it's 2.3 billion euros in the cohesion policy fund.
In the common agriculture fund policy, it's one over over 1 billion just for prevention activities in forests. And also as I a little bit mentioned on my with my Greek example, there is also the recovery resilience facility where is also addressed 2.2 billion euros. Then just because I got questions also on the next part is also on the the next MFF. I said it here before in this committee that we are I think the 35% that is going to nature and climate is also addressing this because we are talking about prevention, the first line of defense for wildfires and that is prevention. And then I will come back to questions on on the nature restoration because that is also linked of course, but I just want to say that this also mentioned in in the proposal from the Commission.
Then we can go into Life again also in the Horizon and the Life projects that also are in the current budget but also in the in the next one. Let's see, then I had then I got a questions on insurance, or not we got on insurance framework. I think that you're right, it's important and that is also why me and Hadja why we had the the dialogue with the different stakeholders, the insurance companies' organizations was also at the table. Then of course it's it's in one way difficult because it's also national competence. But of course we are there to support and I think also when we talk about the adaptation and prevention and in the next climate adaptation plan it's also something that we can look into.
So I think it's a relevant question. I think it was also you who asked me Madame Demidov about the not we on the on the data. I think Hadja Lahbib also mentioned that in her first intervention. This is of course very important, it is about how we can pre how we can prevent, how we can be early on find early warning systems so forth and and Commissioner Lahbib talked about Copernicus. I just want to say one thing on this add that the Commission will strengthen the European Forest Fire Information System, what we call EFFIS, exactly doing what was said already, improving the early warning systems and also helping member states to better identify and prioritize prevention measures, not only seeing when when when there is a fire starting.
When then if I may also talk more a little bit more on prevention. I said it in my first intervention that I in the communication you clearly can read that we we address all the different reasons that why we see this increase. It's climate change, it's the extreme weather, but it's also land abandonment, which is key to also tackle this. I mean active management of forest is key. As I said in my first intervention, supporting rural areas is important and also due to resilience and security.
And that links me maybe to the nature restoration and what we do and that was Mr. Nykvist and Mr. Arleoni who a little bit and some other also said. For me this is I already said it but I will repeat myself, the implementation of the nature restoration regulation is a key here to actually address prevention of wildfires also.
And that is what we also quite clear when we now updated the guidance on Natura 2000, that how you can use this. With that said, I'm very mindful of the fact that this looks very different in different Member States. Now I was in Greece, I talk a lot about that on how they try to manage the prevention part. Malta different, Finland different. So this is what, but I think that what we, how I see the implementation now of the restoration regulation as such is, is one tool to actually address this.
Finally just is cross-border integration. I think this is really, this is also really key. We, we know that sharing, I mean this is, this is cross-country, cross-border issue. It's also cross-border sectoral, if you may say so. It cannot only be firefighters or police or, it is also really different sectors.
And here I think what I've learned, my short period here, that sharing experience, best practices when it comes to managing forests, for example, is, is something that is, we are getting better and better. If I may conclude, and then I promise not to come back on this topic. I think that this, this communication really address, the Commission really address how we tackle wildfires and, and also how the responsibility is shared. It includes all of us here, it includes Member States, regional and local authorities. And sorry to go back to Greece again, but when I was visiting this plant, it was a director there who, who said, he's been working with this for many years, and actually I met also volunteers, but maybe Hadja says something about that.
He suddenly said, I'm not a magician, but we are trying to get there and we are moving forward, we are getting better and better, but there is not one solution that will over a sudden take the risk away. But we, we are working on reducing the risk and we are together strengthening Europe's resilience. So just to end then, I think that Europe, what I hear from all the questions here is we cannot, we have to, we cannot afford to have the reactive mode. We need to be more preventive, we need to be more prepared, and we need to make a society that is more resilient. And here of course we need your support because this is a work that we do together.
Thank you very much.
Hadja Lahbib
Thank you, thank you, and I will continue. Let me underline maybe the, the important role that people and communities are playing. Indeed, you're totally right, honorable Arimont, the share of wildfire ignitions caused by human activity in the EU by far exceed those from natural causes and could be as high as 96%. That's why education is so important. So in the preparedness Union strategy, we are promoting and disseminate good practices in wildfire risk awareness and community involvement, for example through UCPM knowledge network, and it can be traditional as well.
This week I'm going to visit in France how, you know, communities are cleaning forests. So we, we don't, you know, start from scratches. We know that cultural, traditional habits are very good and so we build on that as well.
We are also developing a toolkit for supporting resilience building in wildland-urban interface areas and promoting volunteering and exchange opportunities in the field of preparedness. And we continue also to exchange with citizens through the online debate on preparedness. And we have a citizens' engagement platform and a dedicated European citizens' panel where we we exchange also yes knowledge and debate on the wildfires and preparedness in general. So when it comes to volunteer firefighters, they are an integral part of the emergency and the protection services in many many Member States, indeed sometimes even 80%. So that in context of climate change and global threats to health, their commitment is really essential and we need their cooperation and we need to underline their crucial role.
But the firefighting services remains a competence depending on Member States. So this is something that should be underlined as well. When it comes to the civil-military cooperation, indeed it's completely part of the preparedness union strategy. And for instance in Italy, they have a special unit for you know in the defense, in the army, which is dedicated to civil you know natural hazard to help the citizens. And it's very very famous, they are very appreciated by the population because of course they are very visible when a hazard occurs, they are there, they are the first to respond.
So civil-military cooperation is really key. Member States sometimes are quite reluctant, but I think it's a little bit ideological because Italy was a little bit you know reluctant, but then I discovered they apply already. So it's the way we we say the things, it's a question of vocabulary I think, but it's really key because we need when we are facing a catastrophe, a disaster, we need everyone on board. Not saying you know you're not going to say I'm from the police or I'm from the civil protection I cannot intervene because and you are from the defense and so on. So what we need, we need an orchestra, a real orchestra where every musician knows exactly what part they are playing and that's it.
Yes, thank you, the Netherlands, indeed we were there. And you know the drinking water is not a problem only with wildfires, it happened also with floods and all kind of natural disaster. That's exactly the situation where Belgium, some part of Belgium, Wallonia is today because of the floods and the severe rains that happened a couple of days ago. And when it comes also Pascal Arimont non Grégory Allione, je vais répondre en français comme c'est aussi ma langue. Merci de de saluer notre approche intégrée.
Je pense que ça montre que la Commission a cette capacité de travailler de façon horizontale. Nous avons très très bien travaillé main dans la main avec Jessica pour avoir cette approche globale. Maintenant, c'est vrai que avoir la souveraineté industrielle, la capacité de d'avoir des des Canadair made in Europe, c'est très important.
Je sais qu'en 2019, lorsque la commande est partie, on n'avait pas cette capacité en Europe et le choix qui a été fait aussi avec l'aide du Conseil, donc les 27, s'est porté sur une nouvelle commande de Canadairs canadiens. Nous restons en tout cas très attentifs au développement industriel. J'en ai déjà parlé plusieurs fois avec le commissaire en charge, le français Stéphane Séjourné, pour avoir cette capacité de développer des avions amphibies. Et pour ce qui est aussi du statut des volontaires, on travaille aussi avec la commissaire EVP Minzatou pour essayer d'harmoniser quelque peu, mais de nouveau nous sommes en pleine compétence des États membres. Il y avait aussi cette question d'échange des volontaires.
Vous savez que c'est quelque chose qui me tient à cœur aussi. Cet été, pour la première fois, des échanges vont avoir lieu. Je sais que la France l'a fait à son échelle, mais c'était une initiative française l'été dernier, mais cette fois en Pologne, il va y avoir des échanges de volontaires européens pour la première fois. Et je pense qu'on va pouvoir construire cette nouvelle génération qui sera formée, capable de réagir ensemble avec les mêmes codes face aux dangers qui ne cessent d'évoluer. Oui, donc ces jeunes volontaires de 18 à 25 ans seront logés, accueillis par l'université polonaise et ils viennent de partout un petit peu en Europe.
Et on va avoir aussi des workshops, des entraînements avec des jeunes pompiers volontaires qui vont un petit peu apprendre aussi comment le mécanisme de solidarité européenne fonctionne. Donc ils seront familiarisés aussi à ce mécanisme UCPM. Je pense que c'est très important aussi pour protéger et préparer les communautés et les pays. Et ce sera le début d'un programme qui va être récurrent. On verra comment on va le développer l'année prochaine, mais évidemment il est appelé à grandir et à se développer à l'avenir.
Pierfrancesco Maran
So thank you so much to both the Commissioner. Now before moving to the next point of the agenda, we thank Commissioner Lahbib. We will meet again tomorrow for the structured dialogue, so we will have time very soon, while we will go on for the next point with Commissioner Roswall. So we make a very small break before moving to the next point.
So, if we take a seat we we can continue. The next two items of our agenda concern the Convention on Biological Diversity and its objectives of conserving biodiversity, ensuring the sustainable use of biological resources, and fairly and equitably sharing the benefits arising from genetic resources and the upcoming COP 17 meeting. We will begin with an exchange of view with Commissioner Jessica Oswal, who will present the EU's report on progress in implementing the Global Biodiversity Framework, which will serve as a contribution for the upcoming 17th meeting of the Conference of the Parties for the Convention on Biological Diversity. The conference is scheduled for October and the ENVI Committee will send a delegation to this conference. Commissioner, the floor is yours.
Jessika Roswall
Thank you, dear Chair, dear Francesco, honorable members. Thank you for inviting me to this exchange. It is a privilege to present the European Union's seventh national report to the Convention of Biological Diversity and also see some guests in the room, very happy to see you here. In December 2022, in Montreal, the international community adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, a landmark agreement to protect and restore nature by 2030. Today we are preparing for COP 17 in Yerevan, Armenia this October.
There, the first time since the framework was adopted, governments will take stock on global progress toward its 2030 targets through the global review of implementation. And this review matters because biodiversity loss continues at alarming pace. I sometimes feel that we speak too little about biodiversity loss and its consequences. Nature loss is becoming a systematic risk for economies, for supply chains, for food security and financial stability.
Earlier this year, the World Economic Forum listed biodiversity loss, together with four other environmental risks, as part of the top 10 risks of the global economy in the 10 years perspective. Some governments around the world are including this in their national security strategies. I think that is right, and I think that is good that they do that. Nature is not a luxury. Healthy soils, forests, wetlands, and ocean underpins our economies, our health, and our security.
Biodiversity loss weakens the very system that feeds us, regulate our climate, and keep our society resilient. And the EU's seventh national report is therefore more than a technical exercise, it is a reality check. Every party to the biodiversity COP was invited to submit a report on progress towards its biodiversity commitments, and the EU was the first party to do so. Around 130 parties have now submitted reports, including 19 EU member states. And these reports are essential for transparency and accountability.
Together, they will provide the basis for the global stocktake at COP17, helping us to identify where progress is happening, where implementation is lagging, and where additional efforts are urgently needed. The EU report assesses progress across the 45 EU biodiversity targets, aligned with the global biodiversity framework, from protecting nature and restoring ecosystems to reducing pollution, mobilizing finance, and ensuring fair benefit sharing. The findings, they are clear. Two of the 45 EU targets have been achieved, and 16 are on track. At the same time, the report shows that implementation must accelerate significantly if we are to meet our 2030 commitments.
So we are moving in the right direction, but not fast enough. So allow me to highlight three areas in particular. First, protected areas. Protected areas now cover around 26.4% of EU land and 13.7% of EU marine waters. The Natura 2000 network remain the cornerstone of these efforts, bringing together more than 27 protected sites across Europe and covering around 18.6% of EU land territory and 10.5% of EU seas.
But important gaps remains. To reach the target of protecting 30% of land and sea by 2030, additional efforts will be needed, especially in marine ecosystems and strict protection areas. Second, I want to raise is the biodiversity financing. The EU is proud to remain one of the world's leading biodiversity donors. We are on track to double international biodiversity funding under the current MFF compared to the previous period.
And here, of course, this is another discussion, but I count on you to support to keep this ambition. Mobilizing finance remains essential, particularly in today's fragile geopolitical context where multilateral cooperation is under pressure, as we all know, and global environmental financing is becoming increasingly constrained. So this is why complements to public funds and innovative financing mechanism are so important. For example, the Cali Fund is a key element of the global agreement on digital sequence information on genetic resources. As you know, it aims to ensure that benefits arising from the commercial use of genetic data contributes fairly to biodiversity conservation worldwide.
The EU is actively supporting efforts to operationalize the fund and engage governments, businesses, and stakeholders ahead of the COP17. But I believe that we need to do much more to mobilize private finance, and together with Commissioner Albuquerque, we are jointly discussing this with stakeholders later this week. The third thing I want to raise is restoration.
The adoption of the Nature Restoration Regulation marked an important step forward for the EU. Its effective implementation will be critical to restoring ecosystems, strengthening resilience to climate change, and achieving our biodiversity commitments. At the same time, implementation must remain practical and workable. Simplification and reducing unnecessary administrative burdens will remain important as we move from legislation to delivery. And I am in close contact with all the Member States on this as they prepare the national restoration plans.
As I already mentioned, funding is an issue. We must underpin nature restoration with the necessary financing. Our proposal for the next MFF explicitly requires Member States to finance nature restoration as part of the national and regional plans. And our roadmap on nature credits charts out a way to mobilize private finance. Overall, the EU has significantly strengthened biodiversity policy and legal framework since 2020, but laws and targets are not enough.
The next phase now must focus on implementation. So, honorable members, the geopolitical challenges that we face are real. Conflicts, economic instability, and growing pressures on multilateralism are making international cooperation more difficult. But these challenges, I've said it many times, is not a reason to slow down. A world facing climate disruption, water scarcity, and economic uncertainty cannot afford to lose its natural defense.
Biodiversity underpins resilience, stability, and long-term prosperity. The implementing of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework therefore remain a priority for this Commission. But the EU cannot deliver it by itself. Member States must deliver on their national biodiversity strategies, businesses must integrate biodiversity into their business models, and citizens must see nature protection as a shared responsibility. The financial sector, including the European and other multilateral development banks, understand this very well, and they are adapting their investments practices to consider nature in full.
And at COP 17, all parties must come ready to step up action. The global review of implementation should recognize efforts made so far, but it must also identify the gaps, reveal common challenges, and help mobilize greater political momentum for action. COP 17 will also need to advance work on other critical issues, including biodiversity financing, the operationalization, I cannot say that word, I'm sorry, of the Cali Fund, and the establishment of the new permanent body for indigenous people and local communities. So, dear Chair, honorable members, the EU's seventh national report is an honest assessment on where we stand today, but reports alone will not restore ecosystems or save species. Only action will.
So 2030 is right around the corner. Future generations will judge us not only by our words, but what we protected and what we let slip away. The EU remains fully committed to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. We will continue to lead by example, work with international partners, and push for stronger global action. And we count on this Parliament on your support, the scrutiny, and ambition in the years ahead.
Thank you very much.
Pierfrancesco Maran
Thank you, Commissioner. Now we leave the floor to the political group representative for two minutes each, EPP, Manuela Ripa. You have to start.
Manuela Ripa
Thank you very much, dear Commissioner, dear Jessica. I think the seventh national report makes one thing very clear. While the European Union has adopted ambitious biodiversity targets, the real question is whether we will achieve them in time. In the end, COP 17 will be the first true test of the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. One of the key achievements of COP 16 was the establishment of the Cali Fund.
If the European Union wants to demonstrate global leadership, it should move beyond voluntary approaches. Can you elaborate more on how the Commission intends to support a reliable and practical European framework that secures long-term contributions from European companies while providing legal certainty for research and innovation? And Commissioner, you mentioned it, biodiversity loss is alarming. Therefore, we have to talk about biodiversity-harmful subsidies. Significant public funds continue to support activities that contribute to biodiversity loss.
How will the Commission ensure that public spending is consistently aligned with the EU biodiversity objectives? And you mentioned also the nature restoration. With the Nature Restoration Law, the European Union has set a global benchmark. The challenge now is the implementation. Restoring peatlands, wetlands, and floodplains is among the most cost-effective measures for biodiversity protection, flood prevention, water resilience, and climate mitigation.
What priorities will the Commission give to these ecosystems on the road to COP 17, and how will it ensure or even help that Member States implement the Nature Restoration Law? Finally, we continue to witness a dramatic decline in pollinators. Without wild bees, butterflies, and other pollinators, both biodiversity and food security are at risk. What additional measures does the Commission plan to take to reverse this trend by 2030? To conclude, Commissioner, you said it, and I agree fully with you, we need more action.
Europe will be judged at COP 17 not by its promises, but by its results. We therefore need to demonstrate that we are prepared to deliver on financing, restoration, and biodiversity protection. Thank you very much.
César Luena
Buenas tardes, comisaria. El informe reconoce, el informe de la Comisión reconoce que 25 de los 45 objetivos de biodiversidad están en riesgo de no cumplirse en 2030. Me gustaría saber cuáles son...
César Luena
Muy bien. Yo puedo hablar más despacio, pero después entonces nos tienen que ajustar el tiempo, estamos en lo de siempre. Le decía, 25 de, hablaré menos rápido de lo que ha hablado la comisaria, en todo caso, ¿eh? 25 de los 45 objetivos parece que no se van a cumplir. ¿A usted cuál de esos es el que más le preocupa?
Y mire, señora Roswall, ¿no cree que con este panorama no tendría usted que plantearse el no tocar las directivas de naturaleza, sino implementarlas? Y como sabemos que está en los planes de la Comisión, por eso se lo sugiero. No recorten más directivas relacionadas con la naturaleza. En relación a la financiación, ha hablado usted de la Ley de Restauración, pero el informe sobre las necesidades de financiación que está previsto en el artículo 21.7, ¿cuándo tiene previsto publicarlo? Porque no sabemos nada de ese informe.
Nada de nada. Y esto se lo pregunto porque mientras sigue pendiente ese informe, la Comisión propone para el próximo marco eliminar el objetivo de dedicar el 10% del presupuesto europeo a biodiversidad y de suprimir como programa autónomo el programa LIFE. Por tanto, como ve, se nos acumulan los problemas. No será que está usted pensando, o la Comisión, en acudir a la financiación privada como una manera alternativa para suplir la ausencia de financiación pública. Y en relación con esta idea, nos encontramos con los créditos de naturaleza.
¿Me puede usted asegurar aquí esta tarde que van a ser complementarios, que no están ustedes pensando en ninguna fórmula para ocupar ese espacio que parece que la financiación pública, entre el marco financiero, esos informes que no se presentan, pues no va a llegar? Dos cuestiones más. ¿Cómo vamos a cumplir entonces con los compromisos internacionales, los de Kunming-Montreal, los de Cali, si cada vez planteamos menos financiación? Y sobre las subvenciones que perjudican a la biodiversidad. También vemos que los avances son muy, muy limitados.
Entonces, ¿tiene usted previsto presentar alguna propuesta concreta para reducir las subvenciones que perjudican a la biodiversidad? Estas serían mis cuestiones esta tarde.
Pierfrancesco Maran
Thank you. If somebody wants to speak for the catch-the-eye, he can tell us. Now we move to Jutta Paulus for the Greens.
Jutta Paulus
Thank you, Jessica. Thank you, Chair. I think this is an important debate. You have mentioned rightly that Europe is quite on a good track when it comes to regulation, but not necessarily to implementation. And I would like to focus on target number seven, which asks for the elimination of plastic pollution and reducing the overall risk from pesticides and highly hazardous chemicals.
As we all know, the regulation on sustainable use of pesticides died in the last mandate. There was no majority for a regulation, and until now I have not heard from the Commission whether there will be any sort of following legislation. And else, I would like to know how do you intend to reach the target which the Commission set out in the in 2020, when it said that use of pesticides should halve by 2030, and especially of hazardous pesticides. I do not think that this will happen by itself, and this will happen by not regulating, but I do believe that we need some kind of legislative input here because we have seen that it goes rather in the opposite direction, let's put it that way. And I would like to support the call of my colleague César Luena, who was asking for the report on the financing of the Nature Restoration Regulation.
The major criticism coming from Member States or stakeholders or associations is that it is not clear how it should be financed. So I believe it is high time that the Commission should also adhere to the regulation. The report would have been due in August 2025. We now have June 2026.
needs some sort of guidance also when we are talking about the nature credits where I'm perfectly aware that the experts are working on it and that we cannot preclude their conclusions. Still, it is very for people it is very important to know which direction shall it go, which direction will be taken by the Commission, and will these nature credits be a Member States affair or will there be strong European guardrails because else it could just become a very big greenwashing exercise as we have seen with the carbon credits and I don't think we should repeat that experience. Coming back from a tour in the Green Week where I was actually also visiting restoration projects, I would like to give some hope to all those present in the room. If you give nature the space, nature does come back, nature does find a way. Thank you.
Sebastian Everding
Thank you, Chair. I will continue in German. Sehr geehrte Frau Kommissarin, im Bericht wird ja deutlich, dass wir von einer EU sprechen, die bereit ist, Verantwortung für den Schutz biologischer Vielfalt zu übernehmen. Doch ich würde gerne drei Punkte ansprechen, wo so ein bisschen Anspruch und Wirklichkeit so ein bisschen miteinander kollidieren. Das erste wäre der Wolf.
Die beschlossene Schutzstatusabsenkung wurde ja damals beschlossen, um vor allem Konflikte mit der Landwirtschaft zu lösen. Und da ist die große Frage, inwieweit liegen der Kommission Zahlen vor, wie viele Wölfe inzwischen getötet wurden und ob das wirklich zu einer Lösung der Konflikte beigetragen hat. Wie erfolgt da das Monitoring oder riskieren wir einfach am Ende, dass einfach Tiere jetzt getötet wurden, ohne dass wirklich die Konflikte, die ursprünglichen, gelöst wurden? Und dahingehend auch die Frage noch, können Sie auch ausschließen, dass der Schutzstatus weiterer Arten in Zukunft abgesenkt werden soll? Dann einmal zu den invasiven gebietsfremden Arten.
Da muss man einfach auch noch mal festhalten, dass ganz viele Probleme, Herausforderungen, die gerade europaweit bestehen, ja dadurch ausgelöst sind, dass es eigentlich alles Arten sind, die durch menschliches Handeln hier in Europa angesiedelt wurden, eingeschleppt wurden. Das war kann verantwortungslose Heimtierhaltung sein, das kann Aussetzen sein, das kann Pelztierhandel sein, immer sind es eigentlich die Menschen, die die Schuld an der Situation tragen und nicht die Tiere. Und da ist meine zentrale Frage, kann die Kommission sicherstellen bei allem Vorgehen, dass eigentlich immer nicht tödliche tierschutzkonforme Methoden, Maßnahmen bevorzugt werden gegenüber tödlichen, wenn eine wissenschaftliche Grundlage dafür da ist? Und abschließend noch eine Frage zu einem sehr topaktuellen Thema, das leider jedes Jahr aufs Neue aktuell wird und gerade in einer Dimension vorliegt, wie schon seit vielen Jahren nicht, das Massaker von Walen und Delfinen auf den Färöer-Inseln. Ja, ich weiß, es ist nicht EU, aber trotz alledem kann die EU sich doch nicht aus der Verantwortung stehlen bei einer Region, die eigentlich unsere Nachbarschaft einfach ist.
Also ich erhalte tausende E-Mails von Menschen, die einfach empört sind und ich kann einfach dieses Abschlachten von Tieren in keinster Weise gutheißen. Da müssen wir doch als Europäische Union müssen wir doch etwas dagegen setzen und da ist die große Frage, was macht die Kommission da diplomatisch, kann da nicht einfach bitte, bitte mehr gemacht werden? Vielen Dank im Voraus.
Jonas Sjöstedt
Thank you, Chair. I will speak in Swedish. Först vill jag tacka kommissionär Roswall för hennes inledning. Precis som du påpekade, Jessica, så är vi ju en bra bit ifrån att nå de här målen. Det finns väldigt mycket kvar att göra och det kommer att bli svårare ju längre vi kommer också.
Samtidigt är det så att vi har ju flera verktyg som vi arbetar med. Vi har vår lagstiftning, men vi har också vår budget där det varit viktigt för oss att ha ett arbete där vi skjuter till medel, till exempel genom Life-programmet till att arbeta med biologisk mångfald. Men när vi ser på förslaget till flerårig budget, långtidsbudgeten, så finns det ju en tydlig kritik mot att ambitionsnivån sänks. Life-programmet som fristående program ska inte finnas kvar och den totala ambitionsnivån på miljöområdet går ner något. När vi diskuterar det här så tycker jag det är tydligt att det behövs en särskild specialiserad del av budgeten som går till just biologisk mångfald, att det finns ett mål, till exempel 10 % av den totala budgeten som ska gå till biologisk mångfald.
Och nu när vi vet hur prekärt läget är, hur ser du på möjligheten att hitta en kompromiss där man har ett procentmål för utgifterna till biologisk mångfald? Det är min första fråga. Och det andra är möjligheten att spåra utgifterna. Det är en sak att ha ett mål, det är en annan att veta att pengarna verkligen går dit. Och en annan kritik mot förslaget till flerårig budget, det är ju att det kommer vara väldigt svårt att spåra hur pengarna faktiskt används.
Och kan du med det budgetförslag som har lagts se att det kommer att gå att ange hur mycket pengar som faktiskt har gått till biologisk mångfald, att det är möjligt att redovisa det tydligt i efterhand? För det är ju faktiskt ganska rimligt att vi kan göra det. Tack så mycket.
Beatrice Timgren
I think it was the next point, the report. Yes, not this one. Yeah, thank you.
Jessika Roswall
Thank you very much, thank you for your questions. Sometimes I don't like the ping-pong and now I feel it's different because it's easier when it's ping-pong because then I, now I have so many questions and answers. So let's see if I can, and please help me if I forget something. So, Madam Rippa, thank you very much for the support. And then how can the Cali Fund elaborate a little bit?
As I said in my introduction remarks, I think this is one of the, in finance is a big, I try to talk a lot about financing and the Cali Fund is an important key for when it comes to this species, exactly this. What we are doing now for the upcoming COP is to be an active, well, be part of the friends, but also being, what I feel is that we need to build a trust for the businesses who we hope will also invest in this. And this, my view when speaking with businesses is this a little bit of lack of trust where we need to work together on building that trust. And that is what we, what I engage in, but also together with other member states, with other states also on how to build this. And as I said, also engaging with the friends of the Cali Fund, being a supportive partner to this.
Then I think I had another thing that I wanted to say on that also, but I lost it in all my papers. I will come back to that. How ensure that public spending in time with biodiversity?
This is a little bit also what Jonas Sjöstedt said. I mean, I think it's not an easy answer to that, but if I talk about the MFF and how we can track, we are having a new performance framework that applies to all the EU budget and based on a common list of interventions fields where you can follow with indicators that of course also follow how where we can use these indicators to tracking that the biodiversity expenditure is going to that and also that we see results of this. Then I jump actually to Jonas Sjöstedt's question so I don't forget, because you also asked me about how I see on the if on a specific target for biodiversity. I think I said it before in this in this committee that I think for me it's important I don't think it's important that there is 35% spending for nature, environment and climate. Sometimes they are interconnected.
I said it in the beginning of my speech also that I sometimes feel that we talk too little about the biodiversity loss, not that we should talk less about climate change, but I think that we need to link these two together, whether it's biodiversity loss or water scarcity. So I think that it is better to have this 35% common joint goal. So this is a little bit on the questions on what you asked me on on that. Then on pollinators, I got a questions and that is also something that I'm I think that both it is covered by the Nature Restoration Regulation. We are also working with the Member States on finding the right indicators for this.
It is something that is very big engagement from wherever I go. And here of course it's linked to the questions that I got from I think both César Luena and Jutta Paulus is on the on the on the pesticides, how we can reduce the the global use of pesticides because we know that this is a risk of course for not only pollinators but for all of us. Here I can just say that we are still waiting for the FAO to finalize the global methodology to do this the the figures on how this is doing. But it's true what Jutta said that we need to work towards this the global goal to reduce the risk by 50% by 2030. We are as I see working on this together with other people in in the Commission.
César Luena, and then I will get back to the nature restoration. You asked me what are the one of the most concerning that we are not achieving. I think that is a impossible question to answer. We I when I read and when I've been analyzing myself the report, I I think what I said in the beginning: we are on the right direction, we have achieved some of the goals, some are on the on the on the way to be achieving. But as I said and pointed out three areas where I think it is something that we need to prioritize.
I also pointed out that I think the COP17 will also be I mean it's important to take stock on where everybody where we all are, but also to finding where are the gaps that we really urgently need to address. So I think it's unfair to say that this is the one that we should reach. We have 45 goals in the European Union.
One of the most important tool to reach these goals when it comes to the package on protection of the environment and restoring the nature is the Nature Restoration Regulation. So I think for me, I don't point out any. I think the overall ambition is that how can we, the 2030 is around the corner and how can we reach, how can we get there as soon as possible. So just maybe also on the financing, I'm going back and forth now, I understand that. But it is true, we are now waiting for the member states to put in their national restoration plan.
And that is also will help us to see on where the financing gaps are, how much the financing will be needed for the member states to actually implement the Nature Restoration Regulation. And that of course also is dependent on how we calculate the actual financing. So that is also a joint commission, that is what we are doing now. And they are, as you all know, they are planning to be submitted in September. And after that we will follow up with the member states on that basis.
I think it was a little bit also from several of the members of the Parliament how I see private financing towards public financing, is it complementary or not. Yes I do, but of course what I said, what we see financing is not only a European question, it's a global question. We see that there is a lot of need. We see there is a gap. We know that the public funding will not be enough.
So we need to have innovative solutions where I think nature credits will be one possibility. I totally agree with Jutta Paulus when she said that we need to avoid greenwashing. And that is why I am a little bit hesitate to say, and you did not ask me about that, what is the conclusions yet. But what I think is that what I read more and more studies coming from all different institutions, governments from all over the world, especially maybe what I read from the ECB recently, for example, a lot of banks and financial institutions around Europe saying that they calculate nature more and see that risk as I talked about in my intervention first. So I think this, my main message here is that we need to do this together and the work is ongoing.
And I think the European Commission needs to be a very vocal part in that work. Then I think I got questions from César Luena and Jutta Paulus about the harmful subsidies, what are we doing. I think that we have had this discussion before. Of course reforming subsidies that is harmful for the, well, subsidies that is harmful for biodiversity is one of the essential elements on the CBD but also a really important issue when it comes to halt the degradation of the biodiversity. So what we are doing now is to see that, and in generally from my point of view, when we using taxpayers' money, of course they always have to be spent very wisely.
And but you all know that it's not always, it's maybe easier said than done. EU, we are working with the framework that we have in place and how to identify but also how to reduce energy fossil fuel subsidies, for example.
And here of course the EU and its member states have during the under the climate and energy regulation identified that. We have also in the in the latest crisis that we are into of course as you as you all know we have put forward proposals that is due to the the fossil crisis the energy crisis that we're in that we have we have said that those proposals has to be targeted and they have to be temporary. Just to finalize I will say that we of course need we are clearly less advanced on the non-energy subsidies that may be harmful for the biodiversity. We have developed guidance and invited also member states to report. Only one member state has so far reported that is the Czech Republic and but and using the Commission's guidance.
Let's see what more we have. Pollinators I have said and this I have said and then I got the questions on wolf. Just it's just to say that we have just recently also received not recently but some member states was later than others we have received data from from all the member states on how the situation for the wolf is is currently sorry there you are. We are analyzing these and the process of changing to Annex I mean that is a long process and and you know all the details on how that works so at the moment we are analyzing the member states data. Invasive species I don't think I really have an answer I can just say I mean this is a is a important question and it's not an easy one because sometimes we have invasive species that also is helping us to restore nature.
So but I it's thank you for raising it but but I don't but you know all every year it's it's a new list and it's I can say of course that we are at the moment stress testing the nature nature regulations and maybe that will also come into that but that is too early for me to say. Sorry to I'm I'm going through my very badly written notes and probably I have forgotten something. I didn't mention pesticides. Sorry? Oh the Faroe Island Faroe Färöarna and what was the question on the Faroe Island?
Okay my mind slipped maybe I'm sorry for that. I actually answered a letter from many of you on whales the other today so you get a you probably you were one of the subjects so probably you get a letter from me very soon. And but I no I don't really I know a lot about since I've been a minister of Nordic so I know a lot about Färöarna but not on this topic actually I have to admit. I have to get back to you on that then. So what more did I forget?
Pesticides I did cover actually I would argue. And and that is what we're trying to address both in Europe but also is one of the parts in in the in the CBD in the GBF objectives to achieve this. We of course I mean in EU to reach to I said this you to we have a global target to reduce as Jutta Paulus said and we are waiting for FAO imports inputs but we are also of course continuing to implementing the strict pesticide regulations that we already have in Europe. And for me this is important maybe mainly also from the perspective that I also for a couple of months ago presented the bioeconomy strategy here which is not only important to reduce the harmful pesticides but also reducing our dependencies.
Sorry for being all over the place as always. Just to end then because I suppose you want me to not come back again tonight. This is finally I would thank you very much again for your questions and thank you for engaging. I think I would, I mean as I said to one of the questions is that we are on the, we are not there, we need to speed up the implementation. But when I get once through the list of all the things that we put forward last mandate on the regulation, we have a lot of regulation.
Not I mean I talked a lot about nature restoration regulation, but we have a lot of other regulation. It's a list of I don't remember 20 or 30 pieces of regulation. Now it's time for implementation. And what I also admit is that we need to implement faster. And here that I cannot do by myself.
I need the Member States also to be on this. But with saying that little bit negative thing is that EU is leading the way in implementing the CBD. And I think that I, I think that we can agree, I what I hear from the question is that now is time for action. But what I also see is that we are doing, we are turning legislation and promises into action. It's a hard work, but it, it is on, on its way.
And I really look forward also to reporting on this in the, in the, in the COP17 together with you. More or less. Sorry for the færøerne.
Pierfrancesco Maran
So, so let me thank you the Commissioner Roswall for the usual willingness to answer our question and participate to our activity. Now we have a short break before the next point.
Esther Herranz García
Dear colleagues, can we keep on with our work? Yeah. Well, I want to, we move to the item number nine, is the exchange of views with Astrid Schomaker, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, on the preparations and key issues at stake for the 17th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity. So, I would like to warmly welcome Madame Schomaker. You have the floor for 10 minutes, 10 minutes.
Astrid Schomaker
Thank you so much, Madam Chair, and thank you for the opportunity to introduce the COP 17, as we call it, to the European Parliament. I have a small PowerPoint presentation, some of which I can go through quite quickly because Commissioner Roswall has already covered these items in her presentation. Now that, of course, there we go. So, I think you're all familiar with this convention. I just want to highlight it's one of the three Rio conventions.
It has near-universal membership, 196 parties. US is not a party. And these parties have agreed in 2022, as the Commissioner mentioned, that there is a need for an extra push in the implementation of the convention, and that extra push came in the shape of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework with its 23 targets for 2030. And I think all of us can do the math, we're in 2024, so we're right in the middle of this framework. So that means from our perspective that we think we're at an important moment to take stock and see where we are in the ambitions that parties have collectively agreed and what can be done to give us a chance to implement that framework by 2030 as foreseen.
Now the Commissioner said we should talk more about biodiversity loss, and of course I would agree with that. And it's a little bit regrettable that biodiversity is often seen as an additional cost factor. And I think as the Commissioner, we in the convention would very much like to make the case that working on biodiversity means working on achieving the SDGs. Biodiversity and nature do underpin sustainable development. And the business sector gets it.
If we look at what the World Economic Forum, for example, says, they regularly take biodiversity loss as one of the key medium- and long-term risks that they see need to be addressed. And they have also said that virtually half of the global economy depends on healthy ecosystems and healthy nature.
So we're talking there about a 44 trillion dollar challenge in a way. At the same time, we also would like to highlight, as the Commissioner has done, that biodiversity and climate change are really two sides of the same crisis. So we need to see biodiversity and investing in biodiversity also as an investment into pushing back climate change, both in terms of mitigation but also in terms of adaptation. And here, just to explain the challenge, science would generally tell us that about 30% of climate change solutions come from biodiversity, but only 3% of climate funding goes to biodiversity. And lastly, I also want to highlight, of course, and specifically a concern for the Global South, that food systems depend on biodiversity.
So when we speak about biodiversity loss and the rapid loss of species, that includes also 40% of insects that are being lost, and on the other hand, those insects, 75% of all crops depend on pollination from those insects. So the crisis is real and needs more attention, as the Commissioner has said. I'll jump a bit over this slide, which shows the progress made under the Convention, to come to what the Global Biodiversity Conference is actually about. And here I recognize that this slide is for some reason not legible. So I try and jump over that as well, but it is more than just the COP 17, which is the Convention as such.
We also have our two protocols on biosafety and on access and benefit sharing meeting. We will have a leaders' summit to precede the COP, and there will be a high-level segment, so a ministerial meeting as well. But what I wanted to highlight specifically on the illegible slide is that in addition to all these negotiation-related outcomes, there are a number of associated events: a nature and culture summit, a business summit, a city summit, a finance summit, a global youth summit, etc., etc. And I come back to why I find that particularly important for this COP 17. Now, this is a little bit more legible, but clearly I've not used a good font overall.
The centerpiece, as the Commissioner has said, is the global review of collective progress. So this stocktake where we are in achieving our 2030 ambition. For this thing, we had a lot of input. So in particular, of course, the seventh national reports, and yes, the EU was the first one and submitted a 200-page report, which was really a very good sort of way forward to show how this can be done. We also have the national targets, of course, that were submitted.
160 parties have submitted targets, and we have more than 80 national biodiversity strategies and action plans that have already been updated in response to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. So we are right now in the process of analyzing all these reports so that we have a collective view on where we are in terms of implementing the framework and where the gaps are that we need to focus on specifically. And that brings me to the next slide: what are the key agenda items for this COP? So the global review really needs to be seen as being the center part of this COP. Its findings should inform the negotiations, but also everything else that takes place around the negotiations.
And let me start with this latter part. Around the negotiations, we will have hopefully a significant mobilization of all the actors that come to the parallel events that I have mentioned. So local actors, cities, and regional communities, business leaders, the finance sector. All of those people need to come together and have a conversation in response to the findings of the global report, because as we all know, this is now about implementation. So yes, we still need to negotiate certain things, and I come to those in a minute, and they're listed on the slide.
But just as much as further negotiations, if not more, the success of the COP will depend on new partnerships, new friends of groups of friends, new ambition coalitions, new initiatives, etc., etc.
But coming to the negotiated outcome that is normally very much in the focus of everybody, I've listed on screen most of the issues that are on the agenda. We have a very, very dense agenda for two weeks, that will be quite challenging. Of course, the biggest issue, as always, and you're well familiar with that, are the means of implementation and how we can finance what parties have committed to doing, in particular how the Global South can be better supported than it has been so far. And then also that includes how domestic resource mobilization in all countries, North and South, can be accelerated. We also need to learn better how we can focus our capacity building and knowledge management, and again the review will tell us where to focus that better.
We have, and I'm very grateful for the earlier question, we have of course a lot of attention on the Cali Fund. This is an important and very innovative new finance mechanism for biodiversity that still needs to grow into its potential, so to speak. It has only just been opened. It is not surprising that so far companies have not paid into it. There are many questions still open, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be pushing it forward.
And it means as a matter of urgency all parties who were invited to incentivize their companies to pay into the Cali Fund, or at least to engage on the Cali Fund and explain what they would need in order to feel more comfortable paying into it, that would be a very important priority for the discussions at the COP. Including specifying how, what is the basis for calculation of those contributions, what do we want to do with the current indicative rates, and what is the mechanism to distribute funds to biodiversity-rich developing countries and also to indigenous peoples and local communities. That is a complex discussion, but a very, very important one, and I think everybody agrees that this Cali Fund needs to succeed. So we hope we can give that a big push at the COP. Linked to that, I already mentioned indigenous peoples and local communities.
Governments have made commitments in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, but the implementation cannot come from governments alone. It needs everybody on board, and indigenous peoples that are the stewards of much of our biodiversity have a specific role to play. We therefore have a new body in the convention, it's a new subsidiary body, which allows us to, I would say, talk more with the indigenous people than about indigenous people. But that body still needs to find its modus operandi, so we know exactly how it can work and how we can engage with them, and it needs to make progress on its work program. And there are very important issues such as the rights of indigenous peoples when it comes to spatial planning.
As the Commissioner has mentioned, one of our most famous targets, 30 by 30, the protection target, but also the restoration targets, there are indigenous territories involved, so we need to have a clear understanding how the rights of indigenous peoples can be protected. There are a range of thematic issues that I've listed on top. Some of those are stocktaking elements as well, so we will see how far existing action plans have developed. But we also hope to make further progress, for example, on marine and coastal biodiversity. You have heard and you know that globally speaking, the protection of oceans still is only at 10%.
We are four years away from the 30% target, so it is important that we move forward in the identification of ecologically and biologically significant areas, the so-called EBSAs, and we hope that we can do that at the COP. EBSAs don't mean protection, but they mean identifying what needs to be protected, so that would be an important step. Looking at the time, I would quickly jump forward and just try and summarize what, that's slightly more legible thankfully, what should be the key outcomes of the COP. So first of all, clarity on progress, identification of the gaps, and identification of options moving forward.
So we need to accelerate and scale up, that is clear. What are the options, where are the best practices, what can be replicated, where can we do peer-to-peer learning etc. etc. That means we need these new initiatives and partnerships. We need progress on resource mobilization, we have a clear work plan what needs to be achieved by the COP. We need more targeted scientific cooperation and knowledge management.
The Cali Fund I've already explained. Bringing in other actors, indigenous peoples and local communities in particular, also business of course. One of the targets that our report will show is lagging behind is the business engagement target. And of course we have an excellent scientific support now from the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. We need to work more on synergies, so we need to come to a situation where the individual COPs of individual MEAs are not in competition with each other but work hand in hand.
So that means looking at things such as reporting formats and indicators etc. Our parties are quite advanced in their thinking, the other Rio conventions, same parties but different people, need to follow up. And the other areas at the bottom of the slide I've already mentioned. I think with that I'm more or less concluding because I'm over time. I just want to say we are expecting around 8 to 10,000 participants at this COP and it will be the usual hopefully broad-based participation, so government delegates but hopefully a lot of civil society and business, academia etc. participants as well.
And as always there is a lot of opportunity, we're looking forward to a strong European Parliament delegation and a lot of opportunity for engagement outside the negotiations between those actors to really make a difference on the ground. Thank you.
Esther Herranz García
Thank you very much. Now I give the floor to Madame Ripa on behalf of EPP Group. You have two minutes.
Manuela Ripa
Thank you very much. Thank you very much Mrs. Schumacher for your presentation. The adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework was a historic achievement. However, as we approach COP 17, the central question is no longer what we agreed on, but whether we are implementing it fast enough. We just had this discussion with Commissioner Roswall in the previous meeting.
The information currently available shows that the world is still not on track to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. Many countries have adopted targets, yet implementation and financing remain insufficient. In this context, I would like to raise four points. First, from the perspective of the CBD Secretariat, which targets of the Global Biodiversity Framework are currently most at risk of being missed by 2030 and where do you see the largest implementation gap? Second, COP 16 delivered important outcomes including progress on biodiversity finance and the establishment of the Cali Fund.
You talked about the importance of making it work. What additional steps are needed before COP 17 to ensure that biodiversity finance become predictable, long-term and sufficient to meet the ambitions of the framework? And do you see a role for the European Union to lead by example in establishing stable and effective mechanisms that make the Cali Fund successful? Third, ecosystem restoration will be essential if we are to achieve the global targets. The restoration of wetland, peatlands and floodplains is among the most cost-effective measures for biodiversity protection, water resilience, climate adaptation and disaster prevention.
Do you believe these ecosystems are receiving the political attention they deserve and should they become one of the defining priorities of COP 17?
Fourth, the credibility of the Global Biodiversity Framework depends not only on setting targets, but also on accountability. What mechanisms does the CBD Secretariat believe are needed to ensure that parties effectively implement and deliver on their commitments, also on adequate reporting on progress towards the 2030 targets? Ultimately, the success of COP 17 will not be measured by new declarations, but by whether we are able to accelerate implementation, close the financing gap, and deliver measurable improvements for nature before 2030. Thank you very much.
Esther Herranz García
Thank you very much. Now, César Luena tiene la palabra como representante de Socialistas y Demócratas, aproximadamente dos minutos, usted verá.
César Luena
Muchas gracias, vicepresidenta Radt. Bueno, yo tengo tres, tres cuestiones que plantear. La primera es, primero agradeciéndole que haya venido aquí y que esté en el Parlamento Europeo en este debate. La primera es si nos puede hablar sobre las prioridades políticas, porque en la presentación ya hemos podido ver pues toda la, toda la estrategia, todas las preocupaciones, pero sí me gustaría que nos diga qué prioridades políticas, dos, tres, una si quiere, ambiciona usted para que podamos conseguir en Armenia en octubre. Segundo, hemos tenido un debate ahora con la comisaria Roswall acerca de los créditos de la naturaleza.
Dígame usted cómo lo ven porque, cómo los ve, porque este debate está presente en la política europea, pero no sabemos qué fronteras se le están poniendo. Entonces, ¿considera usted que son interesantes, pero sobre todo qué límites deben tener? Eso es lo que me gustaría saber por su parte, los límites de los créditos de naturaleza. Sobre las subvenciones perjudiciales para la biodiversidad, también, ¿cree usted que tenemos que ser más ambiciosos y que, por ejemplo, en Armenia podríamos tener algún tipo de acuerdo o de conclusión que lleve a que se endurezcan las políticas en todos los firmantes del convenio, incluido por supuesto la Unión Europea? Y para terminar, hemos tenido también un debate con la comisaria Roswall acerca de la financiación de la Ley de Restauración de la Naturaleza, una de las más importantes que hay en el mundo sobre los ecosistemas.
Segundo también sobre el marco financiero, sobre cómo se está reduciendo la financiación. ¿Y por qué le cuento esto? Pues porque si ha presenciado usted la parte final del debate, ahora ha visto que no hay todavía una previsión sobre cómo se va a financiar la Ley de Restauración de la Naturaleza. Llevamos casi un año de retraso. Se pretende recortar bastante el dinero y la autonomía de los fondos para trabajar los ecosistemas en Europa.
Y por tanto, la pregunta que le hago es: ¿le preocupa el papel en el que puede quedar Europa en estas cumbres internacionales si seguimos debilitando las políticas que han sido emblemáticas para que tuviéramos credibilidad en esos mismos foros? Es decir, ¿le preocupa sentirse un poquito abandonada por Europa en la próxima cumbre de Armenia?
Gracias, señor Luena. Now, we move to, we don't have speaker from Patriots neither ECR, so we move to Renew Group and Mr. Gerbrandy, you have the floor.
Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy
Well, thank you, Chair. I just came in and apologies for that. I had another meeting and I think this started earlier than foreseen, but anyhow, thank you very much for being here, Ms. Schumacher, great to have you here.
My question concerns one of the action points of the Kunming-Montreal agreement, and that is on the identification and phasing out of environmentally harmful subsidies. I've been discussing it with the European Commission quite often because the deadline was the end of last year. The EU did not make that deadline, and one of the arguments now is that the Member States have not come up with the data yet. Two weeks ago the Dutch government came with their own analysis, so that's at least a start. My question concerns what is the state of play among all the parties at the moment concerning this action point?
And secondly, the European Commission is informally saying that since the agricultural subsidies in the EU fall under the no significant harm principle, they are per definition not harmful to the environment. Which we all know is not the case. The Dutch government in its analysis came to the conclusion that the direct payments, for instance, which is the largest part of the agricultural subsidies, have a very negative influence on biodiversity. And I know it's difficult for you to step into that internal political arena, but maybe you can have some general remarks on your views on agricultural subsidies and the dangers for nature and biodiversity. Thank you.
Esther Herranz García
Thank you, Mr Gerbrandy. And now it's time for Greens, Madame Paulus, on behalf of the Greens, two minutes more or less.
Jutta Paulus
More or less, thank you very much, Chair, thank you very much, Mr Schumacher, for being here. And yeah, I mean, it has been said already, it's about all about implementation. We have a lot of paper parks, we have a lot of paper commitments, but we should really follow the money. And if money could talk, it would say nature doesn't interest me. And of course, if you can make good money with destruction of nature, but no money with preservation of nature or restoration, then we don't have to be surprised how things are going.
I would like to know a few things specifically. We have the UN Decade on Restoration, and I would like to know, are there, let's say, any, is there any progress? I mean, I'm not talking about the European Union, there we do have the numbers, we have the possibilities also with the European Environment Agency telling us numbers, but how is the process going in other countries, in other continents? Are countries also developing mechanisms to halt biodiversity loss? And how do other countries see our EU's commitments and actions, because obviously the biodiversity strategy, the nature restoration law is very beautiful, but the current legislation is more or less going in the opposite direction when we are, for example, looking at eternal authorization of pesticides, cutting back on pollution prevention, renationalizing agricultural policies with virtually no strings attached for nature protection.
I would like to know how do other countries see that, because in Montreal I had the impression that the EU was more or less a role model and that other countries said, okay, if the EU is doing this, then we should too. And now, if the EU is cutting back on nature and environment, do countries say, oh, okay, then we can too, because that would be really detrimental.
And last but not least I would again like to come back to Article 7 on halting plastic pollution and reducing pesticides and harmful substances. How can we be credible if we only point to FAO? I mean FAO's job is not national legislation or EU legislation. Thanks.
Jonas Sjöstedt
Thank you so much Chair and thank you Ms. Schomaker for coming here and having this discussion with us. I mean you are one of the persons that have the most likely the best of view how this is this work is proceeding and developing globally and I wonder if you could say a few more words about what's your general impression of the implementation of the convention now when you see the reporting coming back from member states and so how is it going? And my question there in is in connection to what Jutta Paulus said we have a sense here in the European Union that it's actually going slower and that we will not meet most of the targets and that the interest from the European Commission is not increasing if you look on how they treat directives like the Green Claims Directive or when you see the new proposed budget so we meet more resistance at this point. But maybe you can give us some more optimism and point to other countries that do better and if you should highlight some good examples globally be it countries or particular projects of a great importance what would you what would you like to emphasize? My second question is also already partly covered by by Mr. Gaby and it's about the the subsidies and the promise to phase out fossil fuel subsidies.
What we are seeing now as a result of the conflict in the Strait of Hormuz and in Iran is the opposite that member that states all around the globe goes back to subsidizing fossil fuel and and try to increase production of coal and other fossil fuels sources to to cover for the for the the lack of import from the Middle East. And we have to get back on track here and and phase out fossil subsidies and and what role do you think you can play with the with the meeting coming up in Yerevan in this regard? Thank you.
Thank you very much thank you very much Mr. Sjöstedt. I don't have any name on behalf of ESN but as we now have Madam Arendt no. So we move to the answers from and the comments from our our guest Madam Schomaker and you have your time eight ten minutes for for comment.
Astrid Schomaker
Thank you very much for these super difficult questions that you were asking. So in many ways I'm here a couple of months too early because we are just now putting together all these national reports and finalizing our analysis that will be presented to parties for the first time in July August when our subsidiary bodies are meeting. But I mean of course giving the broad picture and all of you have said that we already understand that we need a massive acceleration and scaling up to achieve the targets by 2030. I think that is a very clear outcome. We're looking also at the 160 countries that have put national targets together and we can see that adding up the national targets do does not allow us to reach the collective global targets that that have been set.
It is also I think very clear already and that's the bit of the positive news story that we're looking for is that the framework itself has generated unprecedented attention to biodiversity. Is it enough? Certainly not. But action has increased and interestingly enough we have also seen on all means of implementation an increase. So be it capacity building, technical support and finance, everything has been increasing since 2022 to the extent that we have reliable figures.
So that is very clear.
Now for 24, 25 of course final figures are not out and of course you know better than I that globally speaking ODA figures have plummeted in ways that we have never seen before. So more than in the financial crisis, more than during COVID, we're looking at a massive cut to global development assistance and as part of that then support also for the global biodiversity framework. So that is an issue. It brings me directly to the question on what is the priority and funnily enough I think most of you have mentioned the priorities. I think amongst the many things that need to happen, looking at you know moving forward together, I think that is what a global convention is about.
We need of course front runners and the EU I think as you rightly said has during the Green Deal clearly been like a horse pulling forward showing what can be done. Nature Restoration Law and many other pieces of legislation have been setting a global standard and I think continue to be seen as global standard setters which of course means they have to be implemented and you know this has to stay on track. And I think that is certainly something everybody looks forward to. The Nature Restoration Law was seen as a global flagship of how can it be done and now the implementation of course is being observed closely around the world and one would hope that it is done diligently and with the same spirit with which the law was adopted in the first place. But coming to this bigger gap on moving forward collectively is a question of biodiversity finance in particular.
And yes positive finance has gone up but the paradox is that the negative, so the harmful subsidies have grown even faster. UNEP has recently done a report on nature finance and now finds that for every one dollar that is spent for nature positive activities, 30, three zero, dollars are spent on activities that are harmful. That includes harmful subsidies but of course also includes harmful behavior of of the private sector. So that is I think the core that needs to be addressed. We're focusing in the convention, we've focused a lot for many years and rightly so of course on protection and we need to move forward.
You've seen the figures for protection. We need to move forward. But if the COP is supposed to be a game changer, it is also moving upwards in the discussion. So it is the systemic change, it is the drivers of biodiversity loss that need greater attention. It is questions such as circular economy that the biodiversity conventions hasn't really been discussing a lot but that we in the EU I think have seen can also have a very very positive effect on biodiversity and in fact one of the main reasons why we should have a circular economy is to mimic nature and to see how activities can be carried out in a way that are not harmful for nature.
But addressing the harmful subsidies as a result of this increasing finance gap is one of the the main challenges. And first of all of course we had a target in the convention for 2025 which was the identification of those subsidies and as we now look at the reports coming in from member states, that sort of self-report, I think there is a general recognition that this has been very very difficult. Some say there are no criteria. In the EU you had the 8th Environmental Action Programme which has developed a methodology to do that. OECD has also developed a methodology.
So it is possible but the implementation here is lagging behind.
Of course, in a geopolitical scenario which is kind of dominated by a me-first kind of rhetoric, looking at subsidies in a trade context is more difficult than it has ever been. I think from our perspective, what would be important is, first of all, EU leadership, because a lot of methodological work has been done here. Secondly, subsidies should not be a subject just for discussions between governments, so we hope that we can bring together maybe more focused discussions on specific areas. Maybe we can look at the water sector and water pricing in particular, and what, you know, bad water pricing, what impact that has on water use and then on biodiversity. Maybe we look at specific chemical subsidies, etc.
Whatever we do, it is important that we bring together a conversation that brings together governments and the recipients of the subsidies, so that it is not something that is imposed, but something that can be developed together. And that we're also not talking necessarily about phasing out those subsidies, but about repurposing them to nature-positive activities. And for the Global South, that is so cash-strapped and doesn't have the financial space to do things, by moving from financing harmful activities to moving positive activities, you create that space for yourself. The agriculture subsidies, I think, are the crux in that debate. I think that is very clear for everybody.
And we see, of course, that agriculture and land-use change remains the largest driver of biodiversity loss. So subsidies for agriculture activities need to be examined very carefully. And there can, of course, be very positive subsidies in the agriculture sector if it is supporting production methods that are not relying on pesticides, for example. So if a Global South country wants to subsidize, let's say, agroecology, or wants to subsidize planting trees and then agriculture in the shade of those trees, there are lots of positive examples there. I think for the COP, it will be important that we manage to collect those examples, also manage to collect more inputs from the private sector there, and then see what can be replicated in other parts of the world.
It brings me to a very important question that I can't remember who asked that, on accountability. That is certainly a key issue for the COP. For the countries, through this reporting system and watching each other, I think there is a level of accountability. It would be very important that we find a way where the whole-of-society approach can also be more measured, reported on, and that we're moving away from, you know, great declarations of things that may happen to actually checking whether what is announced is also implemented. We are trying to do that with our reporting system, but that is certainly an area on which we need to put more attention.
Nature credits in this whole discussion play a massive role, and it is very interesting to see that this is no longer a debate that is just happening or driven by the European Union. Also many countries in the Global South have looked at that. What the limits are for that, the parties will need to decide. I think the first one is look at what happened in the carbon credits, so learn lessons from that. I think it is also very clear that nature credits are never sort of substitution, so looking at a net-positive outcome is important, being very specific about the sustainability of the activities that are being funded, and monitor that.
So with everything, it is the importance of being transparent and having clear accountability frameworks, which will be important for the broader resource mobilization debate as well. Because there, one part of the solution, I was trying to hint at that, will be from bringing together more nature and climate financing, so more nature-based solutions coming from climate finance, but without Global South countries running the risk that the same one dollar that is spent is being counted twice.
So one needs to be very clear where does the money come from, where does it go to, what are the results that are being achieved. And that is part of the discussion that we will have in the resource mobilization. There is a specific work program that was agreed at COP 16, and that means that COP 17 should look specifically at the issue of what are the impediments to finance, why is not more happening, and then what are the pathways forward. So in this context, these issues of accountability and clarity will come forward. Restoration remains, I think Mr. Lipa, you or Ms. Lipa, you were saying that in the beginning, remains an absolutely essential target for many conventions, including of course for the land convention or for the desertification convention, and yes, we are in the global decade.
I don't have in my head the figures for that. For everything there, the there's a big knowledge gap, there's a big data gap and a big knowledge gap, and a big lack of recognition that land restoration is a major investment opportunity if it is done right. So again, scaling up, and we have many countries in Africa with their national parks and the business models there that allow them to to make money from that. There are studies saying that people are willing to pay extra money if they are allowed to visit restored areas, for example. So there are positive examples, but it remains an issue that needs to be be discussed, again not as a cost factor but as an investment opportunity, and of course also as an insurance policy for resilience and stability.
And in that context, pushing restoration, but also protected areas in a cross-border context remains very very important for our convention as well as more broadly. As I'm generally speaking on financing, the Cali Fund, how to make it work. I think in many ways the Cali Fund is is has a very difficult task, so to speak. It has just been opened. So of course because it's such an innovative instrument, the expectation was immediately, you know, people will run to it.
It is an amazing instrument in the way it distributes the funds because it is a non-project-based distribution mechanism that that COP 16 has agreed and that will now be specified in COP 17. So it allows a lot easier debate between North and South, so not endless project applications, etc. But in terms of, you know, for the business sector to pay into the Cali Fund, there are lots of open questions, from the indicative rates to the question of where the money is going, which is not yet clarified, to the fund to the problem that nobody wants to be the first. You know, you stand in front of your board and say I pay 10 million to the Cali Fund, and they say the Cali what? So how do you explain that?
Who else has paid money, are we the first? So these issues I think need to be overcome, but what is needed most of all is that the business sector comes to the table. Rather than sitting there and saying it ain't gonna work, they need a strong push, I think as you were saying, from the governments, ideally through incentivization, including regulation, including potential tax breaks, including insurances that there will be no double demands, that once you've paid into the global system you don't pay a second time somewhere else. All of these needs to come together. The friends of the Cali Fund are sort of growing slowly, and they have this I think ideas that they formulate more have formulated more clearly, and that needs to come out of COP 17 in a consolidated way, including probably understanding that as a new instrument, it may be useful to have a continuous phase of, you know, call it sandbox or pilot phase, where we can see how this mechanism works and and where it has to be prepared.
I'm way above my time, but I hope I have covered most of the questions.
You will see that in the global report when it comes out, that global North and South have examples, every single country has something that works particularly well. And having that exchange and understanding what can work where and under what conditions is very, very important. And it's also important, I think, to see that in biodiversity we see for the first time a lot of Southern leadership. And maybe my last point on the paper parks that Madame Paulus has mentioned rightly. Yes, we have a lot of paper parks.
One of our concerns is that there is a lot of focus on the numbers, so getting to the 30%. Yes, we must get there, but we must get to the 30% protecting the right kind of biodiversity. So it must be biodiversity rich and important areas. And the management and enforcement of that is important, and of course the connectivity between those areas. So maybe even more than the numbers, to have at COP also discussion of how that can be done better, I think, would be a crucial part of the success story.
And on the issue, yes, we can make more money today with the destruction of nature than with its preservation, that is right. I think maybe the Tropical Forest Forever initiative and many other ideas that talk about payment for ecosystem services are showing us, broadly speaking, what the way forward is. So that was unfortunately 40 minutes, but I hope I've covered all issues. Thank you very much.
Esther Herranz García
Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Madame Stocker. And the colleagues, we stop for today and we keep on with our work tomorrow morning at 9:00 in this same place. Thank you.
Jutta Paulus
Good morning, everyone. I would like to welcome you to this meeting of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety. I would like to start by reminding you that the meeting is being webstreamed and that the interpretation is available in twenty-two languages. I would also like to remind you that the meeting is being held in a hybrid format, with some members participating in person and others remotely. I would like to ask all participants to use their microphones when speaking and to turn them off when they have finished.
I would also like to ask you to speak slowly and clearly to facilitate the work of the interpreters. We have a very full agenda today, so I would like to ask you to keep your interventions as brief as possible. The first item on our agenda is the adoption of the agenda. Are there any comments or objections to the agenda? I see none, so the agenda is adopted.
The second item on our agenda is the approval of the minutes of the meetings of the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth of October. Are there any comments or objections to these minutes? I see none, so the minutes are approved. The third item on our agenda is the Chair's announcements. I would like to inform you that the coordinators met yesterday and agreed on a number of points, which you will find in the coordinators' notes.
I would also like to inform you that we have received a request for a change in the order of the agenda.
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