Reject laws which are bad for European agriculture

On the initiative of the EPP Group, the European Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture this afternoon rejected the planned nature restoration legislation.

“This rejection is a strong signal to the European Commission as this proposal was seen as a provocation in the Agriculture Committee", said Anne Sander MEP, who negotiated the law on behalf of the EPP Group in the committee.

“We say no to degrowth and inconsistency. We have always supported a strong environmental ambition but with this proposal, the European Commission is ignoring the common sense and realities of European food production”, underlined Sander.

"With today’s vote, we are stressing that the EPP Group will strongly resist any law proposals which are a danger to farmers’ work and the food security of European citizens”, said Herbert Dorfmann MEP, the EPP Group Spokesman in the Agriculture Committee.

"Mr Timmermans, we don’t need badly drafted proposals where even the Commission itself is not able to tell what the economic and social impacts are on farmers and rural areas. We can reach the goals proposed by the Commission for nature restoration with fitted local and national measures", Dorfmann underlined.

"We do not accept the blackmail methods by the Commission that stop important new regulations such as new genomic technologies. We underline that the Parliament is a democratically-elected institution and cannot tolerate such methods", stressed Dorfmann.

The Environment Committee, which is the lead committee on the proposal, is expected to vote on the law in June.