EU buckling over farmer protests and giving up on nature – Ryan
The EU should not buckle in the face of farmer protests and give up on the Nature Restoration Law, Environment Minister Eamon Ryan told his EU colleagues at a meeting in Brussels yesterday.
A planned vote on the law among EU countries’ environment ministers yesterday was called off after Hungary said last week it would no longer back the policy, wiping out the already-slim reinforced majority of countries in favour.
The nature law is the latest EU environmental policy to come under fire as policymakers try to respond to months of angry farmers’ protests over complaints, including strict green EU regulations. The EU has already weakened numerous green rules to attempt to quell the protests.
The Belgian presidency signalled that the decision not to vote on the law yesterday “was not the end of the road” and said it would work to secure agreement in the coming weeks. At the meeting, Mr Ryan appealed to fellow ministers not to “retreat” from the protection of nature.
“Climate and nature are inextricably linked and if we’re to abandon it, we abandon our ability to protect ourselves and to be resilient as well.”
Confidence
He said the EU needed to show confidence rather than buckling and giving up on nature because of farmer protests.
“I’m standing with the farmers who are protesting because the truth is our farmers don’t get paid properly,” he said, “We’re not actually providing an income for young people to go into agriculture and forestry.
“Protecting the nature restoration law is one of the best ways of getting income to our farmers.
“Carbon farming, where we get real transparent monitoring of what’s happening in our natural systems, is what we need and then to pay our farmers for their real skill in protecting nature as well as providing food.”
IFA President Francie Gorman said it should be parked until after the European Parliament elections and the appointment of a new EU Commission.
“We said at the time of the Parliament vote last month that a vacuum of information still existed around the Nature Restoration Law.
“That uncertainty has persisted and there’s a strong case for the NRL to be re-examined by those who will have a fresh mandate after June’s elections,” he said.