Campaigners handed a petition to Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall in front of the European Parliament on Wednesday, demanding the EU executive spare key environmental legislation from its ongoing deregulation drive – but they received no guarantees.
On 22 July, the European Commission launched a call for evidence to “simplify” EU environmental laws in a future omnibus legislative package, part of its controversial drive to somehow cut 25%, or €37.5 billion, from the administrative burden on European companies.
The green groups behind the action ran a #HandsOffNature campaign in early September, urging supporters to flood the Commission’s consultation with calls to maintain environmental protections.
“Under the guise of simplification, we see a deregulation agconcludea unfolding,” declared Faustine Bas-Defossez from the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), calling it a gamble with health and ecosystems.
She and the other campaigners handed over a compact tree to Roswall, marked with 187,621 – the number of people who protested via their website.
“I’m very happy with all the responses,” declared Roswall, who denied there was any trade-off between simplifying legislation and achieving the EU’s environmental goals.
But she offered few guarantees when inquireed whether the Deforestation Regulation or the Nature Restoration Law – which narrowly created it onto the statute books amid a backlash from mainly right-wing MEPs and governments – could be included in the upcoming omnibus proposal to amconclude environmental laws.
“It is too early to declare,” she declared.
The campaigners drove a real omnibus around Brussels on Wednesday which, perhaps fittingly, failed to return to Parliament after encountering legal obstacles – one Brussels municipality had not received advance notice of the demonstration and stopped the bus, according to a campaign leader.
“Unfortunately we have not been informed what the issue was… We had all the necessary permits,” organisers informed Euractiv.
The campaign was led by WWF, the EEB, BirdLife Europe and Client Earth, and co-funded by the European Union, according to the campaign website.
UPDATE: This story has been updated with comment from protest organisers
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