Nature laws ‘stress test’ opens door to weakening of environmental protections

Today, the European Commission launched a public consultation on the efficiency of its Nature Directives. The consultation is open for 12 weeks and invites citizens and businesses to share their opinions.The stated objective of the public consultation is to “reduce administrative burdens”, but the Hands Off Nature coalition of NGOs warn that this could lead to a weakening of crucial environmental protections, with far reaching consequences for Europe’s nature and people.

The EU’s nature laws protect the forests, wetlands, rivers and coastal ecosystems that shield communities from floods, droughts and wildfires, while securing clean water, healthy soils and pollination for food production. Undermining these laws as climate impacts intensify across Europe would leave people more exposed to disasters that caused €52.3 billion in economic losses in 2022 alone, while the health costs of failing to implement environmental laws already amount to €180 billion every year. 

The Commission’s “stress test” revives the dangerous narrative that nature protection is a “burden” and ignores all the important benefits nature protection provides to us. The EU’s own 2016 findings concluded that the laws are fit for purpose and need better implementation and funding – not revising or weakening. 

The Hands Off Nature coalition, composed of BirdLife Europe, ClientEarth, the European Environmental Bureau and WWF EU, said:

“If Europe weakens its nature laws, people will pay the price – through higher disaster costs, worsening health impacts and the destruction of the ecosystems our economy depends on. Opening the doors to tearing down protections in the middle of the climate and biodiversity crisis is reckless, costly and deeply irresponsible.”

Over 470,000 people have signed the Hands Off Nature petition in the last weeks, calling on EU leaders to stop weakening environmental laws.

For more background info, read the coalition’s briefing here.