TAG: Biodiversity
Macron flirts with EU-bashing in wink to French farmers
PARIS — As angry French farmers threaten to blockade the roads into Paris, Emmanuel Macron wants to...
8 months ago
France axes tractor fuel hike, cuts red tape to appease angry farmers
PARIS — The French government on Friday promised to cut taxes on agricultural fuel and reduce bureau...
8 months ago
How the EU’s flagship nature law became an electoral punching bag
BRUSSELS — Election fever is slowly killing an embattled law seeking to rehabilitate the European Union’s ailing rivers, forests and seas. The Nature Restoration Law, once billed as a pillar of the European Green Deal, is a shadow of its former self after...
6 months ago
EU ‘very far’ from target to plant 3B trees, Commission admits
The European Union is nowhere near making good on its pledge to plant at least 3 billion trees by the end of the decade, a senior European Commission official said Wednesday. As part of the European Green Deal, the EU executive committed in 2020 to boosti...
6 months ago
EU takes the ax to green farming rules
The European Commission is finalizing a series of legislative proposals that would severely weaken environmental requirements for farmers — flying in the face of advice by its top scientists that agriculture must become more sustainable or it will be deci...
6 months ago
Intensive pig farming hogs scarce water in drought-hit Catalonia
BARCELONA — In the region of Osona, to the north of Barcelona, there are seven times as many pigs as people.Hectares of pig farms — long, barrack-like brick buildings with half-closed windows — stretch from the roadside into the distance. Metal cylinders...
6 months ago
New EU rules to curb deforestation add to farmers’ red tape woes
For months, European farmers have been protesting what they see as excessive red tape and environmental restrictions from Brussels. Soon, they’ll have even more forms to fill out. Under new EU rules set to apply from January, European farmers will be requ...
6 months ago
Bullets not bees: EU ditches green focus ahead of June election
BRUSSELS — A quick scan of a leaked EU priority list for the rest of the decade reveals a telling quirk: The only mention of “environment” is a promise to create a “business-friendly environment.” Instead, the document — essentially a mood board EU leader...
6 months ago
‘Insane’ and ‘dangerous’ to give up on EU nature law, says Belgian minister
Ignore the prime minister, Belgium is committed to getting the EU's new nature rules approved. That's according to Brussels Environment and Climate Minister Alain Maron, who is responsible for steering talks among EU ministers on the highly controversial...
5 months ago
Von der Leyen finally stands up for nature law — just as it may fall
BRUSSELS/BRATISLAVA — It took her a year, but European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is finally defending her own law to protect nature — just as the coalition behind it is fracturing. In a letter sent to European Parliament members and obtain...
5 months ago
Italy can do without Russian gas, says energy minister
ROME — Italy has emancipated itself from Russian natural gas and would have no problem with a proposed package of EU sanctions on liquified natural gas (LNG) that the European Commission is considering, Italian Energy Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin sai...
5 months ago
Europe’s farmers revel in affection despite Green Deal clash
BRUSSELS — If love is a drug, the farmers of the European Union should be as high as kites.After years of being elbowed to the sidelines of political debate, recent farmer protests have made agriculture almost sexy. So chic, in fact, that its practitioner...
5 months ago
Labour energy chief Ed Miliband faces local solar backlash
DONCASTER, England — If the polls are correct, Ed Miliband will be U.K. energy secretary by Friday, overseeing Labour’s ambitious push to back clean energy projects like solar and wind farms all over the country.But in a hint of the challenges ahead for a...
2 months ago
Ursula von der Leyen has taken green enforcement behind closed doors
Ursula von der Leyen adopted a signature style for doing business in her first five years as president of the European Commission: Rely on a small team of trusted officials and informal talks if needed to get things done. Enforcing environmental law has b...
1 month ago