BRUSSELS — The European Commission has proposed rolling back several EU environmental laws including industrial emissions reporting requirements, confirming previous reporting by POLITICO. It’s the latest in a series of proposed deregulation plans — known as omnibus bills — as Commission President Ursula von der Leyen tries to make good on a promise to EU leaders to dramatically reduce administrative burden for companies.   The bill’s aim is to make it easier for businesses to comply with EU laws on waste management, emissions, and resource use, with the Commission stressing the benefits to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) which make up 99 percent of all EU businesses. The Commission insisted the rollbacks would not have a negative impact on the environment. “We all agree that we need to protect our environmental standards, but we also at the same time need to do it more efficiently,” said Environment Commissioner Jessika Roswall during a press conference on Wednesday.  “This is a complex exercise,” said Executive Vice President Teresa Ribera during a press conference on Wednesday. “It is not easy for anyone to try to identify how we can respond to this demand to simplify while responding to this other demand to keep these [environmental] standards high.”  Like previous omnibus packages, the environmental omnibus was released without an impact assessment. The Commission found that “without considering other alternative options, an impact assessment is not deemed necessary.” This comes right after the Ombudswoman found the Commission at fault for “maladministration” for the first omnibus.   The Commission claims “the proposed amendments will not affect environmental standards” — a claim that’s already under attack from environmental groups.   MORE REPORTING CUTS  The Commission wants to exempt livestock and aquaculture operators from reporting on water, energy and materials use under the industrial emissions reporting legislation.  EU countries, competent authorities and operators would also be given more time to comply with some of the new or revised provisions in the updated Industrial Emissions Directive while being given further “clarity on when these provisions apply.”  The Commission is also proposing “significant simplification” for environmental management systems (EMS) — which lay out goals and performance measures related to environmental impacts of an industrial site — under the industrial and livestock rearing emissions directive.  These would be completed by industrial plants at the level of a company and not at the level of every installation, as it currently stands.   There would also be fewer compliance obligations under EU waste laws.   The Commission wants to remove the Substances of Concern in Products (SCIP) database, for example, claiming that it “has not been effective in informing recyclers about the presence of hazardous substances in products and has imposed substantial administrative costs.”  Producers selling goods in another EU country will also not have to appoint an authorized representative in both countries to comply with extended producer responsibility (EPR). The Commission calls it a “stepping stone to more profound simplification,” also reducing reporting requirements to just once per year.  The Commission will not be changing the Nature Restoration Regulation — which has been a key question in discussions between EU commissioners — but it will intensify its support to EU countries and regional authorities in preparing their draft National Restoration Plans.  The Commission will stress-test the Birds and Habitats Directives in 2026 “taking into account climate change, food security, and other developments and present a series of guidelines to facilitate implementation,” it said.  CRITIQUES ROLL IN   Some industry groups, like the Computer & Communications Industry Association, have welcomed the changes, calling it a “a common-sense fix.” German center-right MEP Pieter Liese also welcomed the omnibus package, saying, “[W]e need to streamline environmental laws precisely because we want to preserve them. Bureaucracy and paperwork are not environmental protection.” But environmental groups opposed the rollbacks.  “The Von der Leyen Commission is dismantling decades of hard-won nature protections, putting air, water, and public health at risk in the name of competitiveness,” WWF said in a statement. The estimated savings “come with no impact assessment and focus only on reduced compliance costs, ignoring the far larger price of pollution, ecosystem decline, and climate-related disasters,” it added.   The Industrial Emissions Directive, which entered into force last year and is already being transposed by member countries, was “already much weaker than what the European Commission had originally proposed” during the last revision, pointed out ClientEarth lawyer Selin Esen.  “The Birds and Habitats Directives are the backbone of nature protection in Europe,” said BirdLife Europe’s Sofie Ruysschaert. “Undermining them now would not only wipe out decades of hard-won progress but also push the EU toward a future where ecosystems and the communities that rely on them are left dangerously exposed.” 

JALË, Albania — Three and a half hours south of the capital Tirana, a winding road leads down to a 300-meter beach with crystal blue waters and pebbly sand. Here, on the edge of the Ionian Sea, visitors can rent a sunbed for €10, assuming they find parking along the dirt road and don’t mind being within arm’s length of their neighbor.  Ten years ago, the spot was a hidden gem for locals who would camp on the beach — for free. Now, both sides of the road are lined with construction sites, and a big developer promises to make the once-sleepy village a luxury hideaway for the world’s elites. Jalë’s stark shift from a natural and somewhat undiscovered paradise to a hot tourist destination is a microcosm of Albania’s surge in popularity — and the accompanying social and environmental issues the country is facing.  A PROMISING START While much of the world was still in lockdown from the Covid pandemic, Albania opened its doors to visitors in July 2020. Tourists eager to look at something other than their own four walls quickly answered the call, with over 5.6 million traveling to Albania in 2021 — a 114 percent increase over 2020.  But it wasn’t just the open borders that drew people in.  Other European hotspots, such as Italy, Spain and Portugal, were becoming increasingly expensive; Albania offered nature and world-class beaches at a fraction of the cost. Back in 2020, a night in a beachfront hotel with breakfast in August could cost as little as €30, and sunbeds started from €3. While some travelers found their way to Tirana and the beaches through word of mouth, social media lit a fire under the idea of holidaying in Albania. In 2024 Albania had more than 3.8 million posts on Instagram with over 106 billion views, catching up with neighboring and long-established destinations like Italy and Greece. What had been a steady flow of visitors became a flood. In 2023, a record 10 million tourists came — a 35 percent year-on-year increase, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics. In 2024, 11.7 million visited — another record representing a 15 percent increase, according to Tourism Minister Mirela Kumbaro. This year, the government hopes for more than 15 million — all in a country with a population of only 2.7 million. With visitors now generating about 8 percent of the country’s gross domestic product and creating tens of thousands of jobs, one of the poorest countries in Europe can’t easily kick the tourism habit. Europeans comprise the majority of visitors, with Germans, Italians, Poles and French topping the list, local media reported. Unlike other European destinations such as Italy or France, Albania is a smaller country where visitors can explore mountains and beaches in a single day. It also lives in people’s minds as “wild and free and something that you don’t have in Europe,” said Denada Jushi, an Albanian journalist who has covered the country’s rise as a tourist destination.   CONSTRUCTION BONANZA  Government officials seeking to propel Albania into a prime tourist destination have exempted international hoteliers from corporate income tax for 10 years if they build four-star or five-star hotels. The tax initiative was introduced in 2019 but was extended earlier this year until 2027.  “These are major investments,” Blendi Klosi, the member of parliament who proposed the extension, told Albanian media. “This initiative benefits only a specific segment of the sector—those aiming to raise the industry to higher standards.”  The scheme has worked well. Several international brands, such as Marriott International, Meliá Hotels International and Radisson Hotel Group, have opened up, while U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is set to turn an Albanian island into a luxury retreat. Critics warn, however, that the beaches lack sufficient space to accommodate the visitors that such resorts would bring to the area, and that nature is being destroyed in the name of tourism. Already, Vlora Airport, which is set to open soon in the south of the country, has caused controversy over its proximity to a protected area. At the same time, funneling water from inland to the coastal resorts to meet demand has irked activists and locals alike, sparking protests. “Greed has replaced sensible planning — and, for that matter, love of the land, nature, and the homeland,” said Alfred Lela, spokesperson for the opposition Democratic Party.  TOO BIG, TOO FAST  Thrill-seekers can still find less developed parts of Albania to explore, but the days of dirt-cheap trips to the country are largely over.   The average spend per visitor increased 20 percent year-on-year in 2024, with tourists spending €5 billion in the country that year. Experts and businesses argue that more demand means more pressure on supply chains and increased costs from importing goods. And as costs rise, the locals who once frequented the beaches and nature are being pushed out. But it’s not just the higher prices that are giving people pause. “Trash is becoming a big, big problem everywhere. None of the municipalities are able to keep up or do recycling,” said Arben Kola, a tour guide and environmentalist.  Several Facebook groups dedicated to tourism in Albania feature posts from visitors complaining about trash along roadsides or on shorelines, along with laments about construction and high prices. Albania was once “something wild — just camping, youth, fun and nature,” said Jushi, the journalist. “It’s like Monaco now. There’s no space for locals.” 

In February 2022, as Russia marched on Kyiv, Oleksandr Dmitriev realized he knew how to stop Moscow’s men: Blow a hole in the dam that strangled the Irpin River northeast of the capital and restore the long-lost boggy floodplain. A defense consultant who organized offroad races in the area before the war, Dmitriev was familiar with the terrain. He knew exactly what reflooding the river basin — a vast expanse of bogs and marshes that was drained in Soviet times — would do to Russia’s war machinery.  “It turns into an impassable turd, as the jeep guys say,” he said. He told the commander in charge of Kyiv’s defense as much, and was given the go-ahead to blow up the dam.  Dmitriev’s idea worked. “In principle, it stopped the Russian attack from the north,” he said. The images of Moscow’s tanks mired in mud went around the world.  Three years later, this act of desperation is inspiring countries along NATO’s eastern flank to look into restoring their own bogs — fusing two European priorities that increasingly compete for attention and funding: defense and climate.  That’s because the idea isn’t only to prepare for a potential Russian attack. The European Union’s efforts to fight global warming rely in part on nature’s help, and peat-rich bogs capture planet-warming carbon dioxide just as well as they sink enemy tanks.  Yet half of the EU’s bogs are being sapped of their water to create land suitable for planting crops. The desiccated peatlands in turn release greenhouse gases and allow heavy vehicles to cross with ease.  Some European governments are now wondering if reviving ailing bogs can solve several problems at once. Finland and Poland told POLITICO they were actively exploring bog restoration as a multi-purpose measure to defend their borders and fight climate change.  Poland’s massive 10 billion złoty (€2.3 billion) Eastern Shield border fortification project, launched last year, “provides for environmental protection, including by … peatland formation and forestation of border areas,” the country’s defense ministry said in a statement.  “It’s a win-win situation that achieves many targets at the same time,” said Tarja Haaranen, director general for nature at Finland’s environment ministry.  BOGS! WHAT ARE THEY GOOD FOR?  In their pristine state, bogs are carpeted with delicate mosses that can’t fully decompose in their waterlogged habitats and slowly turn into soft, carbon-rich soil known as peat.  This is what makes them Earth’s most effective repositories of CO2. Although they cover only 3 percent of the planet, they lock away a third of the world’s carbon — twice the amount stored in forests.  Yet when drained, bogs start releasing the carbon they stored for hundreds or thousands of years, fueling global warming.  Some 12 percent of peatlands worldwide are degraded, producing 4 percent of planet-warming pollution. (To compare, global aviation is responsible for around 2.5 percent.) In Europe, where bogs were long regarded as unproductive terrain to be converted into farmland, the picture is especially dramatic: Half of the EU’s peatlands are degraded, mostly due to drainage for agricultural purposes. As a result, EU countries reported 124 million tons of greenhouse gas pollution from drained peatlands in 2022, close to the annual emissions of the Netherlands. Some scientists say even this is an underestimate.  Various peatland restoration projects are now underway, with bog repair having gained momentum under the EU’s new Nature Restoration Law, which requires countries to revive 30 percent of degraded peatlands by 2030 and 50 percent by 2050.  The bloc’s 27 governments now have until September 2026 to draft plans on how they intend to meet these targets.  On NATO’s eastern flank, restoring bogs would be a relatively cheap and straightforward measure to achieve EU nature targets and defense goals all at once, scientists argue.  “It’s definitely doable,” said Aveliina Helm, professor of restoration ecology at the University of Tartu, who until recently advised Estonia’s government on its EU nature repair strategy. “We are right now in the development of our national restoration plan, as many EU countries are,” she added, “and as part of that I see great potential to join those two objectives.”  NATO’S BOG BELT  As it happens, most of the EU’s peatlands are concentrated on NATO’s border with Russia and Kremlin-allied Belarus — stretching from the Finnish Arctic through the Baltic states, past Lithuania’s hard-to-defend Suwałki Gap and into eastern Poland.  When waterlogged, this terrain represents a dangerous trap for military trucks and tanks. In a tragic example earlier this year, four U.S. soldiers stationed in Lithuania died when they drove their 63-ton M88 Hercules armored vehicle into a bog.  And when armies can’t cross soggy open land, they are forced into areas that are more easily defended, as Russia found out when Dmitriev and his soldiers blew up the dam north of Kyiv in February 2022.  A destroyed Russian tank sits in a field on April 28, 2022 in Moshchun, Ukraine. | Taras Podolian/Gazeta.ua/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images “The Russians there in armored personnel carriers got stuck at the entrance, then they were killed with a Javelin [anti-tank missile], then when the Russians tried to build pontoons … ours shot them with artillery,” Dmitriev recounted.  Bog-based defense isn’t a new idea. Waterlogged terrain has stopped troops throughout European history — from Germanic tribes inflicting defeat on Roman legions by trapping them beside a bog in 9 AD, to Finland’s borderlands ensnaring the Soviets in the 1940s. The treacherous marshes north of Kyiv posed a formidable challenge to armies in both world wars.  Strategically rewetting drained peatlands to prepare for an enemy attack, however, would be a novelty. But it’s an idea that’s starting to catch on — among environmentalists, defense strategists and politicians.  Pauli Aalto-Setälä, a lawmaker with Finland’s governing National Coalition Party, last year filed a parliamentary motion calling on the Finnish government to restore peatlands to secure its borders and fight climate change.  “In Finland, we have used our nature from a defense angle in history,” said Aalto-Setälä, who holds the rank of major and trained as a tank officer during his national service. “I realized that at the eastern border especially, there are a lot of excellent areas to restore — for the climate, but also to make it as difficult to go through as possible.”  The Finnish defense and environment ministries will now start talks in the fall on whether to launch a bog-repair pilot project, according to Haaranen, who will lead the working group. “I’m personally very excited about this.” POLAND’S PEATY POLITICS Discussions on defensive nature restoration are advancing fastest in Poland — even though Warsaw is usually reluctant to scale up climate action.  Climate activists and scientists started campaigning for nature-based defense a few years ago when they realized that Poland’s politicians were far more likely to spend financial and political capital on environmental efforts when they were linked to national security.  “Once you talk about security, everyone listens right now in Poland,” said Wiktoria Jędroszkowiak, a Polish activist who helped initiate the country’s Fridays for Future climate protests. “And our peatlands and ancient forests, they are the places that are going to be very important for our defense once the war gets to Poland as well.”  After years of campaigning, the issue has now reached government level in Warsaw, with discussions underway between scientists and Poland’s defense and environment ministries.  Wiktor Kotowski, an ecologist and member of the Polish government’s advisory council for nature conservation, said initial talks with the defense ministry have been promising.  “There were a lot of misunderstandings and misconceptions but in general we found there are only synergies,” he said. Damaged Russian vehicle marked V by Russian troops and then re-marked UA by Ukrainians bogged down in the mud on April 8, 2022 in Moshchun, Ukraine. | Serhii Mykhalchuk/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images “What the ministry of defense wants is to get back as many wetlands as possible along the eastern border,” Kotowski added. “And that is what is required from the point of view of nature restoration and climate as well.”  Cezary Tomczyk, a state secretary at Poland’s defense ministry, agreed. “Our objectives align,” he said. “For us, nature is an ally, and we want to use it.”  JUST … DON’T DRAIN THE SWAMP  Governments in the Baltics have shown little interest so far. Only Lithuania’s environment ministry said that defense-linked wetland restoration “is currently under discussion,” declining to offer further details.  Estonia’s defense ministry and Latvia’s armed forces said that new Baltic Defence Line plans to fortify the three countries’ borders would make use of natural obstacles including bogs, but did not involve peatland restoration.  Yet scientists see plenty of potential, given that peatlands cover 10 percent of the Baltics. And in many cases, the work would be straightforward, said Helm, the Estonian ecologist.  “We have a lot of wetlands that are drained but still there. If we now restore the water regime — we close the ditches that constantly drain them and make them emit carbon — then they are relatively easy to return to a more natural state,” she said.  Healthy peatlands serve as havens for wildlife: Frogs, snails, dragonflies and specialized plant species thrive in the austere conditions of bogs, while rare birds stop by to nest. They also act as barriers to droughts and wildfires, boosting Europe’s resilience to climate change.  The return of this flora and fauna takes time. But ending drainage not only puts a fast stop to pollution — it also instantly renders the terrain impassable. As long as the land isn’t completely drained, “it’s one or two years and you have the wetland full of water,” said Kotowski, the Polish ecologist. “Restoration is a difficult process from an ecological point of view, but for water retention, for stopping emissions and for difficulty to cross — so for defensive purposes — it’s pretty straightforward and fast.”  And at a time when Europe’s focus has shifted to security, with defense budgets surging and in some cases diverting money from the green transition, environmentalists hope that military involvement could unlock unprecedented funding and speed up nature restoration.  “At the moment, it takes five years to obtain approval for peatland rewetting, and sometimes it can take 10 years,” said Franziska Tanneberger, director of Germany’s Greifswald Mire Centre, a leading European peatlands research institute. “When it comes to military activities, there is a certain prioritization. You can’t wait 10 years if we need it for defense.”  THE TRACTOR FACTOR  But that doesn’t mean there’s no resistance to the idea.  A Russian tank seized inside of the woodland is examined by Ukrainian soldiers in Irpin, Ukraine on April 01, 2022. | Metin Aktas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images In Estonia, the environment ministry halted one peatland restoration effort earlier this year amid fierce opposition from locals who worried that rewetting would lead to flooding and forest destruction. Scientists described such concerns as unfounded.  The biggest threat to peatlands is agriculture — an awkward reality for EU governments desperate to avoid drawing the ire of farmers.  In both Finland and Poland, any initial defensive restoration projects are likely to focus on state-owned land, sidestepping this conflict for now. But scientists argue that if countries are serious about large-scale bog repair, they have to talk to farmers. “This will not work without involving agricultural lands,” said Kotowski, the Polish ecologist. A whopping 85 percent of the country’s peatlands are degraded, in most cases because they have been drained to plant crops where water once pooled.  “What we badly need is a program for farmers, to compensate them for rewetting these drained peatlands — and not only compensate, to let them earn money from it,” he added.   There are plants that can be harvested from restored peatlands, such as reeds for use in construction or packaging. Yet for now, the market for such crops in Europe is too small to incentivize farmers to switch.  The bogs-for-defense argument also doesn’t work for all countries. In Germany, where more than 90 percent of peatlands are drained, the Bundeswehr sounded reluctant when asked about the idea.  “The rewetting of wetlands can be both advantageous and disadvantageous for [NATO’s] own operations,” depending on the individual country, a spokesperson for the Bundeswehr’s infrastructure and environment office said.  NATO troops would need to move through Germany in the event of a Russian attack in the east, and bogs restrict military movements. Still, “the idea of increasing the obstacle value of terrain by causing flooding and swamping … has been used in warfare for a very long time and is still a viable option today,” the spokesperson said.  BOGGING DOWN PUTIN Scientists are quick to acknowledge that a bogs-for-security approach can’t solve everything.  “Of course we still need traditional defense. This isn’t meant to replace that,” said Tanneberger, who also advises a company that recently drew up a detailed proposal for defense-linked peatland restoration.  Bogs can’t stop drones or shoot down missiles, and war isn’t good for nature — or conservation efforts.  Soldiers of the “Bratstvo” (Brotherhood) battalion under the command of the 10th Mountain Assault Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine sit on the muzzle of a captured Russian tank stuck in a field on April 2, 2022 in Nova Basan Village, Chernihiv Oblast, Ukraine. | Andrii Kotliarchuk/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images And in Ukraine, the flooding of the Irpin basin was economically and ecologically destructive.  Among outside observers, there was initial excitement about the prospect of a new natural paradise. But villagers in the region lost their lands and homes, and the influx of water had a negative effect on local species that had no time to adapt to the sudden change.  “Yes, it stopped the invasion of Kyiv, and this was badly needed, so no criticism here. But it did result in environmental damage,” said Helm, the Estonian ecologist.  Unlike Ukraine, EU governments have the chance to restore peatlands with care, taking into account the needs of nature, farmers and armies.  “Perhaps it’s better to think ahead instead of being forced to act in a hurry,” she said. “We have this opportunity. Ukraine didn’t.”  Zia Weise reported from Brussels, Wojciech Kość from Warsaw and Veronika Melkozerova from Kyiv. 

BRUSSELS — French President Emmanuel Macron says a new law may be required to allow more wild wolves to be shot in France, taking advantage of looser EU protections of the predators. “We’re not going to let the wolf develop and go into [areas] where it competes with our activities,” Macron said during a trip to Aveyron on Thursday, referring to wolf attacks on farmers’ livestock. “And so that means that we must, as we say modestly, cull more of them.” He said that people “who invent rules and who don’t live with their animals in places where there are bears or wolves should go and spend two nights there.” Reports of wolf attacks on livestock in France have risen over the past decade and a half, with more than 10,000 reported annual deaths in recent years. European lawmakers in May greenlit a proposal amending the European Union Habitats Directive, moving the wolf from the list of “strictly protected” to “protected” species. That makes it easier for farmers in the EU to shoot wolves that threaten their herds. The directive will enter into force on July 14, giving countries until January 2027 to implement the change in national law. The highly-political push was led by the conservative European People’s Party as part of a campaign to endear themselves to farmers ahead of last year’s European elections. It became a personal project of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, whose pet pony Dolly was killed by a wolf in 2022. Green groups say relaxing protection rules is the wrong response. Macron “is engaging in a rare level of populism by asserting completely false things,” Jean-David Abel, head of the biodiversity network at France Nature Environnement, told Franceinfo on Friday.

NICE, France — The race to save the world’s oceans is on. The United Nations Oceans Conference in Nice, France ended Friday with promises from world leaders to ratify a global, binding agreement to help protect the world’s oceans by September — paving the way for the world’s very first Conference of the Parties for a High Seas Treaty next year. “This is a considerable victory,” said French Oceans Ambassador Olivier Poivre d’Arvor in a press conference Friday. “It’s very difficult to work on oceans right now when the United States have withdrawn from almost everything. But the Argentinian president helped a lot. China [promised to ratify]. Indonesia just ratified a few hours ago. So, we won.” If that happens, it will have been a long time coming. The negotiating process started 20 years ago and the treaty was adopted in 2023, but countries have been slow to ratify and at least 60 must do so for the treaty to come into force. With marine and coastal ecosystems facing multiple threats from climate change, fishing, and pollution, the treaty’s main aim is to establish marine protected areas in international waters, which make up around two thirds of the ocean. But if getting 60 countries to ratify a treaty they already endorsed was hard, deciding which parts of the world’s international waters to protect from overfishing — and how — won’t be much easier. “Make no mistake, like every other convention, there will be opposition,” Dale Webber, Jamaica’s special envoy for climate change, environment, ocean and blue economy, told POLITICO. “I already know of some countries who are fishing on the high seas who are saying, ‘You’re trying to limit my catch!’ but that’s exactly what we need to do.” OFF TO A SLOW START Some smaller and developing countries, as well as environmental groups, leave the conference feeling that the onus remains on them to protect the world’s oceans — despite grand words from French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at the conference’s opening on Monday. “Everybody needs to do more — specifically those countries that belong to the Western world,” Panamanian climate envoy Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez told POLITICO. “If you look at the 30 by 30 goal, it’s developing countries [who are] carrying the weight as of right now,” he added, in reference to a global goal to protect at least 30 percent of the world’s oceans by 2030. French Polynesia stole the show this week, announcing the creation of the world’s largest Marine Protected Area, highly or fully protecting around 1.1 million square kilometers of its waters, teeming with tropical fish, sharks, rays, dolphins and 150 species of precious corals.   Other non-EU countries to have presented new marine protected areas include Colombia, Samoa, Tanzania and São Tomé and Príncipe. In comparison, the offering from the EU and other Western countries seems paltry to NGOs. “The legacy of EU countries at this conference on ocean protection can be summed up as: ‘Do as I say, not as I do’,” said Seas at Risk policy officer Tatiana Nuño.  While Marine Protected Areas cover just over 12 percent of EU sea area, only 2 percent have management plans in place and less than 1 percent are strictly protected, according to the European Environment Agency. Portuguese environment minister Maria da Graça Carvalho pledged to establish a Marine Protected Area around the Gorringe Ridge in the Atlantic Ocean, which features Western Europe’s tallest seamount and is over 180 kilometers long — although details around how it would be managed remain scarce. France announced fresh limits on bottom trawling in Marine Protected Areas — but faced criticism from NGOs denouncing a lack of ambition. Greece declared it had begun legal procedures for the creation of Greece’s first two marine parks. The U.S. was a no-show, having decided to skip the conference, as reported by POLITICO last week. A State Department spokesperson said the conference is “at odds” with positions held by the current U.S. administration. “We can do this,” said the U.N. Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Ocean, Peter Thomson. “Small countries are leading the way. Come on, big countries, make 30 by 30 a reality,” he added. “The EU can do a lot more,” in terms of ocean protection and MPAs, Webber, the Jamaican envoy said. “We’re up to 15 percent in Jamaica, and for all our Marine Protected Areas, we have a management plan.” Portugal’s Carvalho told POLITICO she hoped her country’s own MPA announcement would serve as an “example” to other EU countries. A TUG-OF-WAR LOOMS The discrepancy in ambition foreshadows the hurdles of implementing the high seas treaty. Governments are set to squabble over where to put new Marine Protected Areas in international waters and how they should be managed — as well as how they should be financed. Monitoring these vast, remote waters will be difficult and costly. It turns out that rescuing that world’s oceans doesn’t come cheap. The world needs to invest $15.8 billion annually to achieve a global target of protecting 30 per cent of the global oceans by 2030, according to a new report penned by Systemiq. Currently, annual investment in ocean protection amounts to $1.2 billion, leaving a $14.6 billion funding gap. “We also have considerable concerns about how [the funding commitments so far] translate onto the ground,” said Kristian Teleki, CEO of NGO Fauna & Flora. “The frontline where communities are the ones bearing the brunt of ocean decline but equally are the solution for reversing this trend.” One thing is for certain: Countries won’t be able to count on the U.S. for the foreseeable future. The summit aims to promote enduring uses of ocean resources — one of 17 sustainable development goals held by the United Nations. But the Trump administration has rejected those goals, calling them “inconsistent with U.S. sovereignty.” While it’s “sad that they have taken this decision,” said Jamaica’s Webber, “they’re just one country. An important country, a large country — but still one country.” In addition to the high seas treaty, countries have also rallied around a call for a moratorium on deep-sea mining, with the current number of signatories standing at 37 — standing in opposition to the U.S. which has signed an executive order promoting deep-sea mining in national and international waters. “While the usual virtue signaling floats on the breeze at UNOC in the French Riviera, we’ve had a GREAT week in D.C. where things get done and the sun shines bright,” posted The Metals Company CEO Gerard Barron on social media network X. “The deep sea is the heritage of humankind, and one nation cannot make a unilateral decision to destroy it to the detriment of other nations,” said Panama’s Monterrey. The next United Nations Oceans Conference is set to take place in South Korea in 2028.

BRUSSELS — Europe’s centrist political forces have an uneasy feeling that the European People’s Party is abandoning them for the far right. The center-right group — Europe’s largest political family and part of the centrist coalition that has dominated EU politics since the bloc’s inception — has been leading a political campaign against nongovernmental organizations using EU grant money to influence policymaking. By targeting civil society organizations, critics say the EPP has embraced a cause associated with the right-wing fringes of politics, in a move that is reshaping EU politics as far-right parties make significant ground across EU countries. The EPP dismisses such claims. It says it is simply demanding more transparency in how nonprofits use EU taxpayer money, having accused the European Commission of paying NGOs to lobby other EU institutions on its behalf to promote environmental laws. But others disagree, including the two other biggest centrist groups in the European Parliament — the liberal Renew Europe group and the center-left Socialists and Democrats — who believe the campaign is an attempt to restrict NGOs’ influence in EU policymaking, a cause of the far right. It’s driving a wedge between the EPP and its long-standing coalition partners — a shaky partnership that has nevertheless endured till now, keeping EU politics on the center ground. “[T]he EPP is embracing an agenda of the extreme right,” Valérie Hayer, who leads Renew, said of the group’s campaign against NGOs, which she described as “deeply worrying” and “obviously meant to shrink political and democratic space for NGO work.” Iratxe García, group chair of the S&D, said that “the right-wing forces which are currently targeting the NGOs have a clear and broader political intention that goes far beyond” and aims to “undermine the Green Deal, transparency, gender equality, LGBTQ+ rights, and fundamental freedoms, all while delegitimizing civil society’s role in democracy.” The EPP’s probe comes amid a never-slowing surge of autocratic forces making headway in EU countries including Hungary and Slovakia, but also the Netherlands, Germany and France. Emboldened by Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. election last November, populist forces are increasingly legitimized, in EU capitals and in Brussels. And that’s putting civil society organizations — whose role in the democratic policymaking process is enshrined in the Treaty on the European Union — at risk, according to a dozen lawmakers, policy experts and activists that POLITICO spoke to.  The Greens, who are further to the left than the S&D on many issues and were a significant force in the last Parliament, draw comparisons with the U.S. under President Trump, who has slashed billions of dollars of government funding for NGOs since he came to office in January. German EPP member Peter Liese said he recognizes “the very important role of NGOs” in the EU decision-making process. | Ronald Wittek/EPA “There is a certain Trumpification of the EPP, not just at the European level, but we see it at national level as well,” said German Green lawmaker Daniel Freund. “Them going after civil society is one aspect of that,” he added. Other aspects include more collaboration with the far-right by, for example, “vot[ing] for their amendments.” Conservative MEPs reject the idea that the group is collaborating with the far right.  “The EPP is absolutely out of these games of the Patriots or other extremists from the right side,” said Tomáš Zdechovský, a Czech MEP and coordinator for the EPP group in the budgetary control committee.  But according to another Parliament official, granted anonymity to speak candidly, “⁠the whole initiative started with the Patriots and … a big part, a worryingly big part of the EPP fancies the idea.” The Patriots for Europe group did not respond to POLITICO’s request for comment. A DANGEROUS DANCE Scrutinizing NGOs is the latest in a series of political fights in which the EPP has been courting parties much further to the right to serve its own interest — breaking the so-called cordon sanitaire, which historically prevented centrist groups from making alliances with the far right.   Right-wing gains in last year’s European election mean the EPP can now pass legislation in coalition with groups to its right, without the support of Renew or the S&D. It’s “the most dangerous dance in European politics,” said Daniel Kelemen, a professor of public policy at Georgetown University and an expert in EU law. Anti-democratic forces “can only really prevail … when they find centrist parties who are willing to … do deals with them and are willing to sell out their democratic values for power,” he said. Increasingly however, this dance to assert its power within Parliament has come at the expense of the very European values that the EPP itself once championed. “There is a double discourse from the EPP, saying it is seeking transparency on NGOs’ funding but actually using this narrative to attack them,” said Faustine Bas-Defossez, director at the European Environmental Bureau, an NGO.  The EPP has been “radicalizing” its narrative to try to win back far-right votes in the EU election, she added, and flirted with the idea of collaborating with far-right groups in Parliament since. “It is a dangerous game where the EPP risks undermining the democratic fabric it claims to defend.” That report had a limited impact, and its publication was derailed which came just as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán pitched a controversial law in Hungary aimed at cracking down against civil society. | Pool Photo by Nicolas Tucat via EPA The EPP rejects that it’s going after NGOs, but rather “demand[s] greater transparency in the relationship between nongovernmental organizations and EU institutions,” said the EPP’s Zdechovský. “We firmly believe that if the EU is to remain trustworthy, it must uphold impartiality and resilience against any form of pressure — whether from the business sector or so-called civil society,” he added.  German EPP member Peter Liese said he recognizes “the very important role of NGOs” in the EU decision-making process. “However, there have been clear instances of misconduct by some individual Commission officials and some NGOs,” he said, adding “it is encouraging that steps have already been taken to prevent such incidents in the future.”  An EPP group spokesperson also told POLITICO that any claims that their probe into NGO funding echoes other political groups’ agendas is “utter nonsense.”  OLD GRIEVANCES It’s not the first time the EPP has voiced its concerns about how Brussels funds NGOs. Back in 2017, German conservative MEP Markus Pieper authored a report calling for increasing the traceability of EU funds and for NGOs to disclose other sources of funding. Pieper also suggested that some Commission departments were “exploit[ing] the distribution of EU grants for their own political agenda.” Ultimately that report had a limited impact, and its publication was derailed because of timing — which came just as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán pitched a controversial law in Hungary aimed at cracking down against civil society. That prompted the EPP to try and distance itself from anti-NGO discourse championed by Orbán’s Fidesz party.  But what really changed things was a fight over new EU rules to boost nature protection across the bloc, during which the EPP suffered a crushing political defeat when it failed to block the adoption of the new rules. “The Nature Restoration Law was a turning point,” recalled the EEB’s Bas-Defossez. “It created some frustration within the group, not just over the outcome, but over the visible public mobilization around it. Since then, we’ve seen the EPP shift its political agenda in a worrying way: targeting civil society actors who advocate for environmental ambition.” NGOs and scientists spent months pushing back against misleading claims — promoted by the EPP on social media — that the rules would hurt farmers and threaten the EU’s long-term food security.  The legislation was narrowly adopted in plenary after few EPP members broke ranks. It was a significant political victory for former Green Deal chief Frans Timmermans, the headline defender of the legislation; and an equally significant defeat for EPP leader Manfred Weber as he was trying to conquer the farmers’ vote and win back voters from the far right just a few months ahead of the EU election. The fight left the EPP feeling wounded and bitter — but the group eventually came back swinging.  Germany’s incoming conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz was criticized for his inquiry targeting NGOs. | Clemens Bilan/EPA Now, similar demands and accusations to Pieper’s are being reiterated by German EPP members including Monika Hohlmeier. As a close ally of Weber, she has been spearheading a push in the Parliament’s budgetary control committee to investigate EU funding contracts, flagged alleged irregularities and accused the Commission of paying NGOs to lobby other EU decision-makers on its behalf. Hohlmeier did not respond to POLITICO’s requests for an interview.  Since then, POLITICO revealed that NGOs had been told by the Commission to change their grant applications to comply with new guidelines — or risk losing their funding. “They were very strict about the [2025] annual grant, removed any mention of talking to MEPs,” said a senior policy officer at an NGO, granted anonymity to speak freely about the confidential contract. MEPs from other right-wing groups were quick to chime in on the topic. EU-funded NGOs are “a network of political activists who want to implement the Commission’s policies and left-wing ideologies,” the far-right Patriots for Europe group said in a statement, after the European Court of Auditors slammed the Commission for not properly monitoring how funds are distributed to NGOs, especially if they are used for lobbying activities. Changes to the EU’s transparency rules in 2021 allowing self-declared noncommercial organizations not to disclose how much money they spend on lobbying have indeed made it harder to track the extent of some NGOs’ advocacy activities. Collectively, NGOs declare spending €159 million on EU lobbying efforts according to EU data compiled by LobbyFacts. However, more than 70 percent of nongovernmental organizations in the EU Transparency Register are registered as noncommercial, and therefore don’t disclose any spending. NGOs fear that these political grievances will yield further cutbacks in the upcoming EU budget negotiations. “It is a very legitimate fear and I carry personally that worry too,” the Parliament official quoted earlier added.  THE NEW BOOGEYMAN In Europe, autocratic governments and far-right political forces have been targeting civil society groups and their donors for years. That strategy has seeped into EU politics.  “Attempts to discredit funding for civil society organizations [are] not new,” said Carlotta Besozzi, director at Civil Society Europe, but “the current attacks take place in a much more difficult climate” in which “much stronger far-right political groups” are operating in the European Parliament.  Earlier this month, Slovakia’s parliament passed a controversial law targeting NGOs’ funding structures, after its populist Prime Minister Robert Fico vowed to end “NGO supremacy” in the country after his reelection in 2023.   In Hungary, Orbán’s government has often cracked down on NGOs and other groups critical of his government with legislation aimed at slashing their funding and liberties.  Orbán famously has an axe to grind with Hungarian-born U.S. billionaire and philanthropist Geroge Soros, who founded the Open Society Foundations and supports civil society groups and grassroots movements. During the first Trump administration, anti-Soros sentiment in Eastern European countries grew.  Back in February, Germany’s incoming conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz was criticized for his inquiry targeting NGOs. And increasingly, the discourse against NGO funding is seeping into politics in Brussels, where far-right parties are targeting the EU itself as one of the biggest donors to NGOs. For Georgetown University’s Kelemen, “What we’re seeing is, in a sense, a translation of that script to the EU level, where instead of Soros being the boogeyman, it’s the EU.”

Jan. 1 wasn’t only marked by headaches and regrets this year. For EU countries, 2025 also kicked off with a nerve-racking reminder of all the environmental commitments they have to meet under EU law.  On its rocky road to becoming an environmental haven by 2050, the EU has set interim targets to track progress on reducing pollution levels, planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, and restoring nature.   From separate collection of waste to financing biodiversity projects, here are five targets that the bloc’s 27 member countries should be meeting this year (and, for the most part, aren’t).   TEXTILES One of the EU’s main sustainability objectives is to reduce the harmful effects of its waste on the environment. To do that, Brussels expects its members to have effective collection systems in place for a growing list of types of waste. Glass, paper, food … you know the drill.  As of Jan. 1, EU countries must also collect garments and fabrics separately. That means those unusable shoes, old jackets and dirty bedsheets can’t go in mainstream trashcans anymore.  The latest round-up of data from the EU’s environmental watchdog, dated May 2024, shows that only 11 countries had mandatory separate collection systems in place, and another 14 had introduced voluntary initiatives.  In the same spirit of reducing waste in the fashion sector, the EU has also banned the destruction of unsold clothes and shoes. But that decision isn’t without consequence. A recent investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) revealed that Romania has become a dumpsite for discarded clothes in the EU as tons of donated garments end up in the trash. RECYCLING The tighter rules on waste management fit within the EU’s broader strategy to retrieve the valuable materials in goods that get thrown out to repurpose them.  In 2025, EU countries should be recycling or “preparing for reuse” at least 55 percent of municipal waste, according to the EU’s waste law.  But there are product-specific targets too. For example, the 27 countries should be recycling at least 65 percent of their packaging waste — like takeaway containers, paper wrappers and cardboard boxes — and 65 percent of all the electronic goods (think of all those phones, tablets, electric whisks and vacuum cleaners) placed on the EU market in the last three years.  It’s hard to know exactly if the region is on track to meet these targets or not, since the latest data from the EU’s statistical office, submitted by EU governments themselves, is from 2022. Still, POLITICO can make an educated guess — firstly, because in the summer of 2023 the Commission warned that the majority of countries were likely going to miss the targets in its progress report.  Secondly, because the numbers speak for themselves. In 2022, Germany, Austria, Slovenia and the Netherlands were the only countries already meeting the 2025 municipal waste targets, while Belgium, Luxembourg and Italy were just a few basis points away from the target line. Over half of countries were already meeting the packaging targets, however.  Meanwhile, only Latvia, Slovakia and Bulgaria were collecting the required amount of e-waste.   PLASTICS Zooming in on plastics, Brussels has set some rules for its production, use, and recycling.   In 2025, EU countries are supposed to be collecting 77 percent of single-use plastic beverage bottles put on the market. And to make things even greener, all the new bottles produced as of this year and sold in Europe should include at least 25 percent of recycled plastic inside them.  The Commission’s statistics office does not currently report figures for beverage bottles only, but some companies active in the sector are eager to demonstrate their business models are delivering results. For example, Sensoneo — a Slovak waste management company that sells deposit-return equipment where customers pay an extra fee when purchasing a bottle or can which they get back once they return the product — argues that EU countries with this technology in place have collection rates above 80 percent. NATURE When it comes to protecting nature, most of the EU’s targets are set for 2030, giving its members a bit more legroom to adapt. But as a regional bloc, the EU still has some commitments to live up to, especially on the international stage.  Existing laws on land use state that the EU was supposed to maintain its carbon sink levels between 2021 and 2025. What are carbon sinks, you ask? They’re natural assets like forests or wetlands that soak up and hold on to planet-warming CO2.  Despite Europe’s best efforts to regulate land use and protect forests by law, the continent’s carbon sinks are shrinking.     Like most things, restoration and protection costs money. During the 15th U.N. Biodiversity Conference, which took place in Montreal in 2022, countries (including the EU) pledged to spend at least $20 billion annually in development aid for biodiversity in developing nations by 2025. As of 2024, funding commitments for biodiversity were only in the millions. CARS After energy generation and heating, transport is the most polluting sector in Europe, and Brussels wants carmakers to do something about it.  That’s why it told carmakers that by the end of 2025, a car should generate 15 percent less CO2 than it did in 2021. The penalty if carmakers miss this target is set at €95 for each gram of CO2 per kilometer above the threshold, which they’d have to pay for every non-compliant vehicle. Ouch.  According to the green transport NGO Transport&Environment, however, this is one area where things are looking good. Using 2024 sales data from analytics firm Dataforce and GlobalData, and estimates on future electric and hybrid vehicle sales, the NGO suggests most carmakers will be compliant by the end of the year.

The United Nations COP16 biodiversity talks in Cali, Colombia, were suspended on Saturday after rich countries blocked a proposal to set up a new fund to help poorer nations restore their depleted natural environments. The decision, taken by a group of developed countries including the European Union, Japan, and Canada, left African and Latin American nations furious and prompted some to refuse to engage in talks on other matters. It was a bitter end to a conference that many had hoped would inject fresh energy into the 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, an ambitious treaty that aims to halt and reverse biodiversity loss globally. While the talks yielded agreement on key issues — including compensation for the commercial use of biological information and the creation of a subsidiary body designed to ensure indigenous groups are included at every level of the Kunming-Montreal agreement — the failure to make progress on financing met with disappointment. “Closing the finance gap was not merely some moral obligation but necessary to the protection of people and nature that grows more urgent each day,” An Lambrechts, head of Greenpeace’s COP16 delegation, said in a statement on Saturday. “With one week to go until COP29 begins, the non-decision on a fund damages trust between Global South and North countries,” Lambrechts said. Still, the outcome was not a surprise, as the EU had clearly stated it would not back the creation of a new fund going into the talks. SUCCESSES Countries had earlier adopted a text on the use of biological genetic information, known as digital sequencing information (DSI). Under the proposal, pharmaceutical and cosmetics companies which profit from the use of this information would pay compensation into a fund, known as the Cali Fund, on a voluntary basis. This would then go to countries where the information came from, to be used to restore nature. A deal on DSI was almost scuppered when India proposed last-minute amendments that Switzerland refused to accept. In the end, Switzerland relented. The eleventh-hour agreement, which came well after sunrise on Saturday, met with qualified support from proponents of DSI compensation. Oscar Soria with the Common Initiative called it a “unique funding mechanism,” but said its voluntary status could be a problem. “The mechanism’s effectiveness will likely depend on the global community’s willingness to support it and on corporate recognition of the value in participating for reputational gain,” he said. Other highlights included the creation of a subsidiary body for indigenous peoples and local communities to ensure their participation in the biodiversity framework agreed on in 2022 in Montreal, and recognition of peoples of African descent as biodiversity custodians. Agreement was also reached on a text linking biodiversity loss and climate change, which COP16 President Susana Muhamad said was essential ahead of the COP29 climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, later this month. The previous day, countries had voted that Armenia would host the next meeting, COP17, in 2026. But on the creation of a new fund, no agreement was reached, and as the morning wore on and delegates began leaving to catch flights home, it became clear time had run out. GLOBAL NORTH VS GLOBAL SOUTH The European Union, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland all opposed the proposal to set up a dedicated fund to pay for nature restoration in poorer countries, arguing it would complicate the funding landscape without necessarily raising new money. The EU delegation suggested that the creation of a special fund would not necessarily prompt countries to donate more money. “We have been very clear throughout the process, we cannot accept establishing a new … fund, thereby further fragmenting the biodiversity-related financial landscape,” the  delegation said at the plenary early Saturday. African, South American and Pacific Island nations strongly backed the proposal; and Brazil and Panama both refused to deal with any other issues if their demands were not met. When this issue could not be resolved, the COP16 president was forced to suspend the meeting before agreement had been reached on the budget for the Convention on Biological Diversity, an important topic that should have been relatively uncontroversial. “The #COP16Colombia closing plenary meeting has been temporarily suspended,” the official X account of the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity stated. “Stay tuned for further updates.” The Kunming-Montreal agreement contains a list of 23 targets for 2030, including restoring 30 percent of degraded ecosystems, conserving 30 percent of land, waters and seas, and halving the introduction of native alien species. Finance is key to meeting the goals. At COP15 in Montreal, countries agreed that the long-term goal should be to spend $700 billion a year on biodiversity loss. Under the Kunming-Montreal agreement, developed countries pledged to contribute $20 billion of funding a year by 2025 — a goal that so far looks unlikely to be met. Earlier in the week, a group of seven rich countries pledged a total of $163 million toward the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund. The top contributors were the U.K. ($58 million) Germany ($54 million), Denmark ($14.5 million) and Norway ($13.7 million), with New Zealand, Austria and France also giving a few million each. The shortfall in funding prompted a group of ministers from 20 African, Southeast Asian and Pacific nations to write a letter to wealthy countries expressing concern that “we have not seen a significant increase in international nature finance reach our countries” and calling for rich countries to “urgently deliver new international funding for biodiversity.”

The Tábor Zoo in Czechia has filed a complaint with the European Commission over the relaxation of rules for the controlled shooting of bears in neighboring Slovakia. “It is not surprising that Slovakia has gone the way of the Middle Ages, when it was common to shoot everything that moved in the forest and [that] was just a little bit hairier than a man of that time,” said Evžen Korec, the zoo’s director, in a statement shared with POLITICO on Thursday, adding he considers the “mass killing of endangered species barbaric.” “The brown bear is a protected species within the European Union,” he noted. “The EU quite rightly spends the most money on its protection of any endangered animal species. “Slovakia has chosen to ignore European legislation,” Korec continued, calling the Slovak Environment Ministry, which is in charge of the bear-shooting rules, “the ministry of reckless extermination.” Slovakia amended its rules for shooting bears in May, following an increase in attacks on people. To speed up the issuance of exemptions to shoot bears, the legislation now allows a state of emergency to be declared, as in the case of an earthquake or a terrorist attack, when a bear approaches a human settlement. “We were able to solve a major legal problem that prevented the shooting of a bear even in cases where there has not yet been an attack on a person. We will no longer have to react after the fact,” Slovak Environment Minister Tomáš Taraba said in May. “Shootings will [now] be carried out in the interest of protecting the lives, health and property of citizens, preventively and in advance.” The Slovak legislation overrides EU law governing protected species, however, which requires that a bear display “problematic” behavior before a license to kill can be issued. Taraba told POLITICO earlier that the Commission had approved the Slovak government’s bill in return for the country’s support for the nature restoration law. The Commission has denied that account. Bears became a hot political topic in Slovakia ahead of this year’s elections to both the presidency and the European Parliament, prompting the far-right Slovak National Party, to which Taraba belongs, to blame the situation on EU bureaucrats and the bloc’s green rules. According to an analysis by multiple universities, there are between 1,000 and 1,300 brown bears in Slovakia. The Slovak Environment Ministry confirmed it will issue some 100 licenses to shoot bears until the end of this year; 86 of the animals have already been killed. POLITICO contacted the European Commission and the Slovak Environment Ministry with a request for comment.

The EU’s nature wars are back. On Wednesday, the European Commission delayed for a year the introduction of landmark rules banning agricultural products from logged forests.  The president of the center-right European Peoples’ Party (EPP), Manfred Weber, immediately took credit for the walk-back. “I am pleased that [Commission President] Ursula von der Leyen has followed my initiative,” he said in a statement on X. The move drew fierce criticism from nature advocates, who raised concerns that a pattern of retreats on green legislation was continuing, just days after EU countries agreed to downgrade the protection of wolves — also a key campaign promise of the EPP.  “Hardly having started her second term … von der Leyen is already undermining the Green Deal,” said Delara Burkhardt, a German MEP with the center-left Socialists & Democrats. Former Commissioner for Environment Virginijus Sinkevičius, who worked on the legislation and became a Greens MEP in June, said the delay “is a step backward in the fight against climate change” and one that “breaks trust with our global partners & damages our credibility on climate commitments.” Several MEPs accused the Commission of making the delay inevitable by slow-walking the release of technical documents and information to companies and trading partners. Bernd Lange, a socialist MEP who leads the European Parliament’s international trade committee, called the delay a “disgrace.” Weber, who is a senior member of von der Leyen’s party and helped her campaign for a second term leading the EU executive in the spring, has fought against several key laws proposed by the Commission president to protect nature. Most notably last year he led an unsuccessful rebellion against a law to restore damaged wildlands across the bloc. The EU election in June saw green-friendly groups lose ground, raising the prospect that the EPP would push back harder against their agenda. “Together with our farmers, we are protecting the environment & avoiding a bureaucratic monster,” Weber said of the deforestation law. The delays to the law had been foreshadowed for months as industry, farming groups, EU governments and the bloc’s trading partners baulked at the complexity of tracing and excluding products sourced from damaged forests. Governments, particularly in developing countries, had complained the EU was imposing its values and laws on their domestic industry — especially as the deforestation law came in tandem with a carbon border tariff that the EU plans to place on heavy industrial imports like cement, iron and steel. Uganda’s Agriculture Minister Frank Tumwebaze called it a “welcome step.” In a statement, the Commission acknowledged that “several global partners have repeatedly expressed concerns about their state of preparedness” and that the preparation of European companies was “also uneven.” Paris had also pushed hard for the law during its presidency of the Council of the EU — hoping it might help its farmers by limiting the flow of cheap agricultural products from the tropics. Meanwhile, deforestation continues to drive climate change and deplete nature around the world. The Commission seemed to be telling its trading partners overseas to “‘let it all burn,’” said Claudio Angelo, head of international policy at the Brazilian NGO Observatório do Clima.  “For Brazil the impact of a postponement could be serious — in places like the Amazon, policy signals often matter more than the policy itself, and the signal conveyed today is a disastrous one,” he said. Zia Weise contributed to this report.