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The European Green Deal faces its moment of truth: nature restoration

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The European Green Deal faces its moment of truth: nature restoration

The Green Deal, described by Ursula von der Leyen as “Europe’s man on the moon moment,” is about to undergo a litmus test.

On Thursday morning, members of the European Parliament’s environment committee (ENVI) are set to convene and vote on the Nature Restoration Law, a draft piece of legislation that has become the prime target of an extreme opposition campaign.

The controversy around the law has taken Brussels – and now Strasbourg – by storm, pitting a coalition of conservatives, farmers and fishers against left-wing parties, NGOs, scientists and, surprisingly, the private sector.

The backlash has reached such intensity that the first point on Thursday’s agenda will ask MEPs whether to reject the legislation in its entirety, without further amendments or consultations. Two affiliate committees, agriculture (AGRI) and fisheries (PECH), have already struck down the text, raising the stakes even higher for what is expected to be a knife-edge decision.

How exactly did nature restoration become so contentious?

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The law currently on the table was first presented by the European Commission in June 2022. The text, referred to as the “first continent-wide, comprehensive law of its kind,” aims to restore habitats and species that have been degraded by human activity and climate change.

It sets out legally-binding targets in seven specific topics, from pollinating insects to marine ecosystems, that put together should cover at least 20% of the European Union’s land and sea areas by 2030. (The target was later boosted to 30% in order to align the bloc with the landmark deal struck at COP15 in December.)

The Nature Restoration Law, like all pieces that make up the European Green Deal, is ambitious and far-reaching, reflecting the extent of the problem it tries to tackle: 81% of European habitats are in poor status, with peatlands, grasslands and dunes hit the worst, according to the Commission’s estimates.

The executive considers climate change and biodiversity loss to be the two sides of the same coin: one phenomenon exacerbates the other, and vice versa, making it indispensable to tackle both challenges at the same time.

The gloves are off

While this reasoning is shared across the political spectrum, the design of the Nature Restoration Law, and in particular its legally binding targets, has sparked an outcry from right-wing parties, who claim the legislation, in its current form, will force farmers to abandon some of their fields, endanger Europe’s supply chains, push food prices up and even hinder the roll-out of renewables.

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COPA-COGECA and Europeche, the leading associations that lobby for European farmers and fishers, respectively, have called the draft law an “ill-thought out, unrealistic and unimplementable” proposal that is bound to have “devastating consequences” for farming, forestry and fisheries.

But no other group personifies this opposition better than the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), the parliament’s largest formation, which has launched a relentless campaign to bring down the Nature Restoration Law.

Following several rounds of negotiations with other political parties, the EPP decided last month to walk out from the talks. Days later, the EPP submitted the agenda point to the ENVI committee to outright reject the legislation.

“This piece of legislation is simply a bad proposal,” Manfred Weber, chair of the EPP group, said on Tuesday, urging other lawmakers to vote down the law. “This is not the right moment. This is our position.”

In Weber’s view, the obligations imposed by the Nature Restoration Law would spill over beyond Europe and worsen food insecurity in low-income countries, a scenario he linked to the ongoing dispute over tariff-free grain coming from Ukraine.

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“Nobody can tell me what is the answer on food production. The issue is huge! We talk about North Africa, about migration. People are escaping because they don’t feel they have a perspective anymore,” the German MEP said.

Weber then refuted accusations that he was blackmailing EPP lawmakers to abide by the party’s official line and accused the European Commission of employing “external infrastructure,” that is NGOs, to defend the Nature Restoration Law.

“Give me arguments. Give me a better piece of legislation,” Weber said.

That same day, Stanislav Polčák, a Czech MEP who sits with the EPP, announced on Twitter he would actually vote in favour of the legislation, saying “the prosperity of our society goes hand in hand with the quality of the environment.”

Hours later, he had a change of heart.

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“I do not consider the EPP’s overall rejection of the proposal to be a good decision, but I decided to respect it,” he wrote. “As my position became so fundamentally against my group, I have asked to be substituted at Thursday’s vote.”

‘Fundamentally wrong’

In the face of mounting criticism, environmental organisations have struck a surprising alliance with the private sector to defend the Nature Restoration Law.

In a public letter released ahead of Thursday’s vote, CEOs and top executives from 50 companies, including IKEA, Nestlé, H&M, Iberdrola and Unilever, urged European lawmakers to “urgently” adopt rules on nature protection to create legal certainty for businesses, ensure fair competition and foster innovation.

“Our dependence on a healthy environment is fundamental to the resilience of our economies and, ultimately, our long-term success,” the CEOs wrote.

WindEurope, the association that represents Europe’s wind industry, published its own statement debunking one of the EPP’s most widely circulated claims: the Nature Restoration Law will make it harder to deploy renewables across Europe.

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“This is fundamentally wrong. Nature restoration and the expansion of wind energy go hand in hand,” the association said.

Meanwhile, ClientEarth, BirdLife Europe, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) have stepped up their public outreach to directly counteract the EPP’s no-holds-barred opposition, which the NGOs see as influenced by the upcoming European elections and the abrupt rise of BBB, the agrarian populist party that has disrupted Dutch politics.

“It’s a campaign that has been based on the active distribution of disinformation,” Ioannis Agapakis, a lawyer at ClientEarth, told Euronews in an interview.

“Each of the arguments that are being used goes against science, goes against the letter of the law, and for sure, not in support of the European Green Deal. So for me, the turn of events has been really, really concerning on that front.”

Agapakis argues nature restoration can take many forms and adapt to the socio-economic conditions of different regions, making it a case-by-case strategy rather than a one-size-fits-all solution. The law is “quite flexible,” the lawyer says, because it would allow EU countries to draft their own national plans to meet the overall target.

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“For anyone that has read the actual proposal, it is clear that nowhere in the proposal does the Commission mention that agricultural production needs to stop in the areas where restoration will take place,” Agapakis said.

“On the other hand, I think that there are certain restoration practices that will boost agricultural production. So these types of narratives and these types of arguments are, first and foremost, not based on the content of the law itself.”

For its part, the European Commission, whose president, Ursula von der Leyen, is affiliated with the EPP, is trying to find a balance between safeguarding the integrity of its proposal and staying away from the raucous fight between political parties.

The executive has circulated non-papers, seen by Euronews, in which it refutes one by one the main points of criticism levelled at the restoration law, including the notion that nature restoration precludes any sort of economic activity.

This correlation is inaccurate, the Commission says, because nature restoration does not require the creation of protected areas, which is a separate legal category. A restored habitat can in fact prolong soil lifespans and offer farmers long-term opportunities to reinvent their practices and reduce their carbon footprint.

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“The democratic process is ongoing,” a Commission spokesperson said in a statement. “It is now for the ENVI Committee and the plenary to express themselves.”

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ER Vets George Clooney, Noah Wyle, Anthony Edwards and Julianna Margulies Reunite in New Photo

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ER Vets George Clooney, Noah Wyle, Anthony Edwards and Julianna Margulies Reunite in New Photo


ER Cast Reunites at George Clooney’s Broadway Show — New Reunion Photo



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US will know in 'matter of weeks' if Russia is serious about peace or using 'delay tactic': Rubio

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US will know in 'matter of weeks' if Russia is serious about peace or using 'delay tactic': Rubio

Whether Russia is “serious” about achieving a ceasefire in Ukraine should become apparent in a “matter of weeks,” Secretary of State Macro Rubio told reporters Friday.

“The Russians know our position in terms of wanting to end the war, and we will know from their answers very soon whether they are serious about proceeding with real peace or whether it is a delay tactic,” Rubio said at NATO headquarters in Brussels. 

Questions are mounting over Moscow’s true interest in engaging with the Trump administration after it rejected a 30-day ceasefire proposed by Ukraine in early March, then refused to agree to a Black Sea ceasefire later that month unless sanctions were lifted.

TOP RUSSIAN NEGOTIATOR SHARES STATUS ON UKRAINE PEACE TALKS AFTER MEETING WITH US COUNTERPART IN DC

President Donald Trump hosts his first Cabinet meeting as he sits next to Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington, D.C., Feb. 26, 2025.  (Reuters/Brian Snyder)

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“[If] It’s a delay tactic, the president’s not interested in that,” he added. “President Trump is not going to fall into the trap of endless negotiations about negotiations.”

When pressed by reporters, Rubio wouldn’t comment on what conditions Russia has set out in securing a peace deal. 

He did note, though, hat even after direct calls with foreign leaders, official readouts don’t always reflect what was actually discussed. That appeared to be the case after President Donald Trump’s call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, when the White House said Russia had “agreed” to eliminate the use of force in the Black Sea.

But the Kremlin later clarified that any agreement was contingent on the West lifting sanctions.

PUTIN CONSCRIPTS 160K MEN AS RUSSIA EYES UKRAINE OFFENSIVE

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Donald Trump meeting with Vladimir Putin

President Donald Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the first day of the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, June 28, 2019. (Kremlin Press Office/Handout/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

“I guess it’s part of the game,” Rubio said. “At the end of the day, what’s going to matter here is whether we’re going to move towards peace or not.”

Rubio reiterated that Ukraine and Russia would both need to make concessions to end the war but declined to say what those should be, insisting those details should emerge through negotiations.

“Initially, it was important to talk [to the Russians] because we haven’t talked to them in a long time. But now we’ve reached the stage [where] we need to make progress,” he said, noting it will be “hard,” but he remains “optimistic.”

“There are some promising signs. There are some troubling signs. It’s not going to be easy. No one ever said this would be easy, but we’re going to find out sooner rather than later,” Rubio told reporters. “And let’s just say I’m hopeful. I remain hopeful.”

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Pentagon confirms four-star general’s firing amid Trump security purge

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Pentagon confirms four-star general’s firing amid Trump security purge

The United States Department of Defense has confirmed it fired the head of the National Security Agency, in a move that sparked outrage over an alleged purge of security officials.

On Friday, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell released a short statement, acknowledging the departure of four-star Air Force General Timothy Haugh as director of the National Security Agency (NSA), one of the government’s top intelligence-gathering bodies.

Haugh also led the US Cyber Command, which prepares for and defends against attacks in the digital sphere.

“The Defense Department thanks General Timothy Haugh for his decades of service to our nation, culminating as US Cyber Command commander and National Security Agency director. We wish him and his family well,” Parnell said.

Multiple media reports, however, suggested that Haugh’s ouster came at the suggestion of a far-right internet activist, Laura Loomer, who supported President Donald Trump’s campaign for re-election in 2024.

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Democrats also seized upon the fact that Trump did not fire anyone involved in the recent controversy over the use of the messaging app Signal to discuss sensitive plans to bomb Houthi targets in Yemen – something that came to light after a journalist was accidentally added to the chat.

“Gen. Haugh led the NSA and Cyber Command with steady, effective leadership,” Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona wrote on social media Friday.

“By dismissing him and failing to hold anyone accountable for the threat to U.S. pilots over Signal, Trump has shown he values loyalty over competence – making us all less safe.”

Another Democratic senator, Mark Warner of Virginia, echoed that sentiment, calling the situation “so crazy it defies belief”.

“Trump refused to fire the people that embarrassed America and risked servicemembers’ lives in the Signalgate scandal,” Warner wrote, “but fired Gen. Haugh, a nonpartisan national security expert, at the advice of a self-described ‘pro-white nationalist’.”

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Laura Loomer arrives with Donald Trump at the Philadelphia international airport on September 10, 2024 [Chris Szagola/AP Photo]

Haugh was just one in a slate of firings this week that came after Trump met with Loomer at the White House.

Media reports indicate Haugh’s civilian deputy at the NSA, Wendy Noble, was booted from her position as well and reassigned.

In addition, multiple members of the National Security Council also appear to have been removed from their positions, including Brian Walsh, a senior director of intelligence, and Thomas Boodry, the senior director of legislative affairs.

The Reuters news agency estimated that more than a dozen security officials were dismissed as part of the alleged purge.

As he flew to South Florida for a golf tournament on Thursday, Trump addressed the rumours, acknowledging “some” people were fired but refusing to give specifics about the total.

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“Always, we’re going to let go of people – people we don’t like or people that we don’t think can do the job or people who may have loyalties to someone else,” Trump said from Air Force One.

He also addressed his meeting with Loomer earlier in the week, offering high praise for the internet personality.

“Laura Loomer is a very good patriot,” he said. “She’s a very strong person, and I saw her yesterday for a little while. She makes recommendations.”

When pressed about what that meant, he conceded that Loomer not only recommends individuals to hire – but also to fire. He did, however, dismiss reports that Loomer was involved in a purge of security officials.

Loomer herself addressed Haugh’s removal on Thursday, accusing the four-star general of insufficient loyalty to the Trump administration. She also attempted to paint Haugh as an acolyte of former President Joe Biden, the Democrat who bested Trump in the 2020 election.

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“NSA Director Tim Haugh and his deputy Wendy Noble have been disloyal to President Trump. That is why they have been fired,” she wrote.

“Their firings are a blessing for the American people. Thank you President Trump for being receptive to the vetting materials provided to you and thank you for firing these Biden holdovers.”

Loomer has long been a controversial figure on the US right. She once called herself a “proud Islamophobe” and has spread the debunked conspiracy theory that the attacks on September 11, 2001, were an “inside job”.

Her proximity to the president has caused ripples of concern within Trump’s administration – and has been seized upon as a point of criticism for Democrats.

The ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Jim Himes, demanded an “immediate explanation” for Haugh’s firing, arguing it makes “all of us less safe”.

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“I have known General Haugh to be an honest and forthright leader who followed the law and put national security first,” Himes wrote. “I fear those are precisely the qualities that could lead to his firing in this Administration.”

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