The European Parliament last week gave a favourable progress vote on the own-initiative report on the Mid-term Review of the EU Biodiversity Strategy, recognizing the special importance of the Habitats and Birds Directives for nature protection in all Member States.

The report draws attention to the Commission that the good things achieved with tangible results can be improved and nature protection should be one of the main priorities:

‘Expresses its serious concern about the continuing loss of biodiversity; notes that the 2020 targets will not be achieved without additional, substantial and continuous efforts; observes, at the same time, that scientific evidence has demonstrated that Europe’s nature would be in a much worse state without the positive impact of the EU Birds and Habitats Directives’.

Lawmakers oppose a possible revision of the Habitats and Birds Directives as “would result in a weakened financial and legislative protection, which would be bad for nature, people and business.”

In Romania, Natura 2000 the designated sites by the two directives amounts to almost 25 percent of the country. Milvus Group acted as a “locomotive” in the process, which began more than two years before the country’s accession to the European Union.

Milvus Group represented all the interested civil society in nature protection at the biogeographically seminars and showed to the Brussels authorities that the sites numbers must be increased considerably due to the biodiversity wealth. Thus, there were three sites nominations in nine years! In which time, Milvus has taken seriously the roles of nature protection through its projects, and watchdogged legislation and decisions about nature.

Papp Tamás, president of “Milvus Group” Association believes that “the two directives are basics in EU nature protection. EU accession has had many negative consequences on nature (eg. The Common Agricultural Policy – Common Agriculture Policy) – the most significant positive consequences are provided by these two directives. If these directives are weakened or changed, we can say that the nature in all EU will suffer. “

European Commission calendar to take a decision on the revision of the two directives has not been completed, but the Parliament’s vote is a positive sign that nature protection is taken seriously in Europe

Sources:

WWF: http://www.wwf.eu/what_we_do/natural_resources/publications_natural_resources/?256681/Nature-Legislation-policy-asks

EUROPEAN PARLAMENT: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=REPORT&mode=XML&reference=A8-2016-0003&language=EN