VIENNA: Austria’s right-wing chancellor, Karl Nehammer, said on Monday it was “unlawful” of his climate minister to vote in favour of a proposed European Union nature restoration law.
EU environment ministers on Monday approved a milestone bill aimed at restoring degraded ecosystems in the 27-nation bloc.
The support of Austrian Climate Minister Leonore Gewessler helped the EU’s Nature Restoration Law obtain the majority needed to pass.
Conservatives have criticised the bill, which has angered some European farmers.
Gewessler, a member of the Greens, had said on Sunday she would vote in favour of the bill, overriding her party’s coalition partner, the ruling conservative People’s Party (OeVP), which opposes it.
Nehammer, a member of the OeVP, said before the EU vote that the government would file a complaint at the European Court of Justice if Gewessler went ahead and voted in favour.
“Austria should stick with its already-agreed vote” against the law, the chancellor’s office said.
“Last night, Federal Chancellor Karl Nehammer informed the Belgian Council Presidency (of the EU) that federal minister Gewessler’s approval of EU renaturation would be unlawful.”
Belgium Environment Minister Alain Maron, who chaired Monday’s meeting because his country holds the EU’s rotating presidency, dismissed the row as an “internal controversy in Austria”.
“The vote is given by the ministers around the table and in the room. And there is no question about that. That’s the way it works,” he told reporters when he arrived for the meeting.
Gewessler said her decision to support the bill was legal.
“I’m deeply convinced that today is the day for action… It’s a decisive day for nature and our planet in Europe,” she told reporters before the vote.
The row between Nehammer and Gewessler is the most serious disagreement since the OeVP and the Greens entered an uneasy coalition in 2020 and comes ahead of national elections set for September.
EU lawmakers in February gave final approval to the bill, overriding conservative attempts to torpedo it.
The rules are a central part of the EU’s ambitious environmental goals under the Green Deal – a set of laws aimed at helping the bloc meet its climate goals – but some farmers say they threaten their livelihoods.
The legislation says the EU’s 27 members must introduce binding targets to restore at least 20 percent of the bloc’s degraded land and marine ecosystems, in particular those with the most potential to capture and store carbon and to prevent and reduce the impact of natural disasters.
According to the European Commission: “Europe’s nature is in alarming decline, with more than 80 percent of habitats in poor condition.
“Restoring wetlands, rivers, forests, grasslands, marine ecosystems, and the species they host will help.”
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