The ongoing “simplification” drive risks setting back nature protection by decades and fails to safeguard us from the climate crisis.
By Anouk Puymartin, Head of Policy at BirdLife Europe and Central Asia; Anaïs Berthier, Head of ClientEarth Brussels; Faustine Bas-Defossez, Policy Director at the European Environmental Bureau; Andreas Baumüller, Programme Director at WWF Europe
The #HandsoffNature coalition consists of BirdLife Europe & Central Asia, ClientEarth, European Environmental Bureau, and WWF European Policy Office
Our greatest ally, nature, is under threat. Nature is more than a mere commodity to enjoy in free time. It underpins the rhythm of the life we depend on. Our food, our health, our joy and our defence against escalating climate disasters all depend on it. But the green glow of Europe’s landscapes has been fading for decades, and now, instead of taking urgent action to protect what remains, nature is under attack again.
The very institution that is meant to safeguard citizens’ interests, the European Commission, planted a massive wildfire. Under the banner of “cutting red tape,” the Commission proposes to steer Europe decades backwards by rolling back current environmental protection.
This is not “simplification” – it is self-sabotage. Key safeguards have already been stalled or derailed, from companies’ sustainability reporting to environmental farming obligations and anti-deforestation rules. The announced revision of the Water Framework Directive threatens to lower drinking-water standards and damage rivers, wetlands, and wildlife. At the same time, the draft Omnibus Regulation on Food and Feed seeks to deregulate chemical pesticides, stripping away essential protections for public health and the environment. And now, the upcoming environmental omnibus is a deeply dangerous step that could further accelerate the dismantling of core protections of Europe’s nature.
But the urgency of safeguarding Europe’s nature has never been clearer. This summer offered a devastating preview of our future. Two new studies [1] reveal the staggering price we are already paying: droughts, floods, and heatwaves inflicted €43 billion in damages. This is more than double the EU’s annual budget for the protection of ecosystems. And costs will just escalate. By 2029, losses are projected to reach €126 billion.
We are also paying a price in human losses. Climate-induced heat waves caused an estimated 16,500 additional deaths this summer. These lives were cut short because Europe has failed to confront the root causes of our ecological emergency.
The deregulation agenda also raises serious democratic concerns, dismantling environmental safeguards established over decades through democratic processes and grounded in clear scientific evidence, which underpin the EU’s legal obligation to ensure a high level of nature protection. It risks creating legislative chaos with fragmented regulations that turn the framework into a regulatory “wild west”, full of uncertainties and gaps. Existing environmental protections have ensured fewer pesticides on our plates, kept our water drinkable, our soils fertile, and our natural world alive.
Is this the Europe we want: polluted rivers and air, silent skies and meadows, collapsing forests and wetlands?
These concerns have already been proven real: last week, the EU Ombudswoman confirmed that the Commission bypassed democratic processes in the CAP and corporate sustainability through omnibus I [2], using an unjustified “emergency” procedure and lacking transparency, inclusivity, and scientific basis. These findings strike a first blow against this harmful deregulation agenda and reaffirm that the rule of law and democratic scrutiny are not optional. However, with the new omnibus packages on the way, the Commission is repeating the same mistake: advancing through the same rushed, lobby-driven process, without proper impact assessments or genuine public consultation.
But who would oppose nature? A range of industry actors, including the mining and agrifood sectors, have been pushing hard for environmental deregulation. Their argument: weakening these safeguards will boost competitiveness and reduce administrative burdens. The mining industry, for example, could operate with far less accountability. It is no coincidence that the revision of the Water Framework Directive comes just after the EU’s largest mining lobby called on the Commission to expand derogations and delay deadlines. The agrifood lobby has also been particularly relentless, targeting Europe’s core nature directives, including the Nature Restoration Regulation, while stoking fear and promoting the false choice between thriving nature and thriving farming. That choice is an illusion: farmers are among the first victims of the climate and biodiversity crises. Weakening environmental rules will not save European agriculture: it will bury it.
Europe stands at a crossroads. One path leads to short-term fixes, soil erosion, poisoned waters, collapsing biodiversity, and worsening climate chaos. The other leads to resilience, stability, and a future where nature and people thrive together. The Commission can either lock us into the first scenario or act on the Ombudswoman’s findings, restore trust with its citizens and ensure full democratic scrutiny. Europe must choose the path that protects nature and our future, not the one that destroys what protects us.
Notes
[1] The studies are accessible here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/16Bxtm90_jYGiqeTqItW4u3QlnJAUDZxw/view
and here:
https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk/server/api/core/bitstreams/4d5b1a8a-c5ed-47fd-894c-f05ae31ae69d/conte…
[2] Ombudsman press release: https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/press-release/en/215989
