EU Biodiversity Strategy To 2020: Mid-Term Assessment

In 2011, the EU adopted a Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 aiming ‘to halt the loss of biodiversity and the degradation of ecosystem services in the EU by 2020 and to restore them as far as feasible, while stepping up the EU contribution to averting global biodiversity loss’ . The strategy has six mutually supportive targets and twenty related actions and has also to meet Convention of Biodiversity global targets.

On 2 October 2015, the European Commission published its mid-term assessment report which draws a rather lukewarm picture of the results of EU biodiversity policy. Several reports had already sent out alarm signals regarding the continued erosion of Europe’s biodiversity (EEA, SOER 2015).

In this context, the 'fitness check' of the EU Birds and Habitats Directives, which are the main pieces of the EU legislation on nature, pours oil on the flames. In the framework of the Luxembourg EU Council Presidency, July-December 2015, Camille Gira, Luxembourg’s Secretary of State for Sustainable Development and Infrastructure was invited by the Committee of the Regions to a round table on the subject. Gira gave active support to both legislative instruments and concluded that ‘the mid-term review is an opportunity to draw the right conclusions to get us back on track to achieving our biodiversity goals’.

A public hearing was held in the European Parliament on 12 October 2015 to discuss the challenges faced by EU biodiversity and the opportunities provided by ecosystems. An own-initiative report is expected to be adopted by the Environment Committee in December 2015, in response to the EEA report on the State of Nature in Europe and to the mid-term review of the EU’s Biodiversity Strategy. This will also constitute Parliament’s contribution to the ongoing fitness check of legislation on nature.

This Keysource written by Dessislava Yougova, and offers access to a important information sources on this topic.

• Primary Source

ESO: Background information: Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council. The mid-term review of the EU biodiversity strategy to 2020 http://www.europeansources.info/record/report-from-the-commission-to-the-european-parliament-and-the-council-the-mid-term-review-of-the-eu-biodiversity-strategy-to-2020/

EP: EPRS: At a Glance, 26.01.16: Mid-term review of EU biodiversity strategy http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2016/573941/EPRS_ATA(2016)573941_EN.pdf

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