Press release: 20 May 2020
Lawyers react to new EU strategies: ambition welcome but policy clashes must be resolved
Lawyers at ClientEarth have welcomed the publication of the EU’s highly anticipated EU Biodiversity Strategy and Farm to Fork Strategy, but say clashes with existing policies must be addressed to allow the ambitious new components of the European Green Deal to perform.
Reacting to the Farm to Fork Strategy, ClientEarth lawyer Marc Pittie said: “This Strategy contains clear targets as we’d hoped, and recognises that building a resilient and environmentally stable food system will take a paradigm shift.
“However, its potential can only be unlocked if it is matched by an equally ambitious CAP proposal that integrates these targets. We believe the CAP to be the main binding tool to deliver the Strategy’s vision of an environmentally-positive food system that mends the relationship between producing food and protecting nature.”
Reacting to the Biodiversity Strategy, ClientEarth lawyer Anna Heslop said: “The EU’s commitment to seek an ambitious global biodiversity framework with stronger mechanisms for implementation and ratcheting up ambition shows that the Commission is serious about putting nature at the heart of its agenda.
“If the EU is to become a leader in the fight to address the biodiversity crisis, it must truly deliver on the commitments in the new strategy. This will be crucial to ensure that the all-important Convention on Biological Diversity delivers real global change.”
ENDS
About ClientEarth
ClientEarth is a charity that uses the power of the law to protect people and the planet. We are international lawyers finding practical solutions for the world’s biggest environmental challenges. We are fighting climate change, protecting oceans and wildlife, making forest governance stronger, greening energy, making business more responsible and pushing for government transparency. We believe the law is a tool for positive change. From our offices in London, Brussels, Warsaw, Berlin and Beijing, we work on laws throughout their lifetime, from the earliest stages to implementation. And when those laws are broken, we go to court to enforce them.