On Monday, March 11, 2024, members of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) of the European Parliament voted on the so-called Soil Monitoring Law, i.e. the act on soil monitoring. The EC’s idea was supported by the ENVI Commission.
- On March 11, 2024, the ENVI Committee of the European Parliament expressed its support for the Soil Monitoring Directive.
- MEPs proposed adopting a target to improve the condition of soil within 6-10 years.
- Opponents of the act point out, among others, to concerns about lack of respect for the freedom of land management by their owners.
Law for soils
According to EU data, approximately 60-70% of soils in Europe are in poor condition, which is caused by, among others, strong urbanization, agricultural intensification and climate change. The deteriorating condition of soils and the associated loss of their basic functions, such as food production, carbon dioxide sequestration, nutrient circulation and water management regulation, brings losses of at least EUR 50 billion annually in the European Union.
In order to stop these unfavorable phenomena and improve the condition of soils in the EU, in July 2023, the European Commission presented a draft directive on soil monitoring and resilience (Soil Monitoring Law). The act would become part of a broader European soil strategy until 2030, which gives soils a kind of protective status – it is intended to stop their degradation and regain healthy soils in Europe.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) of the European Parliament approved its position on the EC’s proposal during the vote on March 11, 2024. The ENVI Committee expressed its support for the Soil Monitoring Directive with 42 votes in favor and 26 against. 14 MEPs did not vote.
Further decisions on the introduction of the new act will be made with the participation of the entire EP at the plenary session to be held on April 11, 2024. The next steps will be up to the new authorities in the Parliament.
European soils under supervision
The aim of the act is to introduce a framework for monitoring and assessing the condition of all soils in the EU. Member States would be obliged to designate the so-called soil districts in their territories and defining criteria for assessing the condition of the soil.
The EC proposed soil health tests in soil districts based on indicators such as salinity, soil erosion rate, subsoil density and organic carbon loss. Regular measurements of soil health aim to help identify soil degradation problems in the EU and implement corrective actions.
The EC proposed to designate areas of contaminated land based on data from the monitoring system. The Commission would also be required to develop and present a complete information base on best practices for sustainable soil management.
MEPs proposed that Member States could implement a soil monitoring framework at three different levels of advancement. In addition, they set the goal of improving soil condition:
- critically degraded soils are to be improved to degraded status within ten years;
- degraded soils are to be improved to a moderate condition within six years;
- temperate soils are to be improved to good status within six years.
The assessment of the law on soil monitoring varies
As usually happens, the idea of a new act and the amendments introduced to it raise various controversies along the way. Environments related to the protection of nature and soil resources emphasize that the directive is a step in the right direction, and degraded soils have been demanding their statutory protection for years. The more radical ones claim that the bill proposals lack specifics, e.g. setting a numerical target for improving soil biodiversity by a specific year. They insist that member states should have specific restrictions in this respect.
The voices opposing the bill include: fear of introducing additional administrative burdens and lack of respect for the freedom of land management by land owners. This results from the provision in the EC draft that reads:
The proposal does not regulate the use of property and respects property rights (…) However, competent authorities in Member States may have to oblige landowners to grant them rights of access to their property (…). Member States may also require landowners to implement sustainable soil management measures.
The requirement to implement sustainable soil management measures is an issue that may worry some farmers. The draft directive presented by the European Commission includes a list of “principles of sustainable soil management”, which includes, among others: recommendations regarding maintaining the protective soil cover, limiting the number and intensity of use of machines on land, ensuring crop rotation, etc. The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development (AGRI) of the European Parliament, in its opinion for the ENVI Committee of February 15, 2023, proposed the complete deletion of these recommendations from the content of the Act .
Additionally, it is emphasized that the goals set by MEPs from ENVI to improve the condition of soil in a six- and ten-year perspective are very difficult to achieve, because soil restoration is a long-term process.
A superficial treatment of the issue of allocating green areas for industrial or residential development may be considered a certain injustice towards land owners in rural areas. It seems that restrictive soil protection requirements do not cover urbanization processes to the same extent – as reported by Euronews.
It should be emphasized that the final content of the directive is still under discussion and may change, and most importantly – the decision on its implementation has not yet been made.
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