The Biodiversity Strategy
The European Commission has ambitious goals in the Biodiversity Strategy, which is part of the Green Deal (2020), to protect 30% of marine and terrestrial land, of which 10% must be strictly protected. The identification and designation of these Protected Areas will have to be done by the member states.
When adopting the Biodiversity Strategy as part of the Green Deal in June this year, the European Parliament expressed regret on the fact that the objectives for 2020 for Good Environmental Status have not been met and calls for strengthening of the MPA Network The European Environmental Agency assessed the status of European MPAs in 2019 and concluded the distribution of MPAs is skewed towards coastal rather than offshore areas, which diminishes the ecological representativeness of the European MPA network.
EUROPARC is looking forward to the publishing of the EU Nature Restoration Targets, legally binding targets that were announced by the European Commission within the Biodiversity Strategy. The proposal by the European Commission is to be expected at the beginning of 2022, after which the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union will debate and amend the proposal later next year.
Read more about EUROPARC’s stance on MPAs and Natura2000 here.