A missed opportunity for the protection of forests and a decision that weighs on the future of Europe.
With 370 votes in favor and 264 against, the European Parliament rejected the EU Commission’s bill to create a common forest monitoring framework. The objective of the text, presented in 2023, was simple but crucial: to collect updated data on the health of European forests in a harmonized way, so as to strengthen their protection against fires, parasites and drought.
The proposal arose from the need to fill an information gap that has lasted for over fifteen years. Since 2007, with the expiry of the “Forest Focus” regulation, the Union no longer has a coordinated reporting system. Today, forestry data remains fragmented and not comparable between member countries, hindering effective climate adaptation strategies.
The Commission’s project envisaged strengthening the Forestry Information System for Europe (FISE), integrating satellite data and national monitoring. An open and shared digital infrastructure would have made it possible to promptly identify environmental threats and guide public policies on a solid scientific basis.
Politics enters the field
But the majority formed by the European People’s Party (EPP) and far-right groups chose differently. The MPs against justified the vote by talking about “excessive bureaucracy” and an alleged attempt by Brussels to “centralize” national competences. The decision effectively closes the first parliamentary reading, while the Commission – which had already expressed reservations on the version modified by the Council – now evaluates whether to withdraw the proposal entirely.
The reactions were not long in coming. For rapporteur Emma Wiesner (Renew Europe), the refusal represents “a missed opportunity” to equip the Union with common tools against forestry emergencies. Environmental NGOs, such as Fern, are of the same opinion, speaking of “an enormous wasted opportunity”.
Harsh words also came from the progressive Italian delegations. The Democratic Party denounced a “serious step backwards in environmental policies”, while the European Greens and the Green and Left Alliance defined the rejection as “a short-sighted choice that weakens the EU’s ability to react to increasingly frequent environmental crises”.
What consequences on the ground
Cristina Guarda and Ignazio Marino, Italian members of the Agriculture and Environment commissions of the European Parliament, recalled that “last summer over a million hectares went up in flames. Without a common monitoring system – they added – we will be left with fragmented data and poorly informed decisions, just when a coordinated response is needed”.
The vote comes at a delicate moment for the European climate and biodiversity strategy, already under pressure after the controversy over the anti-deforestation regulation (EUDR), which the Commission is reviewing to simplify its implementation. All of these measures should have strengthened the Green Deal and consolidated Europe’s role as a global leader in the protection of natural heritage.
Today, however, the political signal is the opposite: a Europe that gives up on equipping itself with common tools just as its ecosystems face the harshest consequences of global warming.
However, the vote does not definitively close the game. In parallel, Parliament approved the extension of the tasks of the Permanent Group of Experts on Forestry and Forestry, which will now assist the Commission in evaluating new legislative initiatives. It remains to be seen whether this body will be able to compensate, at least in part, for the lack of a truly binding regulatory framework.
Without a solid and shared information base, forest management risks remaining at the mercy of emergencies and political pressures. In an ever-warming Europe, the lack of a common compass for its forests is not just a technical issue: it is an environmental and political defeat.
