The Parliament adopted its position on the Commission's proposal for a soil monitoring law, the EU's first-ever dedicated legal act on soil, with 336 votes in favor, 242 against, and 33 abstentions. MEPs are calling for the monitoring and improvement of soil quality in member states by 2050.
MEPs support the overall aim to have healthy soils by 2050, in line with the EU Zero Pollution ambition and the need for a harmonised definition of soil health as well as a comprehensive and coherent monitoring framework to foster sustainable soil management and remediate contaminated sites.
The new law will oblige EU countries to first monitor and then assess the health of all soils on their territory. National authorities may apply the soil descriptors that best illustrate the soil characteristics of each soil type at national level.
MEPs propose a five-level classification to assess soil health (high, good, moderate ecological status, degraded, and critically degraded soils). Soils with either good or high ecological status would be considered healthy.
Contaminated soils
According to the Commission, there are an estimated 2.8 million potentially contaminated sites in the EU. MEPs support the requirement to draw up a public list of such sites in all EU countries at the latest four years after entry into force of this Directive.
EU countries will also have to investigate, assess and clean up contaminated sites to address unacceptable risks to human health and the environment due to soil contamination. Costs must be paid by polluters in line with the ‘polluter pays' principle.
Parliament has now adopted its position at first reading. The file will be followed up by the new Parliament after the European elections on 6-9 June.
Source of information: European Parliament
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