Former EU environment chief warns against backsliding on climate crisis
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Virginijus Sinkevičius, a former environment commissioner, criticises bloc’s decision to delay deforestation law. A former EU environment commissioner has warned against backsliding on the protection of nature and the battle against the climate crisis after the bloc decided to delay its landmark deforestation law.
Virginijus Sinkevičius, the Lithuanian MEP and a vice-president of the European parliament’s Green group, said he disagreed with the decision to amend the deforestation law in order to give companies a year of extra time to ensure their products are not implicated in the felling of trees.
Every EU law “is born through a very difficult negotiation where everyone needs to give ground a bit”, he told the Guardian. “A last-minute change does not give credibility to the EU’s decision-making.”. Sinkevičius, who was EU environment commissioner for nearly five years until July, was responsible for drafting the legislation, which will ban the sale in the EU of commodities linked to deforestation such as cocoa, coffee, soy, palm oil and rubber, as well as products, including chocolate, leather and furniture.
Last month, the EU agreed a one-year delay to the lawafter intensive lobbying from industry and forested countries around the world. Sinkevičius said problems with implementing the law could have been tackled with a grace period, rather than reopening negotiations between EU lawmakers. “That additional year was a bit of a reward to those who did not try hard enough in order to comply with the legislation,” he said.
