A Muddy Affair

Civitas, 17 March 2010

The new EU environment commissioner Janez Potocnik has his eyes on our land, writes Natalie Hamill. A proposed EU Soil Directive may have been blocked in the past but it is now back, and this time Potocnik is determined to see it become law.

In 2006 the European Commission proposed a Directive to protect European soil from 7 key threats including: erosion, pollution and urbanisation. In 2007, 5 member states – including the UK – blocked the proposal in the EU Council of Ministers. They argued that because soil does not move across national borders, laws regulating it should remain a national concern.

In pushing for a Soil Directive, the EU is breaching the principle of subsidiarity and further encroaching on state sovereignty.

An EU Soil Directive would “lump all countries in the same field”, but one EU country’s needs in terms of soil protection will not necessarily be the same as other states’ needs. Huw Irranca-Davies, Minister for Marine and Natural Environment, criticised the prescriptive “one size fits all” approach, stating: “We strongly believe this is not the right way to deal with the diversity of soil-related issues across Europe.” The proposed Directive also doesn’t consider national measures already in place. In the Netherlands, soil protection has been a part of national policy for more than 25 years and Slovakia has invested in decontamination projects. The UK has a 52-point Soil Action Plan, recognising it as a vital resource, with tough legislation against contamination.

Additional EU regulation would be costly and time consuming. For example, applying this unnecessary Directive would be very costly for the UK. The former chairman of the EU Agricultural committee, Neil Parish, predicts the Directive could cost the UK as much as £25 billion over the next 25 years.

6 states are blocking the newly proposed Directive: the UK, France, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Malta. Mr Potocnik has called these States “illogical” as he argues that because soil is important for biodiversity and climate change, it therefore “logically” falls under EU competence. Some states seem inclined to agree – but have they really been swayed by environmental arguments, or by the funding they stand to gain?

EU Funding is likely to target Southern European states, where soil protection is indiscernible and therefore the current soil damage is extensive. Perhaps this is why Spain, one of the previous Directive’s biggest supporters, has “dug it up” again so early into its Presidency of the EU Council…

Protecting soil is vital and in the interest of every state, but farmers should care for the soil guided by conditions established in national policy, not by bureaucrats in Brussels.