The Commission has today launched a call for evidence to gather views on the upcoming possible legal provisions mentioned in the EU Soil Strategy for 2030 and relevant alternative options. This call for evidence is open for feedback until 16 March 2022. Your input will be taken into account as the Commission further develops and fine tunes this initiative. Further consultation activities, including a public consultation, will take place in the second quarter of 2022.
The goal of this consultation strategy is to ensure that all relevant stakeholders and citizens are given the opportunity to express their views on the upcoming possible legal provisions mentioned in the EU Soil Strategy for 2030. It builds upon consultations that already took place to prepare the EU Soil Strategy. The Commission will collect additional evidence, study and elaborate further on existing analysis and findings, seek opinions and insights about the problem, the feasibility and possible impacts (economic, social and environmental) of legal provisions and of alternative actions, and will gather examples of best practices as a key input to the Impact Assessment. The consultation will also cover views on the subsidiarity of possible actions. Evidence is to be gathered in the form of views and opinions, and supported by facts and figures where possible.
Background
Soils are essential ecosystems delivering crucial services, such as the provision of food, energy and raw materials, carbon sequestration, water purification and infiltration and sustain many sectors of the economy. The EU Soil Strategy for 2030 was adopted in November 2021 and sets the vision to have all soils in healthy condition by 2050 and to make protection, sustainable use and restoration of soils the norm.
It proposes a combination of voluntary and legislative action and calls for ensuring the same level of protection to soil that exists for water, the marine environment and air in the EU.
The aim of the Soil Health Law proposal announced in the EU soil strategy for 2030 is to:
- specify the conditions for a healthy soil
- determine options for monitoring soil and
- lay out rules conducive to sustainable soil use and restoration.
For more information
Contact
DG Environment
Unit D1 – Land Use & Management
E-mail: ENV-SOIL@ec.europa.eu
Details
- Publication date
- 15 February 2022
- Author
- Directorate-General for Environment
