The Croatian Chamber of Agriculture (HPK) on Wednesday called on the Croatian members of the European Parliament to vote against the proposal for regulation of nature restoration today, saying the proposal goes against the interests of Croatian rural areas, agriculture, and fisheries.

The HPK said in a statement it had sent a letter on behalf of Croatian family farms to all MEPs, appealing to them to vote against the proposed regulation. It said that each vote by the Croatian MEPs against this bill was very important and that voting in favour would cause direct damage to future agricultural and fisheries production in Croatia.

“If this regulation is adopted, it will have a strong negative impact on Croatian agriculture and jeopardise the already fragile agricultural production in Croatia,” HPK president Mladen Jakopovic said.

In June 2022, the European Commission put forward a proposal for a regulation on nature restoration because over 80 percent of European habitats have poor conservation status. The Commission said that the member states should restore at least 30 percent of their land and sea areas which currently have poor status by 2030, 60 percent by 2040, and 90 percent by 2050.

The proposal did not receive the support of the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety in June. Before that, it was rejected by the Committee on Agriculture and the Committee on Fisheries.

The HPK believes that Croatia has so far made a great contribution to the restoration of nature and biodiversity and that any further contribution would only further reduce the already low productivity and result in a counter-effect through increased CO2 emissions from transport pollution owing to food imports.

The regulation would not contribute to nature restoration, and it might be bad for Croatian agricultural production and lead to even greater dependence on imports, the HPK said.

The HPK also said they had expressed its support to protests by EU farmers that took place during the plenary session of Parliament. Twenty national delegations of farmers rallied in Strasbourg on Tuesday to protest against the proposed regulation.

The proposal is opposed by the European People’s Party, the largest political group in the European Parliament, and all right-wing parties.