Romania very actively participated in negotiations of a proposal for a Regulation on nature restoration and presented many arguments regarding the flexibility of this document, on which the ministers of the environment of the European Union agreed, Senator of the Hungarian Democratic Union of Romania (UDMR) Tanczos Barna, a former environment minister, said on Thursday.

"The council discussed one of the most important draft regulations - a regulation to bring back nature to Europe - basically a regulation that places the member states under an obligation to take care of biodiversity. It is the draft regulation on nature restoration. Significant disputes also took place in the European Parliament, before this council meeting. Two camps were formed. A camp that supports this draft regulation and supports the restoration of nature according to the proposal, and a camp that is against this piece of legislation - the European People's Party took a decision not to support the regulation. Given the context, the discussions before the council and within it were quite tense, because the European Commission's proposal that started last year was a proposal that had to be modified in many places, in very many respects. Romania had a constructive position and we even had significant success in the discussions we had and many of our proposals were considered in the final version of the text, in the final proposal, at the Council's general vote," Tanczos told AGERPRES.

According to him, Romania managed to make the provisions of the proposal very flexible.

"We are primarily talking about nature restoration measures aimed at agriculture and the forestry sector - these are the two areas that are strongly affected in certain member states, especially in the member states where a lot of investments have been made in the last decades in the drainage of peatlands, the development of water courses and the transformation of rivers into artificial canals. A lot of investments have been made in the redevelopment of land and the development of agricultural land. In those member states, the regulation will certainly have a strong impact. In the member states where extensive agriculture has strongly affected pollinators, its effect can be significant," added the senator.

He said that as far as Romania is concerned, farmers should not worry, because the text agreed by the council "is extremely favourable and extremely flexible from the point of view of Romanian farmers."

In terms of forest ecosystems, Tanczos said, Romania has the best connectivity indicator.

He said that the negotiations carried out during his term of office were led by Environemnt Ministry senior official Sorin Banciu.

The European Union's environment ministers have reached a general approach on a proposal for a regulation on nature restoration, according to a press release of Romania's Ministry of Environment, Water and Forestry (MMAP ) issued on Wednesday.

"Romania's efforts to reach a consensus were highly appreciated at the European level, with the European Commission, the initiator of the legislative project, praising Romania, both as an example of good practices and as an approach to the subject. As the coordinator, on behalf of Romania, of the technical negotiation process, I am very happy and proud that Romania showed that it can be an important player at the European level, able to influence in a substantial way a significant aspect of the EU's environmental policy. I want Romania to be, inside the European Union, at the height of the political power given to it by being the seventh largest country in the European Union," says senior MMAP official Sorin Banciu. AGERPRES (RO - author: Catalina Matei, editor: Mihai Simionescu; EN - author: Corneliu-Aurelian Colceriu)