If there is one positive thing that Russia invading Ukraine accomplished, it's forcing Europeans to stop being hypocrites about where their food and energy really derives. It is not Europe, and has not been since they started shutting off coal plants and nuclear energy and claimed solar and wind only needed political will to take over.(1) And that Russian organic food imports were anything more than a placebo in sticker form.(2)
The supporters of this "Nature Restoration Law" were the usual progressive anti-science suspects but they needed a wild card to get it passed. Ireland is in for anything if Europe says it's bad, it is why they opened "diplomatic" relations with the terrorist group Hamas after the dictator-backed group attacked Israel. So they jumped in. Belgium is a receiver and not a giver of economic largesse in the EU so they are fine "reviving" 20 percent of European land because none of that will impact Belgians.
With the left in freefall in Europe, environmentalists found someone about to lose her job to do something that may be illegal. Or not. It's Europe, judges make no sense.
Environmentalists lost a lot of seats in the latest EU parliament elections, the Greens alone lost 19 seats, so they had to move fast before Belgium lost control of the EU presidency at the end of this month. Though they only needed Belgium or Austria to roll over to the anti-science side and it was EU law, Belgium was not having it.
Out of the blue, Austrian Environment Minister Leonore Gewessler said Austria had changed its mind. She announced she had legal authority to speak both for her boss and the country and approve it.
The EU courts will probably agree because they don't have a guiding light like the US Constitution to create checks and balances. Yet she didn't do it for Gaia. She was about to lose her job and wants to run for Parliament so she wanted a way to begin her political campaign, and chose to - illegally, according to the rest of the Austrian government - speak for Austria and commit to this without authority.
It is was a great political stunt. For European environmentalists, that is what it's all about.
NOTES:
(1) It was no secret they were still buying gas and oil from Russia, but they were doing that through Ukraine. After the first fight between Russia and Ukraine, Europe scrambled to build a pipeline directly from Russia. That way they would never have to notice Ukraine blinking out of existence. Yet with environmentalists colluding to waive objections, Russia didn't want to risk anyone standing up to him, so he attacked early. German said all the right things about helping, and even sent ambulances, but they began worrying about fuel. Coal plants came back online, emissions-belching wood pellets, exempt from emissions thanks to the climate agreement France and Germany wrote (they are charged to exporting countries which are exempt from emissions restrictions as 'developing' nations), increased.
(2) If you never do surprise spot testing of organic food, you don't have to admit that 25% of it is just regular food from Russia.
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