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The Minister of Agriculture, Rural Development and Environment, Mr Petros Xenophontos, participated in the work of the EU Environment Council held today in Luxembourg.
The Council adopted its position on the Regulation on nature restoration. In his intervention, Mr Xenophontos supported the Presidency's proposal and underlined both the need to provide flexibility to Member States and the need to ensure the self-sufficiency of primary production. Citing the high financial costs of implementing the proposed protection measures, he argued in favour of adequate funding to support the implementation of the various requirements of the legislation in question.
The Ministers also discussed the amendment of carbon dioxide emission standards for trucks, in the context of the completion of the climate proposals of the "Fit for 55" package. The Minister welcomed the Commission's proposal, describing the proposed emission reduction targets up to 2040 as balanced and necessary to achieve the climate neutrality objective in 2050. The Minister also welcomed the Commission's proposal to impose zero carbon emissions on new urban buses from 2030.
The third roundtable discussion topic was the Air Quality Directive. Mr Xenophontos welcomed the proposal and the level of ambition, noting, however, that some provisions, such as the need to install two monitoring stations, are too much for small member states. Considering that Cyprus and the entire Mediterranean region has high ozone concentrations, he suggested defining a methodology in the new Directive to exclude ozone exceedances due to meteorological conditions and/or transboundary pollution.
The Environment Minister also supported a Czech proposal to adopt a tool such as a lower VAT rate for recyclable/recycled products in order to promote the circular economy. He also recommended caution regarding legal aspects of such a tool, such as whether the rate would vary by product category, the percentage of recycled content and the appropriateness of using recycled content in products in relation to their use.
Finally, during a working lunch, Ministers had the opportunity to exchange views on the road to the COP 28 climate change summit, which is scheduled to take place in December 2023 in Dubai.
(MP)
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