The recent downgrade
Flavio Tosi, MEP for Forza Italia, returns to the issue of the wolf and the modification of the Habitats Directive to downgrade it from a strictly protected species to a protected one, on which the European process will soon resume after the historic green light in recent months from the Council of the EU and the Bern Convention. “But the European legislative process takes time – says Tosi – so I asked the Minister of the Environment Pichetto Fratin, both verbally and through a detailed letter, to evaluate a derogation. The directive in force allows it in the case of extraordinary circumstances. However, the Regions must present an emergency plan to the Mase (Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security, ed.): some Regions are absent and have not yet done their part”.
Habitat Directive
Tosi has a direct line to the Minister of the Environment Pichetto Fratin, whom he met yesterday in Verona. Pichetto Fratin, in September, after speaking with Tosi, had politically contributed to the historic vote of the EU Council in favor of the downgrading. Now the Forza Italia MEP continues the discussions with the Minister to request a derogation from the current directive on the protection of fauna, and therefore also of the wolf, in the presence of extraordinary circumstances. "Article 16 of the Habitats Directive allows, in cases of public necessity, to derogate from what is provided for in art. 12, according to very precise parameters and further specified by the implementing circulars. And other Member States have availed themselves of this derogation and have therefore carried out detailed, motivated and limited wolf culling. Certainly in Veneto, therefore in Lessinia, on the Asiago plateau, in Belluno, in Emilia-Romagna as in Tuscany, but not only, there is a clear emergency situation".
Acting on multiple fronts
The point, Tosi continues, is that "the Minister, before being able to move, must receive from the Regions the analysis and the proposal within the strict terms provided for by European legislation: some have not done so. While we in Europe are trying to act on several fronts to help citizens, breeders and mountain territories, on the one hand reforming the rules and on the other asking for a derogation from the one in force, some Regions are taking it easy. This is not good, because we should act as a team and create a system. The ministry is urging them, therefore we need to put pressure on the Regions that are non-compliant and late". (Source PRESS OFFICE HON. TOSI)
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