Copa and Cogeca, EBA and CEMA have sent a letter to Commissioners Roswall and Hansen urging swift action on the long-overdue amendment to the Nitrates Directive to clarify derogation around RENURE technologies (Recovered Nitrogen from Manure). This call comes amid growing pressure on EU farmers, in particular due to upcoming sanctions on Russian and Belarusian fertilisers.
RENURE, as initially proposed in the study by the Joint Research Center, offers a local, sustainable solution that could significantly boost the EU’s fertiliser autonomy in coming years. RENURE technologies, including certain digestates, are examples of farm-level innovation with multiple environmental and economic benefits — from reducing livestock emissions to producing high-quality fertilisers and substrates — and deserve greater recognition. However, farmers need a clear and stable regulatory framework to invest and scale up these solutions.
Despite the European Commission’s acknowledgement of RENURE’s potential in its Vision for Agriculture and Food and the Clean Industrial Deal, as well as in the European Parliament’s own-initiative report, the current regulatory framework has failed to unlock this potential. RENURE remains constrained in the Nitrates Directive.
The amendment proposed by the European Commission is not fully aligned with the RENURE criteria developed by the Joint Research Centre, nor with the principle of technological neutrality it envisages. Technological neutrality should be a cornerstone of legislation whenever possible in order to avoid favouring or discriminating against any technology or its manufacturers, developers, suppliers and distributors. This principle also prevents legislation from quickly becoming obsolete and requiring further amendment.
By laying down a limiting list of approved production methods (‘processing treatments’), the draft amendment completely stifles innovation aimed at new, improved production methods – in direct opposition to Commission’s ambitions concerning competitiveness. Furthermore, a new limitation of 100 kg N/ha/year from RENURE is proposed in the amendment. As the key characteristic of RENURE is that the products are or behave identically to synthetic fertiliser, no such limitation should be included.
The necessary amendments to secondary legislation via the Nitrates Committee remain pending and the current approach remains too restrictive.
It is deeply concerning that the Nitrates Committee has failed to improve and move this amendment forward in its last four meetings. At a time when farmers are being urged to adopt circular and sustainable fertilisation practices and face rising tariffs on imported fertilisers from Russia and Belarus, the lack of regulatory clarity is a perfect example, in our view, of the contradictory injunctions that the Commission could resolve.
This is why Copa and Cogeca, together with the European Biogas Association (EBA) and the European Agricultural Machinery Industry Association (CEMA), are calling on the Commission to act quickly and consistently. If it is serious about strategic autonomy, Europe cannot afford to overlook RENURE.
Fonte: Copa Cogeca
