The EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 is an element of the European Green Deal, the flagship initiative of the European Commission to address climate change and environmental degradation in the EU and beyond. 

The EU will soon unveil a new strategy that aims to ‘protect nature and increase the coverage and effectiveness of protected areas’, ‘restore damaged ecosystems’, ‘promote the sustainable use of forest [and other] ecosystems’, and to ‘fully integrate biodiversity’.

Yet our experience is that too often governments in central and eastern Europe, the Balkans and the eastern Neighbourhood plow head with projects harmful to the environment and at odds with EU legislation, sometimes with the support of EU funding. Our hope is that the following case studies provide a cautionary tale to the EU in formulating its new biodiversity strategy.