The European Parliament’s environment and health committee (ENVI), burdened with a heavy workload in the last five-year term, is on track to be split up so that it no longer handles health and food safety, according to heavyweight centre-right EU lawmaker Peter Liese.
The European Parliament hosts 20 standing committees, where the bulk of EU lawmakers’ work takes place. Their work is supported by four subordinate committees.
But following the EU elections, the Parliament’s largest political group, the European People’s Party, wants to change the structure to accommodate the growing number of laws passing through the health and safety committee, known as ENVI.
“ENVI will be split,” Liese, a German EPP lawmaker who handles environment and health matters for his group, told journalists on Tuesday (2 July).
Although the matter is not “100% fixed,” Liese sees “growing consensus among the leaders of the different groups” and expects a decision by next week.
The split would entail “a health and food safety committee” separate from ENVI, which would remain in charge of environment and climate legislation, he explained.
Currently, the SANT committee, created in February 2023 and focusing on public health, exists as a subcommittee, subordinate to ENVI and with more limited competences.
In the last five years, ENVI handled the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic alongside dozens of laws to enact the European Commission’s flagship Green Deal drive.
However, other political groups are not yet confident the split will materialise.
The S&D group told Euractiv that they continue to oppose the move, as they are “strong advocates” of the One Health approach, which considers the links between the health of people, animals, and ecosystems.
“We believe that this is best served in the ENVI committee, with the help of its subcommittee,” a spokesperson for the centre-left group said.
Several sources who work for the S&D group and the Greens in the European Parliament told Euractiv that the situation was not yet clear.
German members of the liberal Renew group see the proposed split as a crucial step towards achieving one of their priorities: a standing committee focused on defence. The S&D is prepared to support this, but conditional upon the creation of a standing human rights committee.
In left-wing circles, there is concern about breaking up ENVI, given its track record as a major progressive player in environment laws. For example, restricting pollutants like PFAS, also known as forever chemicals, is expected to be harder under the proposed new arrangement.
“ENVI has been successful in ensuring better protection through strengthening policies that have addressed air pollution, reduced exposure to health-harming chemicals,” said Anne Stauffer, deputy director of the green NGO HEAL, urging lawmakers to preserve the committee.
*Maria Simon Arboleas, Max Griera and Sofia Sanchez Manzanaro contributed to this reporting
[Edited by Donagh Cagney/Zoran Radosavljevic]
