#HandsOffNature
The EU nature laws are in danger!
Join 100,000s of Europeans in telling the EU that nature is not for sale.
2026 is the best moment to rally our supporters to firmly oppose the deregulation drive, which would lead to further loss of nature and global forests, and put our health and wellbeing at risk.
Within the EU, there is currently a strong shift to “simplify” and “reduce bureaucracy” of existing laws. The simplification process is not halting before longstanding environmental legislation. EU Deforestation, Nitrates Directive, Nature Restoration Regulation, Water Framework Directive, Environmental Impact Assesments - you name it. All of them might be weakened or got weakened already. Together, we can prevent the worst. Join the campaign by signing the HandsOffNature campaign!
Stress test of the Birds & Habitats Directives
The Nature Conservation Unit of the European Commission launched a stress test until 10 August 2026 (midnight Brussels time).
Everyone can answer and every answer is welcomed and valid, whether you are a young citizen or young professional.
What can you do?
What are those directives about?
The Birds and Habitats Directives are the cornerstone of EU nature conservation policy and the main legal instruments for achieving biodiversity commitments at EU and global level.
They are Directives, which means that they need to be transposed into national legislation and they are flexible in their implementation. States can therefore decide on the means of implementation, on how to reach the goals of the Directives. They can also decide to be stricter than what the Directives require. For example, while it is mandatory to designate protected areas under these Directives, the choice of measures to be implemented in these areas at EU level is up to the Member States, although they need to be sufficient to prevent deterioration of which ecological elements need to be protected.
The objectives of the Birds and Habitats Directives
The Birds Directive (1979, revised in 2009) protects all native wild birds (>460 species) and their most important habitats across the EU. The Commission describes its strategic objective as “to maintain the population of all species of wild birds in the EU at a level which corresponds to ecological, scientific and cultural requirements, while taking account of economic and recreational requirements, or to adapt the population of these species to that level”.
The Habitats Directive (1992) protects about 233 habitat types and 1 389 species of wild animals and plants – collectively referred to as ‘species of Community interest’. The Commission says that its strategic objective is to maintain or restore natural habitats and species of Community interest at favourable conservation status taking into account economic, social and cultural requirements and regional and local characteristics. Species cover very few invertebrates, many mammals (but not all, like the badger), and many plants.
The Commission’s simplification initiative & the stress test of the Habitats and Birds Directives
The European Commission is the executive branch of EU institutions: it develops policy proposals for the EU (depending on the topics, it does for environmental matters, as a shared competence with EU countries) and makes sure the agreed policies are implemented. The Council of the EU and the Parliament are co-legislators.
In its Communication “Simplifying for sustainable competitiveness” of 10 December 2025, the Commission acknowledged both our dependence on healthy ecosystems and the importance of EU environmental legislation. At the same time, “the Commission aims to urgently boost innovation, foster decarbonisation and competitiveness, reduce dependencies and strengthen strategic autonomy”. It came up with a strategy to simplify administrative procedures, to reduce “administrative burden”. The so-called environmental omnibus is the legislative package to implement this simplification strategy.
This strategy includes various focuses and proposals, regarding reporting obligations (e.g., on waste, emissions), permitting obligations for some projects (decarbonisation), speeding environmental assessments for renewable energy infrastructures or critical raw minerals.
While there can be useless, overlengthly or too complicated administrative procedures, this “simplification strategy” is also used to lower environmental restrictions, reduce environmental impact assessment obligations (in having one national assessment instead of project level ones), and ultimately authorize more extraction and other impactful activities.
The “stress test” of the Birds and Habitats Directives
The stress test is supposed to “assess whether the Birds and Habitats Directives remain fit to achieve their objectives in a cost-efficient way”, “while safeguarding economic, social and environmental goals”. Nobody really knows what a “stress test” really is: the Commission’s technical unit responsible for nature conservation is responsible for it, through a supposedly objective assessment of administrative activities, to see if there are unnecessary burdens, if the rules are too complicated to apply, unclear, with too many steps for nothing.
As part of this stress test, the Commission is consulting citizens, States, businesses, environmental NGOs, etc. We as youth need to be part of this. Join the consultation & share the Youth statement from Biodiversity Action Europe, Youth Environment Europe, Generation Climate Europe, the European Youth Parliament for Water, the Human Development Research Initiative and the Global Youth Biodiversity Network through its European, France, Italy, and Austrian chapters!
Be part of the stress test!
Everyone can - and should - be part of this. We provided you with a guidance to make it easier for you to answer the stress test.
Please note that you need to register on the platform “EU survey” to provide an answer. You can save the pdf, you can also prepare your answers over multiple times by saving it without directly submitting it.
Consultation scope: The aim of this public consultation is to gather views and opinions of interested stakeholders and the general public on the implementation of the Birds and Habitats Directives (explained below).
The consultation will also allow the respondents to provide specific inputs on reducing administrative burden and achieving the directives' objectives more cost-effectively.
The inputs received through the public consultation will be used in the stress test of the Birds Directive and the Habitats Directive, as part of the Commission’s wider work on simplification.
Given that the consultation includes a question on age, we can ask for an analysis on youth perspective to be conducted.
Share our youth statement!
You can share this statement directly to the European Commissioner for the environment:
cab-roswall-contact@ec.europa.eu
Past campaigns
“Simplification of administrative burden in environmental legislation”
In August 2025, the EU launched a call of evidence to understand how to simplify the administrative burden in environmental legislation. The current narrative is strongly focusing on “simplifying” and “reducing bureaucracy” of existing laws. It goes back to the so called Omnibus Packages launched by the EU Commission in February 2025. While the declared objectives of streamlining, simplification and reduction of burden are very much welcome, it is mainly used to deregulate and reduce past achievements within environmental (and social) legislation (see the opinion of EEB: Omnibus a trojan horse for aggressive deregulation or check the reporting by Business & Human Rights Resource Center: Omnibus “a devastating blow to EU environmental objective”).
The challenge is that there is a strong framing on "competitiveness vs environment” or “environmental protection impedes our economic progress”. The opposite is the case. Biodiversity underpins our economy and is the basis for all our life, by providing us with clean air or water, recycles many of our pollutants, absorbs CO2 - or is just a way to relax and gain strength and well-being. Regulations and directives on supply chain, sustainable finance, extended producer responsibility, circular economy, (industrial) emissions, waste management, among others are gradually shifting us towards a greener future. They are not enough, but all those measures are essential first steps if we want to keep our planet liveable. Companies and investors do see the benefits of those legislation as well - as this statement shows.
As young people, we will live with the consequences of today’s decisions far longer than current policymakers and business leaders. Weakening environmental and biodiversity protections now means passing higher costs, scarcer resources, and greater instability onto our generation and those to come.
We urge the EU to resist short-sighted deregulation and instead show true leadership by putting biodiversity and climate at the center of competitiveness, resilience, and justice for future generations.
Read our joint youth statement by Global Youth Biodiversity Network European Chapter, European Young Rewilders and Youth and Environment Europe regarding the proposal of the European Commission in relation to their call for evidence launched in August 2025:
You can also still be part of this and make your voice heard. Every single one of us counts!
Thank you all for your support,
GYBN Europe
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