Parliament on Wednesday adopted its position on the Commission proposal for a Soil Monitoring Law, the first-ever dedicated piece of EU legislation on soils, with 336 votes to 242 and 33 abstentions.

MEPs support the overall aim to have healthy soils by 2050, in line with the EU Zero Pollution ambition and the need for a harmonised definition of soil health as well as a comprehensive and coherent monitoring framework to foster sustainable soil management and remediate contaminated sites.

The new law will oblige EU countries to first monitor and then assess the health of all soils on their territory. National authorities may apply the soil descriptors that best illustrate the soil characteristics of each soil type at national level.

MEPs propose a five-level classification to assess soil health (high, good, moderate ecological status, degraded, and critically degraded soils). Soils with either good or high ecological status would be considered healthy.

Contaminated soils

According…