All five Fine Gael MEPs have announced they will rebel against an attempt by their centre-right political group the European People’s Party to kill the Nature Restoration Law in a make-or-break vote today that is expected to be extremely tight.
But as the bill comes before a full vote of all 705 MEPs in the parliament plenary on Wednesday, the leader of Fine Gael in the parliament Seán Kelly informed his political group they could count him out.
“I cannot vote to reject this law,” Mr Kelly announced in a social media video, saying that the EU member states had done a “good job” in amending the law in a compromise text that they backed last month.He noted that the vast majority of TDs in an Oireachtas vote had backed that compromise text, including all of Fine Gael, and so he could not join the EPP attempt to reject the law outright.
“At the end of the day one has to do what one thinks is right, and the right thing to do is to vote not to reject, but to look at the proposals and amendments one by one and then I think we can find a very good landing spot.” Midlands North-West MEP Colm Markey, who voted to reject a prior version of the law earlier this year as a member of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, confirmed that he too would not join the EPP’s drive to kill the law.
“I will not vote to reject,” he told the Irish Times, adding that he would support the EU member states’ position and back amendments to “improve the proposal”.
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