Soil monitoring: deal with Council on new EU law with better support for farmers

News European Parliament | April 4, 2025

Read the full article (News European Parliament)

"The informal agreement between EU co-legislators will ensure soil is monitored in all EU countries and farmers get better support to improve soil health.

On Thursday morning, Parliament and Council negotiators reached a provisional political agreement on the Commission’s proposal for a soil monitoring law. The overall objective is to have healthy European soils by 2050, in line with the EU’s “zero pollution” ambition. It should also provide for a more coherent and harmonised EU framework for soil monitoring.

Monitoring and assessing EU soils

According to the deal, member states will have to monitor and assess soil health across their territories using common soil descriptors – characterising the physical, chemical, and biological aspect of soil health for each soil type – and an EU methodology for sampling points. To make it simpler for member states, they will be free to build on national soil monitoring campaigns or other equivalent methodologies. The Commission will support member states by reinforcing its current EU soil sampling programme, LUCAS Soils. It will offer tailor-made financial and technical support.

To reflect different levels of soil degradation and local conditions, national governments will set non-binding, sustainable, targets for each soil descriptor, in line with the overall objective of improving soil health."