Lower Austria Greens seek state aid for EU nature restoration

Lower Austria’s Green Party is calling for technical and financial support for municipalities implementing the European Union’s Nature Restoration Regulation, ORF reported on Wednesday. The party is focusing on the restoration of urban ecosystems.

Article 8 of the regulation requires that, by the end of 2030, urban ecosystems record no net loss in the national total of urban green space and urban tree canopy compared with 2024. From 2031, the regulation requires an increasing trend, which can be achieved partly by integrating urban green space into buildings and infrastructure.

Helga Krismer, the Greens’ leader in Lower Austria and parliamentary group leader, said municipalities needed technical assistance and funding from the state government. She described the wider project as extremely ideologically charged.

“It is fundamentally about the greenery in our municipalities,” Krismer said at a news conference in St. Pölten. She said 467 municipalities in Austria, including 136 in Lower Austria, were affected by the rules. Municipalities in the state still needed more information, she said.

The Greens called for standardised guidelines and templates to help municipalities assess existing conditions. They also sought targeted training, education and expert advice from the state for municipal employees and planners, as well as funding for unsealing land, new plantings and local restoration projects.

Krismer described the regulation as an opportunity for municipalities but said the state now needed to provide expertise and services. The Greens submitted a resolution on the issue during the state parliament’s budget session on July 1 and 2, but it was rejected. The party said it would continue pursuing the matter.

The Greens criticised the Austrian People’s Party, saying it was obstructing the issue at both federal and state level for purely ideological reasons. They also accused Environment Minister Norbert Totschnig of recently submitting a paper to Brussels that lacked substance.

Josef Edlinger, a People’s Party member of the Lower Austrian state parliament, responded by pointing to the Lower Austria Soil Bonus as an important instrument. He said 45 land-unsealing projects and 230 nature restoration projects were being successfully implemented across the state.

“Where and how such projects are specifically designed must be decided locally in the municipalities, not by the Greens in the St. Pölten government offices,” Edlinger said. He added that local farmers had to be supported as effectively as possible.

Johannes Pressl, president of the municipal association, said municipalities supported restoration and more greenery in towns and villages. But they needed money rather than information, and practical projects rather than what he called finger-pointing politics. Many municipalities had already demonstrated this through sponge-city projects, additional greenery and environmental projects, he said.

Susanne Rosenkranz, a Lower Austrian state councillor from the Freedom Party, also criticised Totschnig. She accused the People’s Party agriculture minister of trying to act as Brussels’ model student on restoration and said Austria was engaging in gold-plating at the expense of landowners.

Rosenkranz said those who seriously opposed the restoration regulation could not simultaneously report figures to Brussels. Lower Austria would not follow that path or report figures, she said, calling the regulation an attack on farmers.

Georg Strasser, president of the Farmers’ Association and a People’s Party member of parliament, rejected Rosenkranz’s statements. He said the Freedom Party’s state councillor for nature protection should put her own house in order before accusing Totschnig. He added that implementation must recognise work already carried out by agriculture and forestry and avoid creating additional burdens for businesses.