Commission launches public feedback period on uniform format for Member States’ nature restoration plans

Today, the European Commission launched a public feedback period on the uniform format for Member States’ national restoration plans under the Nature Restoration Regulation. This is a pioneering example of digital planning tools being utilised to limit administrative burden and reuse existing information, adopting the 'report once' approach. 

It is designed as a dynamic and transparent instrument, ensuring legal certainty while significantly reducing the administrative workload for Member States. It achieves this by avoiding double reporting, prefilling data from other sources where feasible, and prioritising user-friendliness.

This uniform but flexible format will provide all concerned actors, including public authorities at the national, regional and local levels, as well as stakeholders (including citizens, farmers and other businesses), the opportunity to be informed about and participate in the planned restoration measures as appropriate and as foreseen by the Regulation.

It will also make it easy for stakeholders, governments and citizens to compare and assess the national plans, keeping track of progress over time.

The Nature Restoration Regulation, which entered into force in August 2024, is a landmark piece of legislation aimed at restoring the health and productivity of Europe’s environment.

Restoring nature is an essential contribution to the EU’s long-term economic security and welfare as it guarantees the availability of ecosystem services on which 70% of our economy depends.

Healthy ecosystems protect cities from flooding and forests from wildfires. They support food production through pollination and soil fertility and secure clean and healthy air and drinking water.

The Commission is committed to working with Member States and supporting them in the implementation of the Nature Restoration Regulation, including through this uniform format. National plans will contain all planned restoration measures, the timeline for their implementation and the associated financial resources needed. 

The feedback period is open until February 7 and can be found here.

Why is it useful to have a uniform format for national restoration plans?

• ⚖️Legal alignment: It ensures that national restoration plans contain all the information required by the Nature Restoration Regulation. Member States can safely rely on the uniform format instead of spending valuable time and resources to create their own legally compliant formats.
• 🔍 Easy to read: It presents all important information clearly and logically, helping citizens and stakeholders read and understand the plans. 
• 💡 A pioneering example of digital planning tools being utilised to limit administrative burden and reuse existing information, adopting the 'report once' approach.
• ✅ Easy to compare: It ensures all Member States follow the same structure, making plans easier to compare. Without a uniform format, plans could vary greatly in structure, content, and level of detail.
• 📊 Easy to evaluate: It helps with the consistent assessment of plans against shared criteria and benchmarks and thereby promotes objective evaluation.
• ♻️ Better data reuse across policies: It helps to reuse information already collected for other legislation, including on biodiversity, agriculture, climate and more. In fact, 10% of the data fields can reuse information already provided by Member States thanks to this approach. 
• 💻 Efficient analysis: It allows for faster aggregation and comparison of data across Member States. Without a uniform format, plans would require labour-intensive manual processes to extract key information, making it more difficult and costly to derive meaningful insights.
• 📏 Less ambiguity: It helps ensure all essential elements are included in every plan and minimises misunderstandings or misinterpretations that could otherwise lead to gaps in the draft plans. 
• 💡 Sharing best practices: It makes it easier to identify and replicate successful strategies for restoring ecosystems. 
• 🤝 Improved stakeholder engagement: It enables more focused and meaningful input from stakeholders, including in identifying relevant measures.
• 📈 Support for monitoring and reporting: It ensures from the start a consistent framework for planning, monitoring and reporting, making it easy to track progress over time.