Dr. Humberto Delgado Rosa:

I was referring to infrastructure and not to people. We do not propose to remove people from anywhere or to disallow families to live. On the contrary, the flexibility provided allows us to maintain every family with their own production. There are avenues to pay income from other sources, including carbon to give an example. No, we are not removing people. I gave the example of demolition, which is what Deputy Carthy referred to.

On the issue of removing productive land I will give an example. There is a target in the biodiversity strategy and the CAP to have some land on a farm and in the wider state as a biodiversity landscape feature. Such pieces of land are not productive in themselves but they bring a wider benefit, including for productivity. In the wider sense, a farm that has stone walls, trees or ponds as needed will also benefit from what nature brings in. The nature restoration law does not aim to put people or the economy aside just to reap the rewards of more nature coming in.

We know of the discussions on Mercosur. My understanding is that the trade agreements we are negotiating or renegotiating have increased standards on the environment and sustainability, with the final goal, as expressed in the green deal, to have the same standards for the products we use in the EU that are produced internally and externally. Although understanding the concerns, I think that trade is an instrument for the greater good and it will become more relevant to take sustainability into account.