Legal Alerts/15 Apr 2025
The EU Agreed on Soil Monitoring
The Council of the EU, the European Parliament and the EU Commission reached a provisional political agreement on the Soil Monitoring Directive on 9 April. The agreed text sets out a non-binding goal to achieve healthy soils by 2050.
The Directive aims to improve the monitoring of soil conditions, increase knowledge of contaminated areas, and reduce the risks caused by pollution. It will introduce a new framework to monitor soils, along with measures on sustainable soil management and the management of contaminated sites. The monitoring will be based on national soil monitoring systems. The Directive does not impose new direct obligations on landowners or land managers.
Key highlights
- The Commission proposed the Soil Monitoring Directive in July 2023 to ensure the same level of protection for soils that exists for water, the marine environment, and air in the EU. The background to the proposal is the poor condition of soils in the EU. An estimated 60 to 70% of European soils are unhealthy, due to urbanisation, low land recycling rates, intensification of agricultural practices, and climate change. Degraded soils are major drivers of the climate and biodiversity crises, and they reduce the provision of key ecosystem services. The Commission proposed a soil protection directive already in 2006. It faced opposition from some Member States, and the Commission withdrew the proposal in 2014.
- The Directive introduces a framework for monitoring soils in the EU. With coordinated monitoring, it will be possible to calibrate land-use practices to enhance soil health and ensure sustainable yields and revenues. It will not impose new direct obligations on landowners or land managers. Instead, Member States will set non-binding targets for each soil descriptor. According to the agreement, Member States must monitor and assess soil health across their territories using common soil descriptors that characterise physical, chemical, and biological aspects of soil health for each soil type, together with an EU methodology for sampling points. To simplify matters, Member States may build on existing national soil monitoring campaigns or other equivalent methodologies. The Commission will support them by reinforcing its current EU soil sampling programme.
- The legislation obliges Member States to compile a publicly accessible inventory of sites that may be contaminated within ten years of its taking effect, and it requires them to address any unacceptable risks to human health and the environment. In addition, an indicative watch list of emerging substances that may present a significant threat to soil health, human health, or the environment – where further data are needed – will be established 18 months after the law’s entry into force. This watch list will include relevant PFAS (often referred to as “forever chemicals”) and pesticides. In Finland, information on contaminated land has been collected in the Matti system since the 1990s. The same system may be used for the purpose of the Directive, but some technical and legislative changes may be needed.
- The Directive encourages the use of support measures to emphasise the importance of soil health for land users. Such measures may include independent advice, training activities, capacity building, promotion of research and innovation, and steps to raise awareness of the benefits of soil resilience.
- The Directive will grant Member States flexibility in its implementation. Member States must establish soil units covering their territory for the purposes of monitoring design and reporting on soil conditions. A soil unit is a distinct area within a soil district that emerges from the intersection of spatial data used as criteria for ensuring statistical uniformity. Member States may use existing monitoring activities and completed projects to compile soil-related data. EU soil monitoring may also be integrated into this process, although participation remains voluntary for each Member State.
Next steps?
The European Parliament and the Council must ratify the new Directive before it can enter into force. It will then take effect 20 days after its publication in the Official Journal of the EU. After that, Member States will be required to establish the national framework within three years for the Directive to operate.
If you have any questions about how the Directive might impact your business or require assistance in compliance, please feel free to contact the undersigned or your regular Borenius contact.
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