On Wednesday, 30 April 2025, from 14:00 - 16:00 CET, Renew Europe, University of Coimbra, and PAN Europe are hosting a ‘Soils for Europe’ hybrid event at the European Parliament. The meeting is organised in the SOLO framework and is open to online attendance through registration.
The ‘Soils for Europe’ meeting follows the trilogue agreement on the proposal for a Soil Monitoring and Resilience Directive that took place on 9 April 2025. The session will bring together experts and policy-makers to explore key aspects of the proposed Directive, soil health and functions, as well as soil monitoring and management. It aims at further strengthening the science-policy interface on soils and taking a closer look at the practical aspects of the Directive at the national level.
The meeting will start with a warm welcome from Martin Hojsík, Vice-President of the European Parliament, while moderation will be led by the SOLO coordinator Carlos Guerra and project partner Kristine De Schamphelaere. SOLO project partner Teresa Pinto-Correia, (University of Évora) will lead a session in the afternoon.
You can find the final programme below:
14:00-14:05: Welcome
Martin Hojsík, Vice-President of the European Parliament
14:05-14:15 Introduction - A Soil Monitoring and Resilience Law for the EU: common ground for soils
Kristine De Schamphelaere, PAN Europe, Soils for Europe
Carlos Guerra, University of Coimbra, Soils for Europe
14:15-14:25: Soil health indicators and monitoring - relevant scientific findings from EJP SOIL
Rajasekaran Murugan, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Boku University, Vienna
14:25-14:35: From monitoring to steering soil functioning
Paul Bodelier, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW), Wageningen
14:35-14:45: Soil Health, Pesticides & Soil Ecological Engineering
Marcel van der Heijden, Agroscope, University of Zurich
14:45-14:55: Land Managers and Soils: from care to agency
Teresa Pinto-Correia, University of Évora
14:55-15:05: Working on soil health in Flemish Fields
Joeri Dewelde, farmer, Hoeve Begijns agro, Belgium
15:05-15:15: Living Labs for Soil Health
Wim De Kinderen, ENoLL (European Network of Living Labs) - SOILL
15:15-15:30: Institutional level planning towards a model for co-constructing a soil monitoring system in anticipation for the ESML in Portugal
André Daniel Silva Trindade, Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development (DGADR)
15:30-15:50: Questions and informal discussion
15:50-16:00: Closing remarks by organisers
We provide you here with the link and webinar number to follow the meeting online:
Join link:
https://europeanparliament.webex.com/europeanparliament/j.php?MTID=mb669ce777e1bca158402a47b3b57379d
Webinar number:
2744 740 4294
Normally, there will be the option to write questions via the chat of the webex. In case that would not be possible, feel free to send questions you might have for (one of) the speakers to kristine@pan-europe.info. Even if, due to the limited timeframe, there would be no time to answer all the raised questions during the meeting, we will do our very best to answer them in writing after the meeting.