Between Policy Ambition and Legal Fragmentation: Soil Protection in the EU After the European Green Deal

ABSTRACT Protecting soil is crucial for the green transition, but over 60% of soils in the EU are unhealthy. The present article provides an overview and analysis of EU soil policy and legislation, following the adoption of the European Green Deal (EGD), to evaluate whether any progress has been made towards a more effective and comprehensive framework for soil protection. With regard to policy, the article investigates to what extent soil protection is integrated within the EGD strategies, the soil‐relevant objectives that have been established and their level of achievement. At the legislative level, an inventory has been prepared, which includes 48 pieces of legislation and 79 provisions that are relevant to soil protection. Legislative provisions have been classified according to the soil threats addressed, the types of measures set, their degree of stringency and whether they are aimed at preventing or remediating soil degradation. Results are compared with previous research on EU‐soil legislation to outline significant post‐EGD changes and trends. Quantitative research is complemented by a qualitative analysis of the most innovative pieces of soil‐related legislation. The article concludes that, although soils are increasingly recognised as a critical component of environmental policy, the link between policy objectives and the development of legislation is weak. The legislative framework is still highly fragmented and mainly aimed at preventing a few soil threats. New legislation tries to combine the use of binding measures with granting flexibility to the Member States in the implementation process, while market‐based instruments and financial enablers are rarely applied.