COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT pursuant to Article 294(6) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union concerning the position of the Council on the adoption of a Directive on Soil Monitoring and Resilience (Soil Monitoring Law)
Date: 2025-09-30
Institutions: Directorate-General for Environment, European Commission
Subjects: conservation of resources, degradation of the environment, environmental monitoring, soil improvement, soil pollution, soil protection, soil resources

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   EUROPEAN COMMISSION  Brussels, 30.9.2025  COM(2025) 596 final 2023/0232 (COD)  COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT  pursuant to Article 294(6) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union  concerning the position of the Council on the adoption of a Directive on Soil Monitoring and Resilience (Soil Monitoring Law)  
 
2023/0232 (COD) 

COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION 
TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT 

pursuant to Article 294(6) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union 

concerning the 

position of the Council on the adoption of a Directive on Soil Monitoring and Resilience 
(Soil Monitoring Law) 

1. 

BACKGROUND 

Date of transmission of the proposal to the European Parliament 
and to the Council (document COM(2023) 416 final – 2023/0232 
COD):  

5 July 2023. 

Date  of  the  opinion  of  the  European  Economic  and  Social 
Committee: 

25 October 2023. 

Date of the position of the European Parliament, first reading: 

10 April 2024. 

Date of transmission of the amended proposal: 

N/A. 

Date of adoption of the position of the Council: 

29 September 2025. 

2. 

OBJECTIVE OF THE PROPOSAL FROM THE COMMISSION 

The  objective  of  the  proposal  is  to  put  in  place  a  solid  and  coherent  soil  monitoring 
framework for  all soils  across the EU  and to  continuously improve soil health in  the Union 
with the view to achieve healthy soils by 2050 and maintain soils in healthy condition, so that 
they  can  supply  multiple  ecosystem  services  at  a  scale  sufficient  to  meet  environmental, 
societal  and  economic  needs,  prevent  and  mitigate  the  impacts  of  climate  change  and 
biodiversity loss, increase the resilience against natural disasters and for food security and that 
soil contamination is reduced to levels no longer considered harmful to human health and the 
environment. 

3. 

COMMENTS ON THE POSITION OF THE COUNCIL 

The position of the Council, as adopted at first reading, fully reflects the political agreement 
reached  between  the  European  Parliament  and  the  Council  on  10  April  2025.  The 
Commission supports this agreement, the main points of which are set out below. 

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Soil  health  monitoring:  the  co-legislators  agreed  to  build  on  the  Commission’s 
proposal by introducing common analytical and sampling methodologies, a common 
list of soil health descriptors and criteria for healthy soils. They agreed to go beyond 
the Commission’s proposal by requiring monitoring of additional soil contaminants 
(PFAS,  pesticides  and  their  metabolites)  and  a  more  demanding  common  soil 
biodiversity descriptor. Member States are allowed to limit the number of points at 
which  these  contaminants  and  the  soil  biodiversity  descriptor  are  monitored.  This 

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compromise increases the value of soil monitoring while maintaining cost-efficiency 
and keeping the burden low.  

Soil health assessment: the co-legislators agreed to set non-binding sustainable target 
values,  reflecting  the  long-term  aspirational  objective  of  the  Directive  to  have 
healthy soils by 2050, and operational trigger values to determine when support from 
Member  States  is  necessary,  to  be  established  by  Member  States.  The  compromise 
keeps a fine balance between the long-term objective of healthy soil and the need to 
prioritise short- and medium-term measures to improve soil health. 

Soil  resilience:  the  co-legislators  agreed  to  move  away  from  the  concept  of 
sustainable  soil  management  towards  support  for  soil  health  and  resilience.  They 
agreed  to  remove  provisions  that  may  imply  obligations  that  Member  States  could 
pass onto soil managers, and to delete the annex listing sustainable soil management 
principles. A link between soil  health assessment and support to soil resilience was 
kept  based  on  the  notion  of  operational  trigger  values.  This  compromise  keeps  the 
requirements that allow the transition towards healthy soils to be set in motion, and 
soil resilience overall to be increased. 

Principles to mitigate the impacts of land take: the co-legislators agreed to shift the 
focus from all forms of land take to only the most visible and impactful types of land 
take, soil sealing and soil removal, which are also the easiest  to  monitor, including 
remotely.  The  co-legislators  further  clarified  that  these  provisions  are  effort-based, 
would  not  impact  national  competence  on  spatial  planning,  do  not  require  new 
permitting  procedures  and  should  not  prevent  permitting  of  new  activities.  These 
provisions  clarify  the  margin  of  flexibility  that  Member  States  have  when 
implementing these mitigation principles. 

Timeframe  for  implementing  the  Directive:  the  co-legislators  agreed  to  extend  the 
deadlines  for  several  obligations.  These  extensions  provide  sufficient  time  to 
implement  the  obligations  of  the  Directive  and  alleviate  the  administrative  and 
financial burden intensity through a gradual implementation approach. 

Support from the Commission: the co-legislators required the Commission to provide 
support,  assistance  and  capacity  building  to  Member  States.  In  particular,  they 
requested  the  Commission  to  provide  support  to  Member  States,  within  very  short 
deadlines,  to  transpose  and  implement  numerous  provisions  of  the  Directive  by 
providing  non-binding  documents  and  scientific  tools.  The  support  from  the 
Commission  will  help 
the 
implementation  of 
Commission underlines that this requires significant human and financial resources. 

the  Directive.  However, 

the 

4. 

CONCLUSION 

The Commission supports the results of the inter-institutional negotiations and can therefore 
accept the Council's position at first reading. 

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