TENT supports legal case to protect Europe’s wolves

As a native species, wolves have co-evolved with Europe’s biodiversity. They play a fundamental role in regulating the health of Europe’s ecosystems. Their natural prey is wild ungulates, including red deer, roe deer, chamois, ibex, wild boar. Through direct predation and the creation of a ‘landscape of fear’, wolves manage the health, population levels and behavioural patterns of wild ungulates, reducing browsing which can significantly degrade forest ecosystems. In protecting young trees, and particularly widespread natural regeneration, wolves help build mitigation capacity against climate change. By the same token, wolves lessen damage to agricultural crops and commercial forestry, as well as the incidence of diseases (e.g., tuberculosis, African swine fever) transmitted by wild ungulates to livestock.

Despite these ecological and economic benefits, wolves have had historic conflict with livestock interests. This has been exacerbated by shifts in agricultural and animal husbandry practices, notably during the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, which increased livestock levels across Europe and simultaneously reduced their levels of protection. Throughout these centuries, the wolf in Europe faced intense persecutions, including direct killings, poisonings and trappings, backed by widespread eradication campaigns.

In the 1960s and 1970s, European wolf populations had reached their lowest levels. However, in the last 50 years, they have experienced recovery, made possible by legal protections under the Habitats Directive alongside larger, social, economic and historical processes, such as reforestation and abandonment of agricultural lands during waves of rural–urban migration. Based on available data in 2022, the total number of wolves in the 27 EU Member States is potentially around 21,500 (note that there is no uniform process across the EU for collection of wolf population data) – while this figure has been bandied by anti-wolf interests as evidence that wolves have recovered uniformly in Europe, many wolf populations are fragmented, small, vulnerable and at-risk of human-driven mortality. According to the EU’s own scientific assessment, across 39 regional conservation status assessments provided, 19 showed wolf populations to be at an unfavourable conservation status. 

Today, European wolf populations have taken advantage of their innate abilities of dispersal to naturally recolonise regions of their historic range.

In result, there is a high degree of social conflict with the wolf’s return, typified by cases where wolves have become symbolic of wider societal divisions and economic tensions.

This phenomena was largely responsible for the EU’s recent decision to downgrade their protection status under the Bern Convention, from ‘Strictly Protected’ to ‘Protected’ – a move widely regarded as politically motivated, refuted by the EU’s own scientific community, which now permits more flexible management; this includes proactive wolf culling by Member States in a manner untethered from scientific basis, as a false solution to livestock depredation.

The European Nature Trust has now provided support for legal actions led by Green Impact, which seek to annul the downgrading and thereby preserve the integrity of the EU’s own environmental architecture and process.

What is the story so far?

• In September 2024, the EU Council adopted Decision (EU) 2024/2669, formally setting the Union’s position for the 44th Standing Committee of the Bern Convention. The Decision supported the wolf’s transfer from Annex II, which lists strictly protected species, to Annex III, which only ensures general protection, citing both the species’ demographic expansion and socio-economic concerns. 
• Scientific assessments from 2022–2023 had not recommended such a move in the wolf’s protection status. There remains no ecological basis for the decision.
• In December 2025, the Standing Committee approved the EU proposal, and the amendment officially entered into force on 7 March, 2025.
• To uphold the EU’s environmental architecture and protect it from political interference, Green Impact and other NGOs with appellant status filed a case, T-634/24, which was published in the EU Official Journal on 17 February, 2025. The action was based on two grounds: first, breach of Article 191(3) TFEU, Article 6(1) TEU and Article 37 of the Charter, due to lack of proper scientific assessment; second, violation of proportionality, precaution and best available science, with misuse of powers and inadequate reasoning since the decision rests on political compromise lacking scientific basis.
• Despite the pending action in Case T-634/24, the Commission moved forward and on 7 March, aligned EU law with the Bern Convention’s downlisting of the wolf, formally reducing protection from ‘strictly protected’ to ‘protected’, invoking greater management flexibility. On 5 June, 2025, the Council gave final approval with the publication of Directive (EU) 2025/1237. On 15 August 2025, applicant NGOs led by Green Impact and supported by The European Nature Trust, lodged a second case, Case T-563/25 before the General Court, challenging Directive (EU) 2025/1237.
• The case highlights serious procedural defects. The misuse of legal basis also altered the form of the act, which should have been a decision and not an EU directive. Other pleas associated with the case concern the denial of participatory rights under the Aarhus Regulation, inadequate reasoning, and failure to rely on updated and independent scientific evidence.

What happens in the meantime?

At this moment, the 27 EU Member States have the opportunity to preserve the Habitats Directive. The proposed EU downlisting of wolves is currently under scrutiny by the European Court of Justice through the above legal proceedings. The 27 EU Member States should wait for the European Court’s final ruling before making any changes to their national laws. Importantly, downlisting at the national level is not mandatory: EU States have until January 2027 to transpose it into national legislation – and may ultimately choose to reject it altogether.

What are the core arguments for EU Member States to reject the downlisting?

1. Legal Uncertainty: Given that a few cases before the European Court are underway which question the legality of the EU’s wolf downlisting decision, it would be prudent to maintain current national protection. A premature change could later be deemed incompatible with EU law, especially as numerous recent judgments by the European Court of Justice have reinforced an interpretation of the Habitats Directive which clashes with the wolf downlisting decision. A few EU Member States have already announced they will keep strict protection (Belgium, Poland, Czech Republic) and won’t change their national laws; others are currently considering it. 
2. Scientific and Legal Basis: The downlisting decision is not substantiated by the available ecological and population data. On the contrary, available evidence clearly indicates that wolf populations in several regions of Europe remain vulnerable, at risk or endangered. Under the EU Habitats Directive, Member States are entitled—and in some cases obliged—to maintain stricter protection standards than those set at the EU level, particularly when science indicates continued conservation needs. 
3. Socio-Economic Arguments are Legally Irrelevant: As recently clarified by the European Court of Justice, socio-economic considerations, including those relating to livestock predation, are not valid grounds for altering conservation status under the Habitats Directive, which is based on ecology rather than economy. Moreover, such impacts are minimal and are currently mitigated through compensative and preventive measures funded by EU mechanisms such as the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
4. No Immediate Legal Obligation: While the downlisting was adopted under the Bern Convention—again largely under a strong pressure from the Brussels – based EU leadership, especially the European Commission—there is no binding legal obligation that compels EU Member States to transpose this decision immediately into both EU and national laws. Additionally, the EU Habitats Directive provides for an 18-month period for adaptation (transposition period), which should allow sufficient time for legal clarity stemming from the European Court of Justice, considering that the lack of science base is already in the public domain. International and EU environmental law regimes (including the Habitats Directive) allow States to keep species strictly protected at national level, therefore irrespective of the dictation of the Bern Convention and the EU decisions.

Other Considerations

In many areas, coexistence measures have been insufficiently uptaken by livestock interests or inadequately financed by government. 

Public opinion polls are heavily in favour of supporting retention of strict protection, particularly for areas where protective measures have been insufficiently rolled out.

Though economic arguments are excluded from decisions related to Habitats Directive, which is based on scientific considerations, there is evidence that wolf-related tourism can bring substantial financial and employment benefits for local communities.

Further information and reading

• 2024 Appeal to the European Court of Justice requesting the annulment of the downgrading of the wolf. Details: Appeal presented by five associations (Case T-634/24) to the European Court of Justice for the annulment of the Council’s decision to downgrade the wolf to the Bern Convention, 2024 Case T-634/24; Action brought on 6 December 2024 – Green Impact and others v. Council and Commission. The appeal was supported by 17 other associations, which made an intervention on the appeal. Appellants: Green Impact, EARTH, Nagy Tavak, One Voice, LNDC Animal Protection. Intervener: LEIDAA, Federazione Nazionale Pro Natura, Io non ho paura del lupo, Animal Cross, Pole Grands Predateurs, ASPAS, Ferus, Asociación Animalista LIBERA!, Suomen eläinoikeusjuristit ry, Svenska Rovdjursföreningen, Naturskyddsföreningen, Pracownia na rzecz Wszystkich Istot, OIPA, LEAL, WWF Italia, Legambiente and ASCEL 
•  700 scientists across Europe sign against the downgrading of the wolf 
• IUCN-Large Carnivore Initiative (co-ordinated by Dr Luigi Boitani): Statement against the downlisting of wolves 
•  +2000 Scientists Against the Depletion of EU Nature Directives
• Impact of predation on livestock farming – Sheep predation by wolves in the EU accounts for only 0.07% of the total number of sheep in the EU (2024). Source: Science, 24 January 2024.
• European Court of Justice, Wolf cases (Spain, Austria, Estonia) in its 2024 judgments on the cases (C601/22; C436/22; C-629/23); vs Austria and Spain and Estonia, the European Court of Justice confirmed the need to maintain strict protection in that countries and that the need to ensure a favorable conservation status of the wolf prevails over socio-economic considerations; furthermore, the wolf cannot be designated as a huntable species at regional level when its conservation status at national level is unfavorable; Ecological standards flowing from the Directive’s Favorable Conservation Status definition are non-negotiable and may not be adjusted for reasons of social and economic conflicts. 
• EU downlisting of the wolf
• A formal complaint by Client Earth at the EU Ombudsman on data about downlisting is also pending, see here.