The EU Birds Directive is a foundational piece of EU law on bird conservation and sustainable hunting, in place since the late 1970s and central to the context in which FACE was formed as a European federation. Its legal text has remained unchanged, while the directive itself has been subject to periodic scrutiny and evaluation — most notably through the Fitness Check of the Nature Directives carried out around a decade ago — demonstrating its durability over time.

Adopted in the early 1990s, the Habitats Directive complements the Birds Directive by establishing a framework for the conservation of habitats and species of European importance, including through the Natura 2000 network. Now in force for over 30 years, it has likewise remained legally stable during assessment and review and forms the second pillar of Europe’s nature conservation framework.

In a recent communication, the European Commission announced that the Birds and Habitats Directives will be subject to a “Stress Test” in 2026. During this review, several key aspects will be taken into account, including climate change, food security, competitiveness, resilience, evolving case law, the need for legal certainty, and other relevant developments. Based on this exercise, the Commission may issue guidelines to facilitate implementation, including guidance on the management of predators, for which room for improvement was identified.

The last assessment of these two directives concluded that, within the broader EU biodiversity policy framework, they remain fit for purpose. However, it also found that significant improvements in implementation were necessary for the directives to deliver their intended outcomes.

FACE will follow this process carefully because any changes to these directives could directly impact hunting in Europe through habitat conservation measures or changes to the lists of huntable species