IP/06/856
Brussels, 27 June 2006
Environment: Commission welcomes Council agreement on LIFE+ European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas welcomed the common position reached by the Environment Council today on the new ‘LIFE+’ Financial Instrument for the Environment. The consensus on the draft LIFE+ Regulation follows the partial political agreement reached by the Council last December which covered all details except its budget. The common position has been decided following the agreement on the overall Financial Perspectives for 2007-2013 in April. The budget foreseen for LIFE+ is €2.1 billion for this period, as proposed by the Commission in its revised proposal. Of this, 40% has been reserved for spending on the "nature and biodiversity" part of the Programme.
“LIFE+ will become a single, modern and flexible instrument for funding and programming many EU environmental activities," Commissioner Dimas said. The programme's focus on concrete measures will contribute to improving Europe's environment. In addition, strengthening networking, communication and environmental governance will help ensure that good practice is shared throughout Europe and feeds into policy making. "
LIFE+ will bring simplification by regrouping a broad range of existing environmental programmes and instruments in a single framework. These existing instruments include the current LIFE programme, the Forest Focus and Urban programmes, DG Environment’s funding programme for environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and a general fund for policy development and implementation.
LIFE+ will address all four priority areas of the Sixth Environment Action Programme (6EAP, running from 2002 to 2012) - climate change; nature and biodiversity; health and quality of life; natural resources and waste – as well as the programme’s seven Thematic Strategies.
The new programme is divided into three strands:
LIFE+ Nature and Biodiversity: this focuses on the implementation of the EU directives on the conservation of habitats[1] and of wild birds[2], as well as further strengthening the knowledge needed for developing, assessing, monitoring and evaluating EU nature and biodiversity policy and legislation; LIFE+ Environment Policy and Governance: this covers the other 6EAP priorities besides nature and biodiversity, as well as strategic approaches to policy development, implementation and enforcement; LIFE+ Information and Communication on environmental issues.
Among its advantages, LIFE+ will bring a new strategic approach to the programming of activities with a clearer division of responsibilities between the Commission and member states. It also provides member states with more flexibility to respond to their various national and regional environmental priorities. A multi-annual strategic programme will be drawn up which will form the basis of national annual work plans to be implemented by national agencies.
Commissioner Dimas commented: “The proportion of EU funding foreseen for nature and biodiversity is broadly unchanged from the current LIFE programme. The Council's common position today takes us one step closer to the adoption of the new programme and I invite Member States to begin preparing for its implementation."
Background
In contrast to LIFE+, the existing LIFE programme is purely project-based, supporting innovative pilot and demonstration projects aimed at environmental protection and nature conservation across the EU as well as in some acceding, candidate and neighbouring countries. Since 1992, LIFE has co-financed some 2,500 projects, contributing €1.5 billion to the protection of the environment.
[1] Directive 92/43/EEC
[2] Directive 79/409/EEC
