Brussels, 24/10/2011 (Agence Europe) - The structural and cohesion funds should in the future better serve the transition towards a more environmentally friendly society, the NGO Friends of the Earth stated on Monday 24 October in a joint report with CEE Bankwatch Network, the central and eastern European network to monitor financial institutions. The associations lament the fact that the legislative package proposed by the Commission for the forthcoming programming period of the cohesion policy in 2014-2020 still allows for the possibility that the member states will choose a “wasteful, fossil fuel-inclined path” with only a very short-term vision, despite a certain amount of progress on energy and climate. They go on to regret the fact that at its current stage, the legislative package “lacks ambition to build a Europe which uses resources more efficiently” and is so “disappointing as regards the financing of the European objectives for a renewed biodiversity”. They continue to be convinced that the cohesion policy has a “vital role to play in tackling climate change” and stressed the importance for the negotiations underway on the cohesion policy and budget to give priority to investments in the development of technologies and infrastructure allowing a transition towards a more sustainable economy - and regions. (MD/transl.fl)