Brussels, 28/06/2012 (Agence Europe) - As talks on the EU's 2014-2020 budget kicked off, the NGO Birdlife Europe and its German partner (NABU) welcomed adoption by the environment committee of the German Federal Parliament of a ground-breaking decision calling for significant strengthening of the EU's environmental programme LIFE, to make it the key financial instrument for environment and climate action. German parliamentarians are calling for a budget increase that would be more than twice the European Commission's proposal. The NGOs find this is “encouraging” in these times of crisis and “salutary” for a “sustainable future”.
While, at the present time, the LIFE allocation is barely 0.2% of the budget, and the European Commission is proposing to increase it to 0.3%, i.e. €3.6 billion, with significant widening of the programme's scope (see EUROPE 10573 and 10514), German MPs call for LIFE to be enabled to fund 10% of the costs of Natura 2000, the pan-European network of protected natural sites. In other terms, according to estimates made by the European Parliament and the Commission, the German MPs wish to allocate around €6 billion to LIFE. Over recent months, Germany's environment minister, who had defended the position taken, has received backing from other member states. BirdLife Europe and many other European green NGOs are asking for an increase of the LIFE budget to 1% from the EU budget, allowing funding of 15% of the Natura 2000 network and many other essential environmental measures. (AN/transl.jl)