Brussels, 21/11/2012 (Agence Europe) - On the eve of the special European Council negotiations on the future Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020, environmental NGOs upped the ante on Wednesday 21 November and demanded that more be done to green the draft budget. They consider that the most recent proposals put forward by the president of European Council, Hermann Van Rompuy, contain serious shortcomings with regard to the major challenge involved. The NGO members of this collective, the WWF, BirdLife Europe, Conservation International Europe, CEE Bankwatch Network, Friends of Earth Europe, European Environment Bureau and Transport and Environment and Transport & Environment (T&E) are calling on the heads of state and government to improve matters significantly.
Markus Trilling of CEE Bankwatch Network/FoE pointed out that budget cuts are in the air of this week's EU summit, with some member states arriving in Brussels with scalpels in their pockets. But member states are obsessing over marginal sums of money at the expense of discussing how to get the most out of the future budget. Green EU spending is the quality at the heart of the budget.
To ensure that this quality is preserved and that steps are taking to promote constructive negotiations the NGOs are demanding that: - the 20 per cent Climate Change Commitment is increased to 25 per cent of the total budget and is backed up by meaningful policy actions; - the Rural Development Fund of the CAP- is strengthened and funding is increased as it includes well targeted environmental expenditure; - the LIFE Programme - which is the EU's only fund committed exclusively to EU's environment and represents less than 0.3 per cent of expenditure - is increased to 1% so it can continue delivering; - the Cohesion Policy phases out support for projects that are responsible for climate change and contribute to the destruction of our fragile biodiversity; - development funds - which are destined to help the poorest countries outside the EU - contribute to putting these countries on the road to sustainable development and helping the, to face the challenge of biodiversity loss and climate change; - infrastructure spending -the Connecting Europe Facility can lock Europe into a high emissions pathway for the energy and transport sectors or launch a new era of clean, renewable energy and sustained mobility. Nina Renshaw from T&E pointed out that this week's decisions on EU spending on major infrastructures in transport and energy will have effects up to 2050 and beyond, so we have to make sure they laid the foundations for a world leading green economy. (AN/transl.fl)