Brussels, 12/02/2013 (Agence Europe) - The Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) has mixed views about the agreement on the multiannual financial framework 2014-2020 reached on Friday 8 February by the European Council (see EUROPE 10782). They find it good for the climate but mediocre for the environment.
On the good side, the IEEP welcomes the commitment to devote at least 20% of spending to climate-related activities, which would amount to around €27 billion annually over the next seven years. It considers this to be a major step forward, although the amount is still deemed unexceptional when one considers the investment required for decarbonisation and for making sectors such as energy, transport and construction climate-friendly.
In comparison, the compromise reached is far less attractive for the environmental priorities, IEEP bemoans. A big question mark hangs over the future of the LIFE programme, which could lose around one quarter of its resources.
With regard to the common agricultural policy (CAP), the IEEP considers that over 20 years of praiseworthy effort to increase spending of environmental public assets, have been thrown into confusion as cuts are larger in the rural development budget (13.5% less than currently in Pillar 1 of direct payments). Also, the fact that, for the first time, member states will be authorised to transfer part of their rural development envelope to direct payments for farmers under Pillar 1 will reduce by as much the positive provisions that would have allowed member states to allocate up to 15% of their direct payments envelope to the funding of environmental and climate initiatives (Pillar 2), the IEEP underlines. Fears that the European Commission's attempts to make direct payments greener will weaken have only been partially realised. The IEEP welcomes the fact that the agreement has safeguarded the member states' obligation to allocate 30% of their first pillar envelope to greening measures implemented by farmers. It regrets, however, that the extent of greening measures has been limited, with the result that management practices will be excluded despite the fact that practices, such as buffer zones along rivers or zones left fallow, are of great usefulness and value for protecting water quality, soils and biodiversity.
On the subject of cohesion, the IEEP fears that any scaling down of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) would lead to putting cohesion policy under more pressure to give priority to the building of roads and installations for fossil fuel supply rather than to sustainable transport modes and to cleaner energy supply systems. The new provisions relating to the improvement of spending quality through conditionality, fund concentration and performance control are, however, a very good thing, IEEP states. (AN/transl.jl)