Brussels, 20/11/2015 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission gave the green light on Friday 20 November to funding of €160.6 million for 96 innovative environmental and nature conservation projects.
The projects, worth a total of €264.8 million, are eligible for EU co-financing under the EU's LIFE financial instrument for the environment and will be implemented in 21 member states (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom).
Selected from among 1,117 applications from public and private bodies, submitted in response to a call for proposals that closed in June 2014, they cover LIFE's three components (LIFE Environment and Resource Efficiency, LIFE Nature and Biodiversity and LIFE Environmental Governance and Information).
“Money invested in environment projects is money well spent”, said Environment Commissioner Karmenu Vella in a press release. He sees in these projects “many promising avenues here that will help steer Europe towards a low-carbon, resource efficient and sustainable future”.
Environment and Resource Efficiency. A total of 51 projects with an overall budget of €103.3 million will receive EU co-financing of €56.2 million. These projects cover actions in five thematic areas: air, environment and health, resource efficiency, waste and water.
Nature and Biodiversity. 39 projects will share a total budget of €153.9 million, to which the EU will contribute €100 million. Since they will seek to improve the conservation status of endangered species and habitats and preserve biodiversity, they will contribute to the implementation of the Habitats Directive (92/42/EEC) and/or the Birds Directive (79/409/EEC), and to achievement of the EU goal of halting biodiversity loss by 2020 and to restoring ecosystems.
Environmental Governance and Information. Six projects have been selected. They will receive co-financing of around €4.5 million out of total investment of €7.5 million.
The LIFE 2014-2020 programme, specifically devoted to the environment and climate, has a total budget of €3.4 billion, over €850 million of which is earmarked for climate action. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)