Brussels, 17/03/2005 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament feels that the Commission's hopes that the structural funds and the rural development funding of the EU will, in future, make a substantial contribution to the co-funding of the European network of protected natural habitats, Natura 2000, are a very good thing. This willingness must now be reflected in the contributions of these funds for the period 2007-2013. However, the MEPs do not feel that this is taking shape. The Parliament is therefore inviting the Commission to increase the contributions proposed for these funds, and to create a specific EU fund for biodiversity post-2006 under “Life Plus” (a new proposed financial instrument for the environment covering the period 2007-201). This specific fund will pay for management activities under Natura 2000 which cannot be covered either by the structural funds or by the rural development funds. Without this, the EU will endanger the objective it has set itself of halting the decline of biodiversity by 2010. This was the message voiced by the Parliament in Strasbourg on 10 March, adopting the report by Margrete Auken (Greens/EFA, Denmark). The Parliament also calls on the Commission to change its Life Plus proposal to include an objective on biological diversity. The MEPs stress that the planned costs of the network Natura 2000, put at 6.1 billion EUR by the Commission, underestimates the real costs of managing the network and should therefore be seen as a bare minimum.
Ms Auken described the Parliament's vote is a victory for biodiversity in the EU. In a press release, she said: “the Parliament calls for the release of all EU funds to Member States to be conditional on States' ability to show a credible plan to finance Natura 2000. Instead of wishful thinking, as the Commission is engaging in, MEPs have called for the integration of environmental considerations into all key EU policy areas and for the Union to provide funding with guarantees for the Natura network (…). If the Commission and Council fail to speed up the transfer of money from direct agricultural support to the rural development pillar, the integrationist approach will fail and they will have to take responsibility for putting Europe's nature at risk”. Her colleague Kathalijne Buitenweg (Greens/EFA, Netherlands), a member of the temporary parliamentary committee on the financial perspectives of the EU, noted that 3 billion EUR a year could be freed up and made available to Life Plus “by putting an end to agricultural export subsidies, by transferring some of the budget for direct support to farmers to rural development and by making the Member States co-finance direct support to agricultural revenue”.