Brussels, 02/12/2005 (Agence Europe) - It took all of the persistence of the UK Presidency and the goodwill of the Commission, in Brussels on Friday, for the environment ministers of the EU to reach a partial political agreement on Life Plus, the financial instrument for the environment to take over from the current Life for the period 2007-2013. During a highly animated public debate, all the delegations stated that they subscribed to the objectives of Life + and the addition of a component on Nature and the preservation of biodiversity within the priority action areas identified by the Commission. Life Plus would thus shore up measures in terms of best practice, or demonstration measures to support the objectives of protecting nature and biodiversity, and innovative measures or pilot projects supporting the implementation and development of the environment policy, in line with the compromise put forward by the UK Presidency. The trickier issue of how funds are divided between the Commission (for the centralised management of the projects) and the Member States (for the proportion delegated to them), and the weighting of decisive criteria for the eligibility of projects for Life Plus co-funding ("democratic weight" criterion and "nature" criterion based on the proportion of protected natural areas of Community importance on the territory of the Member State, under the "habitats" directive) was a real headache. On the division of funds between the Commission and the Member States, the delegations were unanimous in the view that the percentage of 25% which the Commission intends to keep for itself was far too high. Commissioner Dimas struggled to get across the point that it would be very difficult to "do more with less money", if the EU maintains the current level of 245 million EUR a year, and frankly "impossible if the financial perspectives of the EU reduce this figure", but even so, the Member States refused to give in. Various attempts at a compromise ran aground over Mr Dimas's extremely firm reservations on a 20/80 split. "These funds are essential for the Commission if we want to ensure that environmental legislation is respected; I cannot compromise on this", said Stavros Dimas. If the political agreement of the Council was finally based on these figures (the proportion of the Member States will be increased to 80% of the total budget), this was only because as a last resort, the Commissioner was able to count on the support of four countries (Germany, Denmark, France and Belgium) to give it the assurance that if the financial perspectives decreased this figure, the Council would review the issue. This meant that the Commissioner was able to lift his reservation. On the issue of the weighting of eligibility criteria for the funds under Life Plus, the Council agreed on a ratio of 55/45, 55 for the demographic weight, and 45 for nature (the Commission proposed 60/40, the initial compromise of the Presidency 50/50, supported unreservedly by Germany, Greece, Slovakia). The Council also agreed that the rate of co-funding for the purchase of land would henceforth be 75%. The last element of the agreement-the European directive on the impact assessment studies for programmes and projects on the environment- would not apply to Life Plus projects. Margaret Beckett, who chaired the session, was relieved to note that a "partial political agreement" had been reached by the Council, subject to the outcome of the general discussion on the budget of the EU. For Life Plus, the Commission has proposed 2.9 billion EUR for 2007-2013 (which the EP increased to 9 billion at first reading).