Gabriel brings conciliation procedure on LIFE+ to a successful conclusion
Under the chairmanship of Federal Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel, in Brussels yesterday the Conciliation Committee of the European Parliament and the Council achieved agreement on the EU environmental funding programme LIFE+. "I am delighted that together we have succeeded in reaching agreement on LIFE+. The result is a major gain for European environmental protection and nature conservation," said Federal Environment Minister Gabriel at the end of the negotiations.
This successful conclusion of the conciliation procedure under the German EU Presidency creates the conditions needed to enable the first round of LIFE+ funding to begin before the end of 2007. Without an agreement, over 250 million euro in the EU's 2007 budget which had been earmarked for LIFE+ would have lapsed. For the period 2007-2013 LIFE+ will have a total budget of 1.894 billion euro, with 78 percent of the budget going to support projects in the member states. At least half of the project volume will be dedicated to nature conservation. Thus LIFE+ will play an important role in the implementation of the European network of protected areas Natura 2000, and other environmental projects.
Contrary to the original plan, under LIFE+ too the European Commission will select the projects to be funded and monitor their implementation. Compared to its predecessor programmes, however, LIFE+ offers EU Member States more opportunities for involvement. In future they can define national funding priorities and comment on individual applications. This will allow project funding to be tailored to regional circumstances. In addition, every member state will be allocated a fixed amount which can be used by projects eligible for funding. Under this system, Germany will receive around 20 million euro.
Further information:
- LIFE+ on the web pages of the European Commission: http://ec.europa.eu