Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on the Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning the Financial Instrument for the Environment (LIFE +) (COM(2004) 621 final — 2004/0218 COD)
Date: 2005-04-07
Institutions: European Economic and Social Committee
Subjects: EU environmental policy, EU financial instrument, action programme

C 255/52

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

14.10.2005

Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on the Proposal for a Directive of the
European Parliament and of the Council concerning the Financial Instrument for the Environment
(LIFE +)

(COM(2004) 621 final — 2004/0218 COD)

(2005/C 255/09)

On 16 November 2004, the Council decided to consult the European Economic and Social Committee,
under Article 175 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, on the abovementioned communi-
cation.

The Section for Agriculture, Rural Development and the Environment, which was responsible for preparing
the Committee's work on the subject, adopted its opinion on 17 March 2005. The rapporteur was
Mr Ribbe.

At its 416th plenary session on 6 and 7 April 2005 (meeting of 7 April), the European Economic and
Social Committee adopted the following opinion by 128 votes to one with two abstentions:

1. Preliminary observations

1.1
The EU financial perspective 2007-2013 currently being
drawn up also provides for changes in the support for the
environment.

1.2
The EU's key environmental finance instrument to date
has clearly been the LIFE programme, established in May 1992
by Regulation (EEC) No. 1973/92 — the Financial Instrument for
the Environment (LIFE). It was, and is, LIFE's aim to contribute to
the implementation and development of Community environ-
mental policy and legislation.

1.3
LIFE I ran from 1992 to 1995 and had a budget of
EUR 400 million (EUR 100 million per year). In the wake of
its success, Regulation (EC) No. 1404/96 launched a second
phase (LIFE II) which ran from 1996 to 1999 with a total
budget of EUR 450 million (EUR 112.5 million per year). The
present LIFE III was established by Regulation (EC) No.
1655/2000 to run from 2000 to 2004 (EUR 128 million per
year). This was extended to the end of 2006 by Regulation (EC)
No. 1682/2004.

1.4
LIFE has hitherto been made up of three components:
LIFE-Environment, LIFE-Nature and LIFE-Third Countries. It has
supported innovative investment projects as well as the devel-
opment and implementation of EU environmental policy and
in establishing the
legislation. LIFE-Nature was instrumental
Natura 2000 network.

However,

environment

the Commission's

1.5
budget
(budget heading B 4-3; title 07 since 2004) was also used in
the past to finance other environmental programmes, such as a
sustainable
an NGO
programme, Forest Focus, a general policy development and
implementation facility (which has an internal and external
dimension) and a budgetary transfer to the European Environ-
ment Agency.

development

programme,

urban

1.6
Current aid is to be completely restructured under the
proposed new environmental finance instrument LIFE+. The
idea is, on the one hand, to merge some parts of existing
support programmes included under title 07 (Forest Focus,
support for NGOs, URBAN, the development of new policy

initiatives, aspects relating to environmental policy implemen-
tation, and elements of LIFE-Environment and LIFE-Nature). On
the other hand traditional, tangible environmental investment
projects are no longer to be promoted. These are to be covered
for LIFE-Environment through heading 1a, and for LIFE-Nature
through heading 1b and parts of heading 2. Existing support
for international activities is to be funded in future from
heading 4, civil protection from headings 3 and 4, and the
marine environment from heading 3.

Thus, LIFE+ will

focus on promoting measures that
1.7
support environmental policy (having a uniquely European
dimension) such as exchange of best practice, capacity building
of local and regional authorities and support for NGOs having
a Europe-wide vocation.

1.8
The Commission therefore envisages that future invest-
ment projects will be mainly covered by the new headings 1a,
1b, 2 and 4. It argues that it was decided to incorporate envir-
onmental protection into all policy areas, and that accordingly,
it is essential to support investment aid from these financially
strong headings that is attuned to or consistent with the needs
of environmental protection as part of the implementation of
the sustainability strategy and the Lisbon strategy, which is
designed to relate closely to the environment.

1.9

In future, LIFE + will focus on two key areas:

a) LIFE+ Implementation and Governance will:

— contribute to the development and demonstration of
innovative policy approaches and instruments including
promotion of successful research results;

— contribute to consolidating the knowledge base for the
development, assessment, monitoring and evaluation,
including ex-post evaluation of environmental policy
and legislation (for example, through studies, modelling
and scenario building);

— support the design and implementation of approaches
to monitoring and assessment of the state of the envir-
onment and the drivers, pressures and responses that
impact on it;

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— facilitate the implementation of Community environ-
ment policy, with a particular emphasis on implementa-
levels, for example through
tion at local and regional
and
capacity building,
networking, development of
training modules and/or
programmes;

exchange of best practice

— provide support for better environmental governance,
including that of
in
organisations,

broadening stakeholder involvement,
environmental
policy consultation and implementation;

non-governmental

for

to forests,

funding (relating,

to be directly responsible for the allocation of only a small part
of
the URBAN
instance,
programme and support for NGOs). With regard to issues
arising out of the sixth environmental action plan in particular
(climate, biodiversity, environment and health, and waste), it is
envisaged that funding will be divided among Member States,
which will then bear most of the responsibility for selecting
projects and running the LIFE+ programme. No clear criteria
for allocating funds to countries and strands are as yet discern-
ible.

and

b) LIFE Information and Communication will:

3. Specific comments

— disseminate information and raise awareness on environ-

mental issues;

— support accompanying measures (such as publications,

events, campaigns, conferences, etc).

Between 75 and 80 % of planned funding is to be used
1.10
for the Implementation and governance strand, and between
20 and 25 % for the Information and communication strand.

2. General comments

2.1
Funding for existing LIFE programmes has certainly not
been lavish. The importance of the programme for the environ-
mental situation and the development of environmental policy
must be considered in the context of
its relatively modest
funding; it should not therefore be overstated, but nor should it
be underestimated. It has been possible to finance at least some
major, high-profile European projects, which have enhanced
environmental protection and nature conservation in the EU,
from around EUR 150 million per year even though the
number of Member States has increased to 25 during the
interim period (in 2005, slightly over EUR 71 million each for
and around EUR 7.5
LIFE-Environment
million for LIFE-Third Countries). In particular, LIFE-Nature has
concentrated on establishing the Natura 2000 network, which
would have fallen even further behind the schedule set in 1992
but for support from the LIFE programme; hence it is impor-
tant that partial co-financing for the operation of the Natura
2000 network should still be possible under
the LIFE+
programme. Capacity building measures in the fields of both
environmental protection and nature conservation should also
be mentioned.

and LIFE-Nature

to some

2.2
Existing LIFE programmes can clearly be deemed to be
very effective steering instruments on the part of the Commis-
sion. Such significant success was achieved using such limited
extent
resources because Member States were
‘competing’ for LIFE funds: Member States (or rather, public
and private project promoters from Member States) needed to
design and develop innovative projects which fitted in with the
objectives of the LIFE programme. A selection procedure was
put in place in which projects were subjected to critical analysis
before being either approved, or rejected because of poor
quality or insufficient funding. This meant that, as far as alloca-
tion of funding was concerned, there was a certain degree of
European transparency.

2.3
In its draft regulation, the Commission envisages largely
moving away from this proven procedure. The Commission is

The proposal seems in the first instance to be, in prin-
3.1
ciple,
logical and coherent: the integration of environmental
policy into all other policy areas would, for instance, mean also
making investment in the environment available in the general
financing arrangements,
in the research budget or under the
heading of the EU as a global partner. The EESC endorses this
approach,
the LIFE
programme would not of themselves be enough to further
environmental protection in the EU.

limited funds

available

the

for

as

However,

3.2
in the EESC's view, both the Commission's
proposal and the overall context of current discussions on the
financial perspective for 2007-2013 pose a potentially very
serious threat to the future success of the LIFE programme.

for example,

On the one hand, there is no guarantee whatsoever
3.2.1
that,
funding will actually be available under
heading 1a for measures that have up to now been resourced
under LIFE-Environment. The responsibility for decisions on
the nature and extent of support will now be in different
hands, and it is quite possible that, from a political point of
the decisions could be prompted by quite different
view,
concerns. For example, there have been intermittent claims by
very influential people and organisations that action has to be
taken to get the economy growing again before we can devote
more attention to protecting the environment; these views have
been reflected even as far as in discussions about the modest
results achieved so far by the Lisbon strategy. None of the well-
meaning appeals to other Commission departments to take
environmental considerations sufficiently on board has so far
made much of an impact. DG Environment, which up to now
has been able to bring its technical expertise and a separate
budget line to bear in selecting model projects across Europe,
will no longer have any say on whether innovative, exemplary
environmental projects are chosen.

3.2.2
The same also applies to LIFE-Nature, although the
EESC is of course aware that a large part of the funding which
is needed for implementation of all relevant EU nature conser-
vation directives have to come from the Member States them-
selves and from other sources of EU funding, such as the
second pillar of the CAP and the Structural Funds. However,
the EESC is very concerned about the absence even in the draft
outlines of the new Structural Funds of the requisite references
to the possibility of supporting Natura 2000. Apparently
certain measures which used to be funded through LIFE-Nature,
such as measures implemented by non-farmers, will in future
no longer be eligible. In the EESC's view, this is unacceptable.

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3.2.3
Admittedly, the draft regulation on rural development
explicitly refers to Natura 2000, a fact which the EESC notes
with approval. However, there is a risk that, against the back-
drop of discussions on the financial ceiling of 1.24 %, this
policy instrument, which is of such central
importance for
nature conservation, could be targeted for cuts; without finan-
cial backing, even the grandest political references are no use at
all (1).

3.2.4 Measures which are to be financed in future via the
Member States from rural development funding are expected
mainly to involve running costs
(such as compensation
measures). The EESC feels that such payments are vital not
only to rural development in general and farmers' incomes, but
also to the success of the NATURA 2000 network (2). In addi-
tion, LIFE-Nature has supported measures which are highly
innovative in terms of nature conservation, for instance specific
projects that have brought together farmers and conservation-
ists. There is a risk that these aspects of LIFE-Nature could now
be lost.

3.2.5
Another potential issue that may arise in connection
with the transfer of project planning and decision-making
responsibilities is the interest — or lack of interest — in envir-
onmental policy on the part of the Member States concerned.
For example, The EU might want to focus EU funding in a par-
ticular Member State on specific nature protection projects (e.g.
Natura 2000), because of the need to conserve the rich natural
resources found there. However, the Member State in question
may have quite different (environmental) priorities, and may
prefer to focus on other policy areas, or, within the field of
environmental protection, to address climate-related or waste-
management issues, using LIFE+ funding.

In view of

3.2.6
the tight budgetary situation in many
Member States, there is a by no means negligible risk that
Member States will use the LIFE+ funding over which they
have control to replace previously self-financed environmental
expenditure.

3.3
Right now, the EU is at a particularly difficult stage
from the point of view of environment policy (completed and
upcoming enlargement, difficulties in economic policy and
with the implementation of
the Lisbon strategy, definitive
establishment of
the NATURA-2000 network): on the one
hand, all the environmental standards need to be implemented,
especially in the new Member States, while, on the other,
economic growth needs to be decoupled from resource use and
damage to the environment; in this context, the Commission
needs to retain control of a sufficient number of policy-shaping
funding instruments of its own.

Brussels, 7 April 2005.

3.4
However, by transferring responsibility to the national
level as planned the EU is surrendering a modest, but nonethe-
less highly effective means of control, and a policy instrument
is being downgraded to a budget line for use by the Member
States. To the EESC, it is not immediately apparent how the
Commission can thereby safeguard the European interests that
are a sine que non of EU funding. In other words, and European
added value and the innovative character that has so far been
so clearly recognisable in the LIFE programme must be
preserved. Having read the document under review, the EESC is
not at all clear about how the Commission intends to go about
this. It therefore urges that the innovative aspects of LIFE-Envir-
onment and LIFE-Nature should be retained in a fund managed
by the Commission itself; in doing so, it lends its support to a
corresponding demand which has now been made to the
Council by several Member States.

The support for the coordination, implementation and
3.5
further development of European environmental and sustain-
able development policy that is to be promoted by LIFE+ — as
an integral part of the EU-wide growth-based, socially sensitive
and environmentally oriented cohesion strategy,
is extremely
important and is welcomed by the EESC. That clearly also
includes
for environmental NGOs which have a
Europe-wide vocation or which — and this is a point that
needs greater emphasis in the Commission document — tackle
issues of European relevance. As far as possible, support needs
to be related to specific projects.

support

4. Conclusions

In principle the EESC welcomes the approach of inte-
4.1
grating environmental policy into all other policy areas, as the
limited funds available for the LIFE programme would not of
themselves be enough to further environmental protection in
the EU.

However,

4.2
in the EESC's view, both the Commission's
proposal and in general the current discussions on the financial
perspective for 2007-2013 pose a potentially very serious
threat to the future success of the LIFE programme. Firstly,
there is no guarantee whatsoever that funding will actually be
available for environmental interests under other headings, and
secondly, by transferring responsibility to the national level as
planned the EU is surrendering a modest, but nonetheless
highly effective means of control. The EESC therefore urges
that
the innovative aspects of LIFE-Environment and LIFE-
Nature should be retained in a fund managed by the Commis-
sion itself.

The President

of the European Economic and Social Committee

Anne Marie SIGMUND

(1) Cf. EESC opinion on the Communication from the Commission to the

Council and the European Parliament: Financing Natura 2000.

(2) Cf. EESC opinion on Rural Development/EAFRD.