22 Nov LIFE goes on! EP renews budget line for environmental and climate projects

The next LIFE programme – the EU’s financial instrument supporting environmental and climate
action projects in 2014-2020 – was approved by Parliament on Thursday 19th November. As agreed
with EU ministers, its budget will increase to €3.1 billion (from €2.2 billion currently) to
tackle new tasks and challenges, mainly in the climate action and resource efficiency fields.
“The EP voted to continue and strengthen this programme” said rapporteur Jutta Haug. The budget
allocated is slightly lower than requested but still a clear increase over the previous budget of
€2.2 billion”, said Ms Haug. “And it comes with new tasks and challenges: a separate sub-programme
for climate action, the new jointly-funded ‘integrated projects’ and growing challenges in the
field of resource efficiency”, she added. In its negotiations with ministers, Parliament also
secured an increased allocation for nature and biodiversity.
Projects to be selected on demonstration potential
In the next LIFE programme, projects will be selected for funding solely on the basis of their
quality and demonstration potential – a more transparent method than the current national
allocations whereby a share of funds is indicatively attributed to each member state.
Integrated projects.
MEPs also negotiated and voted in favour of “integrated projects”, which will allow various EU
funds to be invested jointly to tackle the key challenges of applying legislation in water, waste,
air quality and nature protection fields. These projects offer an opportunity to build environment
and climate policy concerns and solutions into other policies. “I now encourage countries and
regions to make use of this opportunity – specific funds will be available to help with the
preparation and setting up of an integrated project”, said Ms Haug.