The Council took note of the presentation by the Commission of its recent proposal for a regulation on the establishment of a Programme for the Environment and Climate Action (LIFE).
In the Multiannual Financial Framework for 2014-2020, the Commission proposes to address environmental and climate issues as an integral part of all the EU main instruments and interventions and it intends to increase the proportion of the Union budget related to climate action to at least 20%, with contribution from different policy fields.
The Commission notes, however, that the main Union financing instruments do not address all environmentally and climate specific needs. For this reason, it proposes to modify the LIFE Programme currently regulated by the LIFE+ Regulation, in order to better align it with
Europe 2020 objectives and therefore to respond more efficiently to the environmental challenges facing the Union. Globally, the LIFE Programme allocation will increase from EUR 2.1 billion to EUR 3.2 billion.
The main elements of the new LIFE Regulation include:
- creation of two sub-programmes under LIFE: one for Environment (with a budget of EUR 2.4 billion) and one for Climate Action (allocated EUR 800 million);
- special emphasis on better governance;
- creation of "Integrated Projects", which will operate on a large scale and will aim to improve the implementation of environmental and climate policy and their integration into other policies;
- better definition of the activities funded for each priority area.