Investing where it counts: increase LIFE funding
Over 200 European organisations – including Eurosite – have signed a statement calling on the EU to dedicate at least 1% of its budget to the LIFE programme to better protect European nature and climate. Currently, merely 0.3% of the EU budget is reserved for LIFE – which is quite a small amount considering the LIFE programme is the only EU programme fully dedicated to support and fund environmental, climate action, and nature conservation projects across the European Union.
The above is particularly remarkable when taking into consideration research has shown that LIFE has a positive and significant impact on environmental work, and additionally is very successful in creating jobs. Between 2009 and 2015, thanks to LIFE, approximately 74,500 jobs were created – and LIFE was good for an economic growth of 9.3 billion euros¹.
On average, the LIFE programme costs EU citizens less than one euro per year, a small price for conserving our European nature and biodiversity! To overcome financial struggles with the current co-financing rate within LIFE, the statement also requests the co-financing rate for action grants to be increased to 75%. Please find the full statement here.