Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-07-07-Speech-4-023"
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"en.20050707.4.4-023"2
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"Mr President, the amendments made to LIFE + by Parliament have significantly improved the draft regulation. Increasing the budget tenfold over and above the recommendation made by the Commission is a tangible step towards realising the objectives of sustainable development and also serves the European Union’s strategic objective of halting the reduction of biological diversity by the year 2010.
The budget increase makes LIFE + a substantial independent instrument in European Union environmental policy. In its present form, LIFE + has only been used to shore up ‘current financial gaps’ arising between structural funds and agricultural funds. The promotion of nature protection objectives would, in this case, depend on critical domestic priorities and may be overshadowed by socio-economic objectives.
Both the structural funds and the Fund for Rural Development operate on the basis of allocation of funds to a specific applicant. This leads to a significant risk that activities in areas of great natural value might not be financed due to the absence of a suitable applicant, or due to distance. In the case of LIFE +, it would therefore be more beneficial to operate on the basis of the model that has been used in Estonia for many years, that is, subsidies for activities of importance for nature protection are distributed by place of residence: the recipient of a subsidy does not have to be a landowner, but may be a person implementing an activity of importance for nature conservation.
Member States need the European Union to provide a dependable and long-term financing strategy in order to ensure the protection of the network of Natura areas. If decision-making is left solely to the Member States, the protection of objects of great natural value may be overshadowed by other domestic priorities. In order to avoid this, it is important to leave programming decisions to Member States, while establishing minimum levels of financing of LIFE + activities at a European Union level.
It is essential that we all give our support to the amendments tabled by Parliament, in order to channel the Union’s resources towards the conservation of natural objects of European importance.
Many thanks."@en1
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