Environment

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LIFE Programme

Summary
Evaluation
Commission Proposal
Legal Act
Implementation

Overall State of Play:

Evaluation
– Finalised: Mid-term evaluation 06.11.2017: COM(2017) 642, SWD(2017)355
– On-going: Ex-post evaluation of LIFE 2014-2020, to be finalised by 2023
Commission Proposal – adopted by the Commission on 01.06.2018, COM(2018)385
Legal Act – adopted on 29.04.2021, Regulation (EU) 2021/783

State of play, main conclusions, outlook

First launched in 1992, LIFE is an EU programme under the multiannual financial framework dedicated to environment and climate action.

The LIFE programme aims: to contribute to the shift towards a resource efficient, climate-neutral and resilient economy; to improve the quality of the environment, including the air, water and soil; to halt and reverse biodiversity loss and to tackle the degradation of ecosystems; to support the environment and climate policies and legislation; to support better environmental and climate governance at all levels.

Because of its limited size (0.3% of the EU budget), the LIFE programme is not meant to solve all environmental and climate problems. Rather, it is conceived as a catalyst for developing and exchanging best practices and knowledge. The programme’s role is to address negative impacts on the environment, including limited innovation in environment and climate matters.

In April 2021 the European Parliament and the Council adopted the Commission’s proposal for the programme for the period 2021-2027.

The Commission has started an ex-post evaluation of LIFE 2014-2020. This evaluation will take stock of the implementation of activities funded under the LIFE programme 2014-2020 and explore the potential for simplification. It will help gather evidence and formulate overall conclusions and possible recommendations to improve the implementation of LIFE activities. The results of the evaluation will feed to any proposal that the Commission may make in the context of the next multi-annual financial framework for the period after 2027.

State of Play

Adopted: COM(2018)385; adopted by the Commission on 01.06.2018

Which objective(s) does the Commission pursue?

The Commission proposal on the LIFE Regulation builds on the results of the mid-term evaluation and the analysis in the impact assessment to further improve the programme.

In particular, the mid-term evaluation of the 2014-2020 LIFE Programme confirmed that the programme is on track to be effective, efficient and relevant and that it has a substantial and unanimously recognised EU added value. It also identified some lessons that could be learned as regards the programme coverage, its catalytic effect and its efficiency, as well as simplification aspects.

The Commission proposal pursues the following:

✓ To increase the flexibility of the programme and its catalytic effect by allowing the possibility to finance projects that will tackle specific needs, such as the uneven distribution of projects among Member States or the emergence of new challenges/priorities, and to mobilise the different layers of the society.

✓ To increase the overall coherence of the EU funding while offering an increased potential for synergies with actions on environment and climate by integrating a Clean Energy Transition component, previously funded under Horizon 2020, into the LIFE Programme.

✓ To reduce the administrative burden for the applicants/ beneficiaries by simplifying the text of the Regulation, e.g. mentioning in the Regulation the organisations that receive grants without a call for proposals, and by introducing changes during the implementation.

✓ To simplify the regulatory framework by reducing the objectives and the details included in the Regulation, leaving the definition of priorities to the Multiannual Work Programmes, and by incorporating the BEST pilot project and preparatory action into LIFE, allowing for their continuation in a more stable environment.

Further simplification related to the reduction of the overall management costs of the programme have been identified and will be further explored during the implementation.

Estimated savings and benefits

The Impact assessment:

• found that delegation to the Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME) delivered cost savings and improved the efficiency of the programme, because it introduced economies of scale for implementing the large number of homogenous and standardised operations needed to manage grants. Additional savings could be derived from an increased delegation.

• considers streamlined procedures for the implementation of the EU budget in response to the operational goal to introduce simplification measures, where possible, and to increase efficiency in the implementation of the programme. They include:

- the mention in the Regulation of selected organisations, which regularly receive grants without a call for proposals (e.g. because they have a de facto monopoly or the specific administrative power required for the implementation of projects with special characteristics) so that grants can be awarded directly without the need of an exceptional procedure. This will be restricted to a few organisations: the European Union Network for the Implementation and Enforcement of Environmental Law, the European Network of Prosecutors for the Environment and the European Union Forum of judges for the environment;

- the reduction of the multiple budget lines linked to the LIFE Programme and used for internal management to one operational line per parent DG while going on with the current system for tracking the funds per priority area, to be defined in the multiannual work programmes.

• identified a package of measures to simplify things for applicants/beneficiaries (e.g. simplified costs options, output based payments, two-step approach, cascading grants, etc.). Their implementation is on-going.