Climate mainstreaming in the EU budget: preparing for the next MFF
IEEP has been closely involved in work on climate and environmental mainstreaming in the EU budget; and this will be an important priority for us as discussions on the next financial framework (post-2020) gather pace. In a recent report for the Commission we look at how climate mainstreaming has worked in the 2014-2020 budget period.
The EU budget plays an important role in supporting the delivery of climate objectives in the EU Member States. In 2013, the European Council reached an agreement on the current EU financial framework – the 2014-2020 Multi-Annual Financial Framework (MFF) - and committed to spend 20% of the EU’s total budget on climate change in this 7-year long programming period. This high-level political objective gave a stronger priority to the mainstreaming of climate change considerations into all sectors and EU funds, and created a need to establish a sound methodology to track climate-related EU expenditure (see previous IEEP report on this topic).
In a new study for the European Commission’s DG CLIMA, IEEP, together with Ricardo Energy and Environment and Trinomics, reviewed how mainstreaming worked in practice, analysed the current climate tracking methodology, and offered recommendations for future improvements.
These recommendations serve as an important base for discussion about the future of climate mainstreaming and tracking in the post-2020 EU budget.
For more information, please contact Martin Nesbit or Kamila Paquel.