On discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2024, Section III – Commission and executive agencies and the ninth, tenth and eleventh European Development Funds

OPINION

The Committee on the Environment, Climate and Food Safety calls on the Committee on Budgetary Control, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following into its proposal for a decision:

1. Is satisfied with the Commission's overall implementation of the budget in the areas of environment, climate action and food safety in 2024; reminds that for implementation to be effective it requires continuous attention to performance indicators, value for money and the correction of weaknesses identified in some specific recommendations by the European Court of Auditors (ECA) in its Annual Report for the financial year 2024;

2. Stresses that, given the scale and importance of their tasks, adequate funding and staffing must be guaranteed while ensuring that staffing and financial resources are aligned with clearly defined priorities, measurable objectives and performance indicators, and that administrative expansion remains justified for the Commission Directorates-General working in the areas of environment, climate action and food safety; calls on the Commission to adopt and implement effective mitigation strategies to address the identified risks associated with budget implementation, including conflicts of interest and greenwashing in project management; recalls the need to assign sufficient resources for the implementation of the 2030 Biodiversity Strategy, the Farm to Fork Strategy, the Circular Economy Action Plan, the Chemical Strategy for Sustainability and the Zero-pollution Action Plan; Stresses the importance of focusing available resources on actions with proven environmental and economic added value, and on measures to support innovation in as well as the resilience and competitiveness of the European Union;

Climate Action

3. Recognises that in 2024 about EUR 60.6 billion, approximately 32% of the annual budget under the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), was spent towards climate objectives; in line with the commitment in the Interinstitutional Agreement of 16 December 20201 to dedicate at least 30 % of both the 2021-27 MFF budget and the European Union Recovery Instrument to climate-relevant expenditure; calls for a recalibration of mainstreaming targets in light of changing policy priorities in a new geopolitical context;

4. Notes the progress made in the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RFF) by the end of 2024, with 47% of milestones and targets assessed as fulfilled by the Commission and an additional 29% reported by the Member States to be completed, and a total of EUR 306.1 billion disbursed; recognises that 42.6% of the total RRF allocation is calculated to finance investments and reforms supporting the green transition, including energy efficiency, renewable energy, electricity grids and other green investments;

5. Reminds that the RRF was originally introduced as targeted funding under the Green Deal communication primarily aimed at industrial decarbonisation and the energy transition; stresses that the decarbonisation targets of the Green Deal, notably the Climate Law and the reforms under the Fit for 55 package, still need to be financially addressed, including, and not necessarily exclusively through the funds that have not yet been borrowed up to the maximum borrowing limit of the RRF;

6. Highlights that REPowerEU chapters under the RRF contribute a total of EUR 64.75 billion in support for reforms and investments in Member states to save energy, substitute fossil fuels, diversify energy supplies, produce clean energy and address security-of-supply needs; insists that RePowerEU investments should prioritise diversification of energy sources, and should support a technology-neutral and cost-effective approach to decarbonisation; notes that in 2024, the Innovation Fund provided an additional EUR 4,6 billion in grants for projects advancing innovative low-carbon technologies; calls on the Commission to ensure that funding also benefits the regions most vulnerable and exposed in the energy transition;

7. Observes that in the period 2021-2024, 64% of overall climate expenditure was dedicated to climate change mitigation, 21% to climate change adaptation and 14% contribute to both goals; is of the opinion that expenditure labelled as climate spending should be falling into one of the three abovementioned categories, and in this context the 1% climate expenditure representing in the period covered a few bln EUR being ‘not attributable’1a, raises questions;

8. Notes that the RRF contributes significantly to the climate-relevant spending; in this context, is concerned about the Court of Auditors’(the ‘Court’) annual report for 2024 as well as Special Report No 14/2024 , which, similar to previous reports, revealed multiple shortcomings of the RRF framework and the national recovery and resilience plans, a high level of approximation in tracking climate expenditure, leading to potential overestimations, and concluded that the contribution of the RRF to the green transition is not clear; agrees with the ECA’s conclusion in Special Report No 14/2024 that ‘the green transition reporting presented in the RRF Scoreboard is confusing’ and ‘does not provide users with complete and reliable information about the actual amounts spent on the green transition’; is concerned about these shortcomings and the actual achievement of the RRF’s climate and environmental objectives; stresses that a credible climate-tracking methodology is essential for maintaining public trust; calls on the Commission to ensure systematic overestimation of climate expenditure is avoided as well as to reduce coefficient-based approximations in favour of a more evidence-based data collection;

9. Reiterates the importance of proper scrutiny of climate expenditure in the Union budget, and holds the Commission accountable for the implementation of a robust and reliable methodology, in line with the commitments undertaken in the MFF agreement and the Interinstitutional Agreement of 16 December 2020; calls on the Commission to follow the Court’s recommendations in the relevant reports to enhance the performance of green transition measures and to ensure comprehensive, consistent, reliable and transparent reporting on climate spending under the RRF;

10. Is aware that in response to ECA Special Report 09/22 the Commission commissioned a study with a view to establishing a more scientific approach to quantify the CAP climate contribution; Notes that although the study was concluded in August 2025 it has not been presented; calls on the Commission to make public the study;

11. Recognises that according to the Directorate-General for Climate Action’s 2024 Annual Activity Report (AAR), the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) generated EUR 43.6 billion of revenue for climate-action investments in the previous year; in that respect reiterates its concern that the significant risks related to the security and protection of the registry/operating mechanism of the ETS against cyberattacks still has not been satisfactorily addressed; to mitigate those risks, requests the Commission to report on the measures planned to be undertaken in the immediate future;

Biodiversity

12. Notes that in 2024, about EUR 14.4 billion, approximately 7.6% of the annual budget under the multiannual financial framework, was dedicated to biodiversity objectives, under various programmes e.g. the CAP, cohesion policy programmes, Horizon Europe and the LIFE programme; acknowledges that this expenditure slightly exceeds the target, as provided for in the Interinstitutional Agreement of 16 December 2020, for biodiversity expenditure of 7.5% of the annual spending for 2024; underlines that increased budgetary allocations must be accompanied by improved effectiveness, better monitoring of biodiversity outcomes and avoidance of measures that lead to disproportionate administrative burdens for farmers and local authorities;

13. Regrets that projections for 2026 and 2027 predict that the target of 10% of the annual budget allocated to biodiversity will not be achieved; notes that there is an average annual financing gap of EUR 21.4 billion to achieve biodiversity goals ; calls on the Commission to propose a dedicated, detailed plan to close this gap and to make further efforts to ensure that the biodiversity spending target set for the years 2026 and 2027 is met, to foster financial tools to close the financing gap and to fully implement environmental legislation and mainstreaming biodiversity action into key sectors in order to reach policy targets, including with the view of providing financing for the implementation of the Nature Restoration Regulation;

14. Notes that the programme for the environment and climate action (LIFE) contributed EUR 769 million in 2024 to support the shift towards a sustainable economy, protect, restore and improve the quality of the environment and halt and reverse biodiversity loss and degradation of ecosystems, financing about 700 projects since 2021; underlines the central role of the LIFE programme in delivering concrete environmental protection actions, including the expected avoidance of 1.4 million tonnes of CO2 emissions and the halted or reversed loss of 176 species thanks to LIFE projects awarded in 2022 and 2023; acknowledges the good progress made towards achieving the performance targets for the 2021-2027 LIFE programme;

15. Highlights the ECA’s finding that, while the green transition objective has a broader scope than climate action and includes biodiversity and environment, the RRF tracks only climate-related measures whilst the tracking system for environmental objectives is not used; insists on the need to accurately track environment and biodiversity-related expenditure; welcomes the progress made in the tracking methodology for the contribution of the common agricultural policy to biodiversity for the EU budget 2024; calls for full respect of the structure and spirit of the Treaties, ensuring that Treaty objectives are pursued strictly within their respective mandates and that no single objective is prioritised over others without a clear constitutional basis, thereby safeguarding balanced budgetary governance;

16. Regrets the findings of the European Environment Agency in its report on Europe’s environment 2025 that Europe’s terrestrial, freshwater and marine biodiversity is in a poor state and that the outlook for biodiversity is negative, as efforts to protect and restore nature require time to deliver and persistent pressures remain, such as over-exploitation, intense land and sea use, and pollution;

17. Notes that the number and severity of forest fires has increased markedly over the past two decades, driven by climate change; joins the ECA in welcoming the Commission’s increased focus on fire prevention; regrets, however, the ECA’s finding, that many EU-funded prevention projects were not sufficiently targeted to the specific fire-risk factors in the regions concerned and were not always informed by up-to-date national risk assessments; calls on the Commission to address these shortcomings to ensure that forest-fire prevention funding is strategic, risk-based and climate-resilient;

18. Stresses the need for continuous work towards the achievement of climate and biodiversity mainstreaming targets.

Food Safety

19. Calls on the Commission, in cooperation with EFSA and Member States, to strengthen horizon scanning and early-warning systems for emerging risks in the food and feed chain, particularly those linked to climate change and increasingly complex global supply chains;

ANNEX: DECLARATION OF INPUT

The Chair in his capacity as rapporteur for opinion declares under his exclusive responsibility that he did not include in his opinion input from interest representatives falling within the scope of the Interinstitutional Agreement on a mandatory transparency register, or from representatives of public authorities of third countries, including their diplomatic missions and embassies, to be listed in this Annex pursuant to Article 8 of Annex I to the Rules of Procedure.

INFORMATION ON ADOPTION BY THE COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION