On discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the EU - Commission for the financial year 2024

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;

2. Stresses that, given the scale and importance of their tasks, adequate funding and staffing must be guaranteed for the Commission Directorates-General working in the areas of environment, climate action and food safety; 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;

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 2020 to dedicate at least 30 % of both the 2021-27 MFF budget and the European Union Recovery Instrument to climate-relevant expenditure;

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. 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; notes that in 2024, the Innovation Fund provided an additional EUR 4,6 billion in grants for projects advancing innovative low-carbon technologies;

6. 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;

7. 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, inconsistencies in the implementation of green transition measures and 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;

8. 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;

9. 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;

Biodiversity

10. 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;

11. 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 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;

12. 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;

13. 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;

14. 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;

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

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.