Berlin Seminar

Peter Wehrheim |Head of Unit, European Commission, DG Climate Action
Reiner Kneifel-Haverkamp |Ministerium für Wirtschaft und Europaangelegenheiten, Brandenburg

Wolfgang Wienkemeier |Ministerium für Landwirtschaft, Umwelt und Verbraucherschutz, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern

The European Commission has proposed that 20% of the EUR 1025 billion member states are to receive for the 2014-2020 period should be linked to EU climate objectives. We want to discuss how this proposal could be realized, what the different delivery mechanisms might be and how the effectiveness of the EU budget in reaching these climate objectives could be assessed and evaluated.

Ex-ante strategies

The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) requires member states to formulate strategies, or so-called priority axes. 20% of the funding is to be allocated to priority axes promoting the "low-carbon economy". In this context, we plan to discuss the following questions, among others:

· The EU Commission has proposed a list of eligible investment priorities. How can 20% of the regional priority axes be linked to the EU climate objectives?

· The European Parliament and the Council both envisage an expansion of the definition of "low-carbon economy." Does the focus on climate objectives require shifts in the existing regional programs?

Ex-post verification

Agricultural funds would also need to contribute to the 20% climate objective. To track the resulting climate investments, it is proposed that all spending be categorized using the Rio Markers. According to this method, each EU expenditure or investment category is marked as 100, 40 or 0% climate relevant. This raises the following questions:

· Do current reporting standards - in agricultural policy, for example - allow for climate-specific funding to be identified?

· Would CAP and rural development measures need to be re-defined to better reflect the focus on (and the tracking of) climate funding?

· What role can consistent criteria and indicators for allocating projects to expenditure categories play for transparent climate tracking?