Applicants from 27 EU countries are requesting €2.2 billion in co-financing from the LIFE programme for new environmental projects. In total, the proposed projects look to invest more than €4 billion to protect our nature and environment.

The latest calls for “traditional” projects in LIFE’s environment sub-programme closed between 17-20 June 2019.

More than 1 100 proposals were submitted from almost the entire breadth of the EU. Some 54% of the submissions are for environment and resource efficiency projects, 31% for nature and biodiversity, and 15% for the area of environmental governance and information.

Increased interest in the LIFE programme

The proposed projects have a total cost of over €4 billion, broken down into:

• environment and resource efficiency: €2.3 billion;
• nature and biodiversity: €1.4 billion;
• environmental governance and information: €369 million.

Applicants are looking for about €2.2 billion in contributions from the EU. That’s almost ten times the budget of €225 million that the European Commission has made available to successful projects. The request for support is up from €1.8 billion in 2018, and reflects the strong interest in the LIFE programme.

Read more on the LIFE official website.