Green Budgeting: a key driver to meet the environmental ambition of the European Green Deal

Today, the Commission is launching its flagship project to supports EU Member States in building their capacities to green their national budgets

Today the Commission launched a EU Green Budgeting training in an on-line format with participants from Portugal, Slovenia and Spain, in the presence of Director General for Structural Reform Support (REFORM), Mr. Mario Nava. This multi-country initiative, led by DG REFORM, provides a training to 18 Member States on Green Budgeting practices. The training is organised by the European Commission, in collaboration with Expertise France and in cooperation with the Institute for Climate Economics (I4CE). The training presents insights from experts in the European Commission as well as green budgeting practitioners of the OECD and the French Ministry of Finance. The cooperation between three services of the European Commission (DG REFORM, DG ECFIN and DG BUDG) for carrying out this training forms part of the Commission’s joint efforts to support Member States in “greening public finances”.

The EU Green Deal underlines the role of the national budgets and green budgeting tools in redirecting public investment, consumption and taxation to green priorities and away from harmful subsidies. “Green budgeting” covers a variety of practices aimed at identifying and assessing elements of the public budget that affect Member States’ environmental policies. Green budgeting can facilitate budget steering and support the coherence of budgetary and fiscal policies with national climate objectives. By establishing connections between budgetary tools and environmental and climate change goals, green budgeting can contribute to a mainstreaming of green budgetary policies and processes. A “green budget” promotes efficiency, accountability and transparency of policies, as well as parliamentary oversight of national effort regarding climate action.

As green budgeting reform can meaningfully contribute to the green transition, the Commission developed jointly with the Member States an EU Green Budgeting Reference Framework (GBRF) for EU Member States. The GBRF provides a toolkit for EU Member States who are willing either to embark upon implementing green budgeting or to upgrade their current practices, thereby serving as guidance for national green budgeting frameworks (GBFs). To increase awareness of the GBRF at Member State level, the Commission offers training on green budgeting through the Technical Support Instrument. This training aims to address Member States’ needs for technical guidance and accompany their efforts to deploy or test a green budgeting framework at national level.

This technical support project has attracted great interest among Member States, which demonstrates their common interest and challenges in integrating environmental and climate change considerations in public policy decisions and the budget process in particular. Therefore the training commences with a general introduction to the Green Budgeting Reference Framework and exposes the trainees to existing practices on green budgeting, including approaches developed at the OECD and by France. Subsequent training modules, will be tailored to the specific needs of Member States. The aim of the training is to help Member States to test and adapt the Commission’s guiding framework to their national context through practical applications, as well as assess existing practices and tackle country-specific challenges in greening public finances

For more information

DG REFORM

Technical Support Instrument

European Green Deal