Biodiversity mainstreaming

What do we do?

The preservation of biodiversity ensures the long-term stability of ecosystems and enables the sustainable preservation of natural resources for future generations. Tackling biodiversity loss and restoring ecosystems require significant investments, including to ensure a more resilient society and to combat the emergence of diseases linked to ecosystem degradation and the wildlife trade.

In 2020, the Commission adopted the EU biodiversity strategy for 2030. The strategy is a comprehensive, ambitious and long-term plan to protect nature and reverse the degradation of ecosystems. It contains initiatives and commitments to put Europe’s biodiversity on a path to recovery by 2030. As a core part of the European Green Deal, it also supports a green recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic. The strategy aims to establish a larger EU-wide network of protected areas covering 30% of the land and the seas; implement an EU nature-restoration plan, including by proposing binding nature-restoration targets in 2022; and enable the necessary transformative change through enhanced funding for biodiversity, including through the EU budget, and a strengthened EU-wide biodiversity governance framework.

In June 2022, the Commission adopted a proposal for a Nature Restoration Law aiming at restoring ecosystems, habitats and species across the EU’s land and sea areas. The proposal combines an overarching restoration objective for the long-term recovery of nature in the EU with binding restoration targets for specific habitats and species. These measures should cover at least 20% of the EU’s land and sea areas by 2030, and ultimately all ecosystems in need of restoration by 2050.

The 2030 strategy also paved the way for the EU’s contribution for the international biodiversity framework negotiations at the 15^th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (COP-15), which resulted in the Kunming–Montreal framework. The framework sets out an agreement to increase global biodiversity financing from about USD 100 billion per year to USD 200 billion per year from all sources: domestic and international, public and private. As part of the agreement, donors also subscribed to an international solidarity package, and committed to increasing international biodiversity financing from USD 10 billion to USD 20 billion by 2025, and USD 30 billion by 2030. The agreement calls for the alignment of financial flows and investments with biodiversity objectives, akin to Article 2.1.c of the Paris Agreement. Public and private financial flows should, as far as possible, become nature positive. With the commitment to identify subsidies at the national level by 2025, and then eliminate a total of at least USD 500 billion per year of biodiversity-harmful subsidies by 2030, the Kunming-Montreal framework will also help reset the rules of our economic and financial systems.

Halting and reversing the decline of biodiversity is a major objective of the EU, as reflected in the European Green Deal and in the Biodiversity Strategy. Protecting biodiversity is a global issue that requires transnational intervention and coordination.

In line with the European Green Deal, the Parliament, the Council and the Commission decided in the interinstitutional agreement that biodiversity should be mainstreamed in EU programmes to allocate at least 7.5% of annual spending to biodiversity objectives in 2024 and 10% in both 2026 and 2027, while considering the existing overlaps between climate and biodiversity goals.

This is in line with the statement in the biodiversity strategy for 2030 that biodiversity action requires at least EUR 20 billion per year stemming from ‘private and public funding at national and EU level’, of which the EU budget will be a key enabler. The strategy also states that, as nature restoration will make a major contribution to climate objectives, a significant proportion of the EU budget dedicated to climate action will be invested in biodiversity and nature-based solutions.

How much do we spend?

^{Biodiversity contribution in 2021 to 2027 (million EUR).
Source: European Commission.}

For the 2021-2027 period, the EU budget – including NextGenerationEU – is dedicating EUR 112 billion, or 6% of the multiannual financial framework, to the fight against biodiversity loss. While the projection for 2024 is close to the 7.5% target, the 2026 and 2027 10% targets will be more difficult to achieve. The Commission is working to further increase the financing in this area with the help of all stakeholders, as already done for direct management programmes such as Horizon Europe and the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument. In external action, for instance, the Commission estimates confirm that the EU budget is on track to double its financing towards non-EU countries, compared to the 2014-2020 multiannual financial framework. 

^{SPACE – Space programme, HorizonEU – Horizon Europe, ERDF+CF – European Regional and Development Fund and Cohesion Fund, CAP –common agricultural policy, LIFE programme, EMFAF – European Maritime Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund, NDICI – Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument. 
Source: European Commission.}

It is worth noting that the common agricultural policy methodology for the 2023-2027 period has a higher level of granularity and ambition compared to the methodology used in 2014-2022, allowing for more precise and conservative estimates compared to the past. As from the draft budget 2024, the contribution of the common agricultural policy to biodiversity is estimated by the Commission through the application of EU coefficients (100%, 40% and 0%) and weighting factors (100%, 70% and 50%) that aim to reflect the differentiated contribution of each type of interventions towards the biodiversity objective. Furthermore, given the design of the common agricultural policy and the cohesion policy funds – and the financial programming of the two programmes - it is not possible to guide resources towards specific years. 

In line with their sectorial regulations, the Ukrainian Facility and Western Balkan Facility will contribute to climate and biodiversity mainstreaming. The contributions will be reported as from the next reporting cycle when information is available.

Biodiversity methodology

For the 2021–2027 multiannual financial framework, the Commission developed a new methodology based on the EU coefficients described in the communication on the performance framework of the EU budget under the 2021-2022 multiannual financial framework. The approach assigns three different coefficients (0%, 40%, or 100%) based on a list of possible activities. More details are available in the Biodiversity Financing and Tracking Report. The methodology fully integrates the ‘do no (significant) harm’ principle into its design.

In 2023, the Commission has integrated the existing methodology with an effective and transparent methodology for the Common Agricultural Policy, taking into consideration the adopted strategic plans.

The amounts above are calculated based on commitment appropriations as following:

• For direct management, estimates are prepared by each service based on the most updated data available. For future estimates, work programmes and historical values are taken into consideration.
• For shared management, past and future figures are presented on the base of the programmes and CAP Strategic Plans agreed with the Member States, and updated according to the annual reports.
• For indirect management, the figures are based on the existing targets and agreements with the implementing partners, as well as their annual reports.