The Ministry for Rural Affairs and the Environment, as the Competent Authority for the Life+ programme, has said that it is pleased to notify that it received a good number of interesting project proposals under different strands of the Life+ Programme. Over 5.5 million euro worth of environmental project proposals were received.

Proposals were received under the Life+ Nature and Life+ Information and Communication strands. Project proposals submitted vary from nature conservation and restoration, including the study and reintroduction of species traditionally linked to the Maltese islands, as well as information projects aimed at raising awareness about flora, fauna and habitats of importance for Malta and the European Community. The Life+ programme co-finances projects on a 50% – 50% basis or to a maximum of 75% for certain endangered species under the Birds and Habitats Directive.

This encouraging response comes in the wake of Malta’s negotiations undertaken since the submission of the Life+ proposal by the Commission. During the course of negotiations, Malta had to convince the Commission and the Council that a very important criterion in calculating the national allocation was being overseen. In fact, the weighting given to population density was not being given the importance it deserved, given its obvious impact on the environment. Originally the Commission argued that since Malta’s population density was so high, giving any consideration to this criterion would overbalance the whole set of criteria for all other Member States.

To overcome this, Malta came up with a proposal whereby, the population density would be capped at twice the EU average. The proposal was officially accepted following our Minister’s intervention in the Environment Council of December 2005. In effect this meant for Malta that the funds originally allocated to Malta, circa €1,000,000 (Lm429,300) would now double and in actual fact, the funds allocated to Malta for 2007 are over 2.1 million euros (Lm0.9 million). The Ministry would therefore wish to extend its appreciation to all those who, in one way or the other, contributed to the process involved in the submission of these proposals, and augurs to all prospective applicants a successful outcome.

Permalink: European Union Life+ programme environmental projects