4 Amendments of Frédérique RIES related to 2022/0212(BUD)
Amendment 8 #
2. Welcomes the Commission REPowerEU Plan to accelerate the green transition and to increase the Union’s energy independence; highlights that accelerating the implementation of the European Green Deal will reduce the Union dependency from third countries; stresses, in this context, that Article 191 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union commits the Union to pursue a high level of protection of the environment and to improve the quality thereof, inter alia by application of the precautionary principle and of principles stipulating that preventive action should be taken, that environmental damage should as a priority be rectified at source and that the polluter should pay; believes, furthermore, that access to justice must be ensured at all times by the Commission and Member States during the implementation of the Plan;
Amendment 16 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Reminds the importance of achieving climate and biodiversity mainstreaming targets in the Union budget and the European Union Recovery Instrument expenditures; in this regard insists on the need to track climate and biodiversity-related expenditure and welcomes the biodiversity tracking methodology upgraded by the Commission in view of the Union budget 2023; calls on the Commission to address the conclusions of the European Court of Auditors regarding overstated climate spending1 and biodiversity spending1a; calls on Member States to ensure the integration of biodiversity in partnership agreements and operational programmes and to increase their efforts to reach the Multiannual Financial Framework biodiversity spending target of at least 10% as soon as possible; welcomes the final report Biodiversity Financing and Tracking1b and calls on the Commission and Member States to implement its recommendations swiftly; _________________ 1 Special report of the European Court of Auditors: Climate spending in the 2014- 2020 EU budget 1a Special report of the European Court of Auditors: Biodiversity on farmland: CAP contribution has not halted the decline 1b European Commission, Directorate- General for Environment, Nesbit, M., Whiteoak, K., Underwood, E., et al., Biodiversity financing and tracking: final report, 2022
Amendment 26 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Recalls the need to assign sufficient human and financial resources for the implementation of the 2030 Biodiversity Strategy, of the Farm to Fork Strategy, ofthe Soil Strategy, the EU Pollinators Initiative, the Forest Strategy, the Circular Economy Action Plan, Chemical Strategy for Sustainability and of a Zero-pollution Action Plan in the 2023 Union budget; in this line, callsstrongly deplores that the Commission systematically fails to address the lasting problem of understaffing in DG Environment and has not ensured any meaningful increase in human resources; in this line, calls on the Commission to promptly secure an adequate level of staff for the directorates which need to ensure full implementation of these strategies; remains concerned about the fact that the staffing level of the Commission’s DG Environment has been significantly reduced during last few years and that despite the workload stemming from the EU Green Deal agenda, it represents only 1.4% of all Commission staff; believes that by the absence of commitment to address this problem the Commission puts at risk the implementation and enforcement of EU policies and harms the health of officials in DG Environment; calls, furthermore, to increase the budgetary support for the new LIFE programme and the Just Transition Fund and all other programmes that support and protect nature conservation;
Amendment 46 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. Recalls that in order to properly comply with their tasks the Union agencies under the remit of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (EEA2 , ECHA3 , EMA4 , ECDC5 and EFSA6 ) must be adequately funded and staffed; deplores the budgetary reduction for ECDC and EMA; stresses that the deterioration of the staff levels of the agencies could jeopardise, among others, the achievement of the European Green Deal or the successful management of public health riskprevention and management of environmental and public health risks; stresses that the agencies should not be in a situation that forces them to establish negative priorities; underlines that assignment of new tasks to the agencies should be accompanied by additional and adequate resources; _________________ 2 European Environment Agency. 3 European Chemicals Agency. 4 European Medicines Agency. 5 European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. 6 European Food Safety Authority.