Today, rapporteurs from three European Parliament committees (AGRI, REGI, BUDG) presented their Draft Report on the National and Regional Partnership Plans (NRPP) regulation. It falls dangerously short on nature.
The NRPP will shape 44% of the EU’s proposed budget. At that scale, it is a political choice about what kind of future Europe is investing in. The rapporteurs’ Draft Report makes the wrong choice.
There is no ring-fenced funding for nature protection and restoration. No dedicated, multiannual budget for the LIFE programme. And no requirement that investment plans reflect the funding needs identified in National Nature Restoration Plans – despite Member States currently preparing exactly those plans. The logic to invest in nature to invest in nature is obvious. The political will to do so, apparently, is not.
According to the EEA the EU lost over €208 billion between 2021 and 2024 because of extreme climate and whether. The Commission’s 2025 Environmental Implementation Review estimated the investment gap in biodiversity and ecosystems (including soil ecosystems) at €37.4 billion annually. The Draft Report offers no mechanism to ensure a meaningful share of the NRPP budget flows toward closing that gap. Without ringfencing, experience shows that environmental spending will be crowded out. Every euro that does not go to nature is a euro invested in deepening the crisis.
On the LIFE programme, the situation is backtracking. The European Parliament adopted its Interim Report with a vast majority, backing dedicated LIFE funding. That political agreement, which reached across party lines, is now being quietly abandoned by EPP and Renew rapporteurs in favour of a vague joint budget that lumps LIFE actions together with Union technical support. It is incoherent, and it is a betrayal of the Parliament’s own position. At minimum, €3.56 billion must be ring-fenced for LIFE in the NRPPs with an additional €3 billion in the European Competitiveness Fund (ECF).
On agriculture, the Draft Report fiddles with CAP pillar structures while missing the point entirely. The CAP must be the vehicle for supporting farmers through the transition, not a vehicle for channelling public money to wealthy landowners, including, as recently revealed, those based in the UAE.
MEPs now have until 11 June at 5pm to file amendments.
Anouk Puymartin, Head of Policy, BirdLife Europe:
“The NRPP represents 44% of the EU budget, and right now, nature gets none of it guaranteed. MEPs have until 11 June to ring-fence funding for nature, align budget plans with National Nature Restoration Law implementation financing needs, ensure a future for the LIFE programme, and ring-fence no less than 35% of the CAP budget for agri-environmental actions. This is a once-in-a-generation chance to put Europe’s money where its commitments are. Squandering it would be a failure neither MEPs nor our planet can afford.”