EU: Member states are using EU funds to finance projects that threaten some of Europe's most endangered animal and plant species.
The brown bear, the Iberian lynx and the Spanish imperial eagle are just a few of the species under threat from EU-funded projects, says a new report published yesterday by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
Conflicting EU Funds: Pitting Conservation Against Unsustainable Development says that a host of EU-funded infrastructure projects from road-building to dam-construction are undermining the natural habitats of plant and animal species. This action is being undertaken despite EU leaders' recently stated goal to halt biodiversity loss by 2010.
"Europe has to take responsibility for its own species, but at present the European Union is using its funds both to support biodiversity and undermine it," said Stefanie Lang of the WWF European policy office in Brussels.
The report highlights the case of the Iberian lynx, which is native to Spain and Portugal. Dam and other infrastructure projects, in many cases funded by EU cash, are destroying the animal's habitat.
The Iberian lynx is the world's most endangered cat species, with a surviving population of just 100 that includes just 25 breeding females.
Roads, dams and rail lines are creating barriers between the last remaining groups of lynx, a situation that prevents the animals from interbreeding, which is essential for maintaining a healthy population.
In 1995 there was a population of 600 Iberian lynx.
The report also documents that €20 million of EU cash was used to upgrade and increase the capacity of the bluefin tuna fleet in France and Spain.
Bluefin tuna is one of the fish species that scientific advice says is currently being fished unsustainably.
Meanwhile in Greece, while the EU's environmental directorate is supporting a project protecting brown bears, its regional development counterpart is funding the Egnatia highway through the Pindos mountains where many bears live, it says.
The report makes three key recommendations:
q That the use of EU funds that conflict with the EU goal to halt the loss of biodiversity by 2010 must be eliminated;
q That the integration of biodiversity and Natura 2000 as funding priorities into the programme of major EU funds must become obligatory;
q That environmental stakeholders should be treated as equal partners in the evaluation processes for EU projects.
The report calls on the European Commission to ensure that all new projects financed from the new 2007-13 budget meet the full nature and biodiversity requirements and set up a mid-term review of this programming period in 2010 to ensure that this goal has been met.
It also recommends that the commission's directorate for environment sets up a special audit group to monitor all programmes co-financed using EU funds.
European Union funds should be withheld if states breach their obligation to protect the environment.
Meanwhile, the report says member states should develop a biodiversity strategy, which analyses the key threats at a national level.
They should also include references to support nature and biodiversity in their national projects that use any EU funds.