Environment: promoting NGO primarily active in the field of environmental protection (Community action programme)

In its amended proposal the Commission has taken over wholly or in part 12 of the 21 amendments approved by Parliament at first reading. These amendments deal with the following points: - demonstration of the specific nature of the NGO participating in the programme (active environmental NGOs) and clearer definition of the NGOs eligible (private, non-profit making), - increase in the level of Community aid for operational expenditure (up to 60% instead of 40%) and increase in the term of the aid (four years instead of three), - account to be taken of volunteer workers and gifts in kind in the total eligible expenditure (10%), - greater transparency in the use of EC support and in particular amendment of the dates for the publication of calls for tender under this programme (31 January) and the date on which the Commission decides on the eligible NGOs (31 May each year), The Commission did not however accept the amendments dealing with the following points: - extension of the measures to NGOs with a coordinating role or a European dimension and provision of different funds for coordinating NGOs (30% instead of 40%), - references to the Fifth Environmental Action Programme, - provision of funding for measures intended to strengthen cooperation between NGOs from different countries, - changes to the selection and exclusion criteria for NGOs in the programme: e.g. cost-benefit of the activities proposed, existence of crossborder cooperation, or exclusion from financing of measures relating to awareness, etc. (the Commission prefers not to set too rigid criteria in its proposal), - provision of an assessment of the selection criteria to be forwarded to the budgetary authority each year and verification of the accounts relating to the operations funded, - modification of the proportion of funding allocated for different types of environmental measures (these changes involve a reduction in the grants for the actions themselves, which the Commission considers unacceptable), - change in the date on which the final assessment report must be forwarded to the institutions and provision of the legal basis for the future proposal for changes to the programme. �