Division 1 INTRODUCTION

According to Article 3 of Regulation (EU) No 1293/2013 (hereinafter ‘LIFE Regulation’), the LIFE Programme pursues the following general objectives:

• to contribute to the shift towards a resource-efficient, low-carbon and climate-resilient economy, to the protection and improvement of the quality of the environment and to halting and reversing biodiversity loss, including the support of the Natura 2000 network and tackling the degradation of ecosystems;

• to improve the development, implementation and enforcement of Union environmental and climate policy and legislation, and to act as a catalyst for, and promote, the integration and mainstreaming of environmental and climate objectives into other Union policies and public and private sector practice, including by increasing the public and private sector’s capacity;

• to support better environmental and climate governance at all levels, including better involvement of civil society, NGOs and local actors; and

• to support the implementation of the 7th Environment Action Programme.

The LIFE programme will be managed by the Commission services themselves or by the Executive Agency (EA) to which this task has been delegated in direct management. The EA will act within the limits of the delegation according to the Commission Decision C(2013) 9414 and under the supervision of the Commission services. The overall responsibility for the programme remains with the Commission. External experts may be contracted to support the Commission services and/or the EA in their work.

In line with these general objectives, the present multiannual work programme (MAWP) has been adopted pursuant to Article 24(1) of the LIFE Regulation by means of an implementing act in accordance with the examination procedure set out in Article 5 of Regulation (EU) No 182/2011 of the European Parliament and the Council^f1 and referred to in Article 30 of the LIFE Regulation.

In application to the principle of complementarity with other European funding programmes set out in Recitals 5, 11 and 13 and Article 8 of the LIFE Regulation, the implementation of the MAWP will ensure through specific measures consistency and synergies, and avoid overlap with other Union policies and financial instruments as far as possible, in particular with the Horizon 2020 Programme^f2, the Union’s research and innovation programme for 2014-20, and with its work programmes^f3. This will mainly be achieved through the eligibility criteria for the different project types and orientations in the application guidelines accompanying the calls. Double funding will be avoided through the cross-checking during the selection phase and through ex post verifications. In particular, projects focused on research or the construction of large infrastructure are excluded from funding through the LIFE Programme.

The structure of the MAWP follows the structure set out in Article 24(2) of the LIFE Regulation and only addresses the sub-programmes Environment and Climate Action separately, where necessary.

It covers the period from 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2017.