The conditions for an increase of the percentage of the budgetary resources dedicated to projects supporting the conservation of nature and biodiversity referred to in Article 9(3) of the LIFE Regulation by a maximum of 10 % are fulfilled, since the total funds requested over 2 consecutive years by way of proposals that fall under the priority area of Nature and Biodiversity and that meet minimum quality requirements exceed by more than 20 % the corresponding amount calculated for the 2 years preceding those years.

In view of the Nature Directives Fitness Check2 conclusions concerning the need to increase funding availability to enhance the Directives implementation and Action 8 of the Commission's Action Plan for nature, people and the economy3, the Commission decided to increase the 55 % budgetary resources allocated to projects supported by way of action grants under the sub-programme for Environment that fall under the priority area of Nature and Biodiversity.

The increase of the percentage of the budgetary resources for the priority area Nature and Biodiversity is not expected to reduce the resources devoted to projects funded under the other priority areas of the sub-programme for Environment, due to the planned increase in the annual financial envelope for the implementation of the LIFE Programme in the years 2018-2020 and the decrease of the EU co-funding rate for the majority of action grants under the other priority areas from 60 % to 55 %,