Home › Intervenant › Sonja van Renssen

Sonja van Renssen

Commissioner for Budget Lewandowski on Greening the EU Budget

Description

The European Commissioner for Financial Programming and the Budget, Janusz Lewandowski, shares his thoughts on Greening the EU budget with Sonja van Renssen.

When confronted with the question ‘How green is the new budget?’, Commissioner Lewandowski makes clear that the concept behind the 2014-2020 budget entails that 20% of overall expenditure should be spend on climate or environment measures. The ambition is to achieve these environmental goals by rechanneling existing agriculture and cohesion spending. This method should enable an increase from the existing 5% spent on green policies to 20%.

Lewandowski points out that such measures require conditionality, but at the same time stresses that he wants to avoid red tape & bureaucracy. The Commissioner for Financial Programming and the Budget recognizes that needs may differ per case and accordingly values policymaking at the regional and local levels.

Agree with these viEUws? Share yours here & shape the EU debate
(use the 'Add a comment'-option on the right of a video or read more about the possibility of sharing your video comment in our ‘viEUwers' react’ section)

Posted on : 08/05/12

Hosted by : Sonja van Renssen

Tags : 2014-2020 EU budget, agriculture spending, Budget Commissioner, climate, cohesion, conditionality, environment, greening, Lewandowski

Related videos

Sonja van Renssen

About Sonja van Renssen

Sonja van Renssen has been lead climate/carbon correspondent for EU environment policy news and analysis service ENDS Europe for the last four years. 

As well as covering climate issues, Sonja writes about energy, transport, biodiversity, chemicals, pollution, waste and resource policy developments in Brussels. She also helps commission, edit and sub-edit news and analysis from colleagues and freelancers. She moderates conferences and has worked as a freelance radio journalist for the BBC World Service. Sonja won a "Young Broadcaster of the Year Award" in 2005 for a science radio package.
 
Prior to joining ENDS and working in radio, Sonja obtained a Distinction in an MSc in Science Communication at Imperial College London. She also worked as a reporter for the Science and Development Network (www.scidev.net) in London, the Buenos Aires Herald (www.buenosairesherald.com) in Argentina and the Llama Express in Bolivia.
 
Before then she spent two-and-a-half years as a strategic marketing consultant for kae: marketing intelligence in London. Sonja has an MA in Biological Sciences from the University of Oxford and grew up in the Netherlands, Japan and Taiwan. She enjoys cycling, snowboarding, tennis, cooking (and eating!) and improvisational theatre. She’d like to get another guinea pig.

Photos

Bookmark and Share