European Union Supports Plan to Protect Amazon Rainforests

The European Union today, Friday, threw its weight behind a plan to protect the Amazon rainforest and pledged to coordinate financial contributions from EU member states, ensuring that funds are spent as intended within the framework of the EU Global Gateway investment program. Team Europe, which includes EU member states and institutions such as the European Investment Bank, is coordinating the collection of 260 million euros (277 million dollars) already pledged by Spain, Italy, Sweden, France, Germany, and the Netherlands to reduce the loss of forest cover in the Amazon region. The EU will add an undisclosed amount to protect the forests from deforestation through the Global Gateway investment program in Latin America, where protecting the Amazon rainforest is a core project of the program. Under the Global Gateway initiative, the EU committed in July to invest 45 billion euros in Latin America by 2027, and the plan will be discussed in more detail today between finance ministers from the EU and Latin America in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. A source familiar with the negotiations stated that the ministers will explore ways to ensure that the funds reach and are spent as planned. The Commission has previously faced criticism for committing large sums of investments to developing regions without any mechanisms to verify the actual use of funds. However, the European Commission is now taking charge of coordinating the flow of funds and integrating individual country donations into a donor platform launched by the Inter-American Development Bank today on the sidelines of the ministers' meeting.