LIFE sustainable energy policy implementation
Grants for public and private organisations working together to help EU countries implement energy-efficiency and building-performance rules.
Diese Finanzierungsmöglichkeit ist derzeit auf Englisch beschrieben.
Help reduce greenhouse-gas emissions through better implementation of energy and building policy.
Fund technical advice, implementation tools, policy monitoring, data collection and methods for measuring energy savings. The LIFE POLICY topic supports EU Member States in applying the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED), which governs efficient energy use, and the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD), which governs building energy performance.
Choose one main route and identify it in the proposal. Under the EED route, address at least one listed core provision: the Energy Efficiency First principle, using tools to assess efficiency solutions in policy, planning and investment decisions; public-sector energy and building targets; energy-savings obligations; national heating and cooling assessments and coordination; or business energy audits and energy management systems. Other EED provisions can also be included.
Under the EPBD route, address at least one focus area: public awareness and effective, coherent renovation instruments; implementing policy tools for a climate-neutral building stock; or rolling out building data and information tools. Additional areas or a combination of both directives are possible if you explain their coherence and added value. Work specifically on local heating/cooling plans or EPBD information instruments is directed to the separate HEATCOOLPLAN or BETTERRENO topics.
The 2026 grant reimburses 95% of eligible project costs. CINEA considers an EU contribution of up to €2 million appropriate, but this is an indicative amount: requests for other amounts may be selected. The remaining share can come from non-EU public or private funding; beneficiaries are not required to use only their own money. EU grants cannot overlap on the same action or pay twice for a cost, and the grant cannot generate a profit. An EU operating grant can be combined only when this project falls outside its work programme and cost items are accounted for separately without being declared twice.
Infrastructure is excluded. Limited equipment, such as monitoring or testing devices, may qualify only if indispensable solely for the action; eligible equipment costs are depreciated over the project lifetime. POLICY projects cannot distribute grants to third parties. Subcontracting should be limited, with any share above 30% of eligible costs justified in the proposal.
Show the concrete results and how they lead to the expected policy impacts, using realistic assumptions and baselines. Quantify results and impacts at project completion and five years afterwards, selecting relevant topic indicators and reporting common indicators for energy savings, renewable generation, emission reductions and sustainable-energy investment.
Eligibility
- Form a consortium with at least three beneficiary applicants from three different eligible countries. Affiliated entities do not count toward this minimum. Your project must support the relevant public bodies, but those authorities need not themselves be beneficiaries: support letters linked to relevant project activities can demonstrate their involvement. There is no separate minimum number of Member States whose implementation you must support.
- Public and private legal entities can apply. Eligible establishment countries include EU Member States and their overseas countries and territories, plus Iceland, Moldova, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Ukraine. The coordinator must be established in an eligible country. Serbian applicants depend on an association agreement covering the call being concluded in time for grant signature; exceptionally, funding for other-country entities requires CINEA to find their participation essential.
- Individuals are excluded except self-employed sole traders without a separate legal personality. International organisations are eligible without the country-location rule. Entities lacking legal personality may participate exceptionally if their representatives can undertake obligations and provide equivalent protection of EU financial interests. EU bodies are excluded except the Joint Research Centre.
- Activities must take place in eligible countries. Work outside them must be necessary to achieve EU environmental and climate objectives and make interventions within eligible countries effective.
- Have stable, sufficient finances for your contribution and all projects you undertake. The financial check normally concerns coordinators, with exemptions for public bodies established under national law, including local, regional and national authorities; international organisations; and requests of no more than €60,000. Affiliated entities may also be checked. Insufficient finances can lead to guarantees, instalments, no advance payment, replacement or rejection.
- Demonstrate the team’s know-how, qualifications and resources, including experience of comparable projects. CINEA assesses staff and consortium experience under the Resources criterion; exceptionally, you may explain how missing operational resources will be secured before the tasks start.
- EU sanctions, exclusion decisions and the call’s exclusion conditions apply. Entities affected by EU conditionality measures cannot hold funded roles; the call identifies Hungarian public-interest trusts and entities they maintain. Completed projects are excluded; already-started projects are assessed individually, and costs before the eligible starting date or proposal submission cannot be reimbursed.
How to apply
- Status
- geschlossen
- Antragsbeginn
- Antragsschluss
- Beschränkungen dieser Antragsrunde
- 2026 intake closed; at least three beneficiaries from three eligible countries.[^c6][^c12][^c13]
The 2026 round closed on 16 September 2026 at 17:00 Brussels time. New proposals cannot be submitted to this round. Use CINEA’s official topic page to read the published call documents and updates.
For the 2026 round, applications went through the Funding & Tenders Portal’s electronic submission system under LIFE-2026-CET-POLICY. Participants needed an EU Login account and registration in the Participant Register to obtain their participant identification code (PIC). The coordinator submitted administrative information and budget in Part A, the technical proposal in the mandatory system template as a PDF in Part B, additional project data in Part C, and the required annexes. A confirmation email with the submission date and time established that the proposal had been submitted.