Description:
Green budgeting can help governments to incorporate environmental considerations into the budget decision making process and, thus, to meet their green commitments. Integrating such tools into the regular budget process is crucial to ensure that green budgeting can influence policy development and budget allocation. This paper presents an overview of how some EU Member States use green budgeting tools when planning the budget. It shows that, considering the various stages of the budget cycle, such tools are commonly used during the preparation phase, which is essential for the inclusion of green considerations into the budget. However, green budgeting has so far been mostly used to provide transparency over government actions and less so to decide on budget allocations. As the process matures, countries aim to use green budgeting more strongly as a decision-making tool.