<p>Reconciling economic priorities with biodiversity conservation remains a key challenge for EU Member States in their efforts to pursue sustainable growth. A workshop on "Linking Biodiversity to National Economic and Social Priorities in EU Member States" was held by Ecologic Institute and IEEP in Berlin (Germany) on 19 July 2017 to explore this challenge in more detail and identify opportunities for unlocking nature's potential to contribute to socio-economic objectives. The presentations are available for download.</p>

There are many synergies between socio-economic priorities and biodiversity objectives, with varying degrees of evidence to support those connections. This project, led by IEEP, focuses on these synergies in the EU Member States and explores what the EU can do via its European Semester to raise awareness of the potential for biodiversity to help attain many national socio-economic priorities and therewith encourage due macro-economic policies. While previous analyses have provided rather general assessments of the economic and social benefits of biodiversity, this work will provide a more detailed and country specific analysis and identify synergies in each EU Member State as well as Member State specific data to feed into the European Semester process.