Every member states (or regions if they are in charge of agriculture) must submit every year a programme of the expenditures of European funding for rural development. These rural development programmes must among others create new income opportunities and fight unemployment. Since 2007, they’ve to respect moreover a coherent strategy across the EU as a whole.
As you may know, more than 56% of the population of the 27 EU member states live in rural areas which represent about 91% of the European territory. But these areas are not very flourishing and lack of competition.
The rural development policy set for the period from 2007 to 2013 is meant to improve the quality of life, the competiveness of agriculture and the environment, and to diversify economic activities.
According to the Council Regulation 1698/2005, the member states are obliged to spread European funding between all the goals mentioned above. Rural development programmes are funded by the EU (the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development) as well as each country.
For instance, Cantabria, one of the three Spanish regions received for rural development about 152 million €, included more than 75 million € from the EAFRD.
Filed under: News | Tags: Agriculture, Commission, Mariann Fisher Boel, Wales
Mariann Fisher Boel had to convince Walsh farmers – mostly women – of the legitimacy of the CAP Health Check this Monday (click here to read the speech).
She referred to the fussy topic, market support instruments, as a “safety net” instead of a “price setter”. Once reformed, these instruments will be more suitable for tackling high prices that every European consumer is confronted to at the moment.
She also promised to improve the payment system and to abandon the arable set-aside system and milk quotas, out of date according to her.
But the main goal of her speech was to persuade farmers that the CAP had to be modernised to respond to new global challenges such as climate change and biodiversity.
The rural development policy is entitled to provide farmers support to undertake these challenges. However there is still a “minor” problem: the budget of this policy is already in short supply for covering the current issues!!! So, right now, the extra financial source is still a mystery…
Filed under: News | Tags: Agriculture, CAP, consultation, European Commission
Hurry up! Less than one month to take part in the consultation on the CAP (end around May 20). Your voice should be taken into account if you write down your opinion on Mariann Fisher Boel’s blog. You don’t need to be an expert in the CAP and it concerns everybody. To understand a little bit more the CAP, have a look at the European commission’s website and the one of the commissioner on agriculture.
As you know, the CAP (common agricultural policy) has already been reformed many times (for more details see “background” category). But this time, mind the gap…the European Union (EU) is going to take a big step!! Why more than the previous ones? Well, the CAP Health Check (CAPHC) is entitled to reform european agriculture but also falls within the scope of the budget reform as well as the environmental one. Nowadays, the CAP has to respond to new challenges such as climate change, biofuels, water management, biodiversity. The commissioner in charge of agriculture, Mariann Fisher Boel, announced in November that the commission is about to tackle these new challenges, the subsidies system and market support instrument.
Here on this blog, you’ll be informed of every single news related to the CAP. So, feel free to take a peek any time you want and to comment!
photo credit: The Vegetarian Society of the United Kingdom
Filed under: About me
I’m a young journalist studying a MA in International Journalism at City University London. In September 07, I received a MA in LAw from the Universite Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve(UCL). Next year, I’d love to be a journalist reporting on the European Union.
