CAP Health Check

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.