EU Rural Development Policy

Rural development is a vitally important policy area in the European Union. It works to improve aspects of the economic, environmental and social situation of the EU's rural areas. Rural regions cover 57% of the EU territory and 24% of the EU population. Together with intermediate regions they comprise 91% of the EU territory and 59% of the total EU population. Across the EU, the dimensions of the rural-urban territorial vary – fromcountries with an explicitly defined rural character (such as Ireland, Sweden, Finland, etc.) to Member States that tend to be more urbanised (such as the Benelux countries, Malta). The policy works essentially through seven-year rural development programmes (RDPs) – which operate at either national or regional level. These are funded from the EU budget, national / regional budgets and private sources. Rural Development policy targets rural areas as a whole, with a focus on ensuring the competitiveness of farms and forestry, delivering sustainable management of natural resources and climate action as well as create growth and jobs in rural areas.

Rural development policy is financed by three categories of funding:

The expected total public spending (EU + national + regional) on rural development policy in the period between 2014–2020 is EUR 161 billion.

The three objectives and overall purpose of the CAP include:

However, in practical terms RDPs are drawn up with reference to six more specific priorities, which are further divided into more detailed focus areas.

There is a total of 118 Rural Development Programmes(RDP) in the EU. In most Member States there is a national programme which covers the entire territory but in some countries there are several programmes, most often linked to regions: France (30), Spain(22), Italy(23), Germany(15), Portugal(3), United Kingdom(4), Belgium(2), Finland(2).

A given RDP links the priorities of rural development policy to the situation on its territory via a SWOT analysis. The RDP then sets out a selection of measures drawn from the Rural Development Regulation to address the priorities in the appropriate way. A measure is essentially a set of one types of activity, project, investment etc. which may be funded within a RDP to achieve the priorities of rural development policy. For example, the measure Investments in physical assets as set out in the Rural Development Regulation allows support for: • investments in farms to improve their performance; • investments in processing and marketing (i.e. not necessarily only for farmers); • investments in farm- or forest-level infrastructure; and • "non-productive" (i.e. primarily environmental) investments. Measure descriptions in the EU Rural Development Regulation give information of varying detail (according to the measure) about who is potentially eligible for support, what sorts of activity etc. can be supported, and whether there are limits on how much support may be offered. MS follow the rules for a given measure but, within this framework, still enjoy considerable flexibility about how they use it. For example, a MS might choose to make the measure Investments in physical assets available in its RDP, but only with regard to environmental investments.

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Wikipedia