Month: September 2010

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Rural development & regional policies

RuDI stands for “Rural Development Impacts” and is a consortium of 10 research institutes that has taken an in-depth look at the second pillar of the CAP, examining the rural development programs in all member states and conducting 20 case studies. In addition to calling for more effective use of policy evaluation and bottom-up processes (LEADER), they take issue with the excessive concentration of rural development on agriculture and insufficient integration with other regional policies.
They observe – and endorse – an emerging “new rural paradigm” which

is based on the notion of the multifunctionality of rural areas, where various sectors beyond agriculture are acknowledged to play a key role with regard to rural areas’ competitiveness, and where investments across sectors are considered to be a more appropriate tool than farm subsidies alone.

… Read the rest
Posted on

Rural development & regional policies

RuDI stands for “Rural Development Impacts” and is a consortium of 10 research institutes that has taken an in-depth look at the second pillar of the CAP, examining the rural development programs in all member states and conducting 20 case studies. In addition to calling for more effective use of policy evaluation and bottom-up processes (LEADER), they take issue with the excessive concentration of rural development on agriculture and insufficient integration with other regional policies.

They observe – and endorse – an emerging “new rural paradigm” which

is based on the notion of the multifunctionality of rural areas, where various sectors beyond agriculture are acknowledged to play a key role with regard to rural areas’ competitiveness, and where investments across sectors are considered to be a more appropriate tool than farm subsidies alone.

… Read the rest
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Franco-German position on future of the CAP

This week the governments of France and Germany have published a short document setting out their common position on the future of the common agricultural policy. It makes for fairly light reading though the following points are worth remarking on:

– The common position endorses further moves towards greater market orientation in the CAP but suggests countervailing measures are needed “to buffer devastating effects of growing price volatility and market crises”.

– There is nothing concrete on the future budget of the CAP and it is stressed that “a final decision on all questions relating to finances will be made when decisions are made on all policies and the entire EU financial framework”.… Read the rest

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Public goods in the spotlight

What’s in a word? Or, to be more specific, two words? Where CAP and the term ‘public good’ is concerned, quite a lot. A new briefing note from the Institute for European Environment Policy takes a look at how the slogan ‘public money for public goods’ has come to define the political debate over the future shape of the CAP.

The briefing looks at the evolution of the idea of environmental public goods as a justification for future public expenditure on agriculture. It also sounds a note of caution, that’s worth repeating here:

The increasing visibility of the public goods concept however, has resulted in the concept being interpreted in different ways.

… Read the rest
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Budget rumbles in Brussels

The summer break has come and gone and with the European Parliament back in session, Commissioners back from their yachts and their fonctionnaires back at their desks, the future of the EU budget is back in the spotlight.

As part of the December 2005 heads of government agreement on the 2007-2013 financial perspective it was agreed that there would be a midterm ‘budget review’ in 2008-09 which would look at all areas of the EU budget. including the two hottest political potatoes – the large share of funds going to the CAP and the British budget rebate. The review began with a big public consultation led by the then Budget Commissioner Dalia Grybauskaite, who pulled no punches in describing the budget as largely out of tune with Europe’s current and future challenges.… Read the rest