DG Agri has established an Advisory Group on Rural Development. On 15th December 2011, ARC coordinator, Véronique Rebholtz attended a meeting and provided this report.
In order to be more efficient during this Advisory Group meeting, 3 working groups were organised, each focusing on specific topics:
- Developing agricultural competitiveness within the rural economy
- Development of environmental measures
- Maintenance of vitality of rural areas
Everybody agreed that the working groups were a very interesting method and that the idea should be kept in the future. The aim was also to keep a complementarity with working groups or workshops of the ENRD. The first part of the morning highlighted the legislative proposals of the European Commission regarding rural development.
At the end of the morning session, DG Agri presented what will be developed in 2012 within the ENRD. The elements of the presentation can be found here.
Priorities and instruments for the Rural Development Policy after 2013 through the CAP reform were then presented, with a view of the proposals of the European Commission.
In the afternoon the spokespersons from the 3 workshops presented the conclusions of their group. Reports will be available soon on the website of the European Commission.
DG Regio then presented the evolution of structural funds in rural areas after 2013. Tools will be necessary to have common rules for all funds, but it is the aim of the proposal to have a common and integrated approach for it.
At the end of the meeting, the European Innovation Partnership was quickly introduced. Another meeting at the beginning of 2012 will let more time for debates about this topic.
