Back in November, two Local Action Groups – Northumberland Uplands from North England and Leader Linne from Sweden – went on a mini-break to Brussels.
The idea of the 3-day trip was to conduct some joint training and learn more about the future of the Common Agriculture Policy and European funding, both from decision makers in the European Institutions and officers in lobbying organisations.
The ARC was one of the stakeholders they really wanted to meet. On 22nd November, 33 members from both groups paid a visit to our secretariat: a mixture of individuals from across civil society including rural activists, land managers, agricultural experts, tourism professionals and community development officers. The discussion was really open, covering the basic principles of the ARC and investigating conceptions of sustainable rural development. Now that the link has been created between the secretariat in Brussels and the two groups, they will continue to follow what ARC is doing on the local level through our correspondent in the UK and our website.
