On Monday 22 January, the European Commission opened a public consultation (open till 20 April) on rural development in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which will feed into the discussions on the future of the post-2020 CAP. This consultation seeks to “assess the Performance of Rural Development Programmes of the 2007-2013 period” in an effort to improve and simplify this second pillar of the CAP.
There are 20 or so questions put to stakeholders and the public at large, including: have the rural development programmes helped competitiveness in European agriculture and forestry?; have they helped to improve the environment and landscape?; have they improved the quality of life and the economic development of rural areas. Finally, respondents are also asked whether they consider that the programme in the second pillar of the CAP provides a good cost-effectiveness relationship.
Rural development enjoyed a budget of €98 billion from the EU over the 2007-13 period. This budget has been increased by €2 billion for the 2014-20 period.
Stakeholders have already contributed to the drafting of the Cork 2.0 declaration on rural development adopted in September 2016, which reaffirms the importance of the second pillar of the CAP and sets out its new objectives for the future (see EUROPE 11617).
The European Commission is due to present its draft post-2020 multi-annual financial framework and then, shortly afterwards, it will submit its formal legislative proposals for the next CAP on the basis of its communication, “The Future of Food and Agriculture" adopted at the end of 2017 (see EUROPE 11915).
The public consultation is available at the following link: http://bit.ly/2n3nuqn . (Original version in French)