Strasbourg, 14/11/2003 (Agence Europe) - After the Salzburg conference on the future of rural development, Commissioner Franz Fischler made a commitment to asking the European Commission to propose setting up a single fund for this policy. The conference did not allow for clear directions on the funding on this important pillar in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for the post 2006 period but Mr Fischler explained that the objective was not to obtain more loans but to find the means for better spending the currently available budget. "I believe that this regrouping of funds can create interesting synergies. The question of finding out if more funds need mobilising is not up to the Commission but the Heads of State and Governments", he said. The results of the conference is expected to add to the Commission reflection for the publication at the beginning of December, of the third report on cohesion then from the debate on the next financial perspectives (EUROPE yesterday p 11).
The setting up of a single fund for rural development would allow for a single instrument to be utilised: 1) measures predicted annually by the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF), the guarantee section (rural development programmes and Objective 2 with measures for rural development: EUR 32.9 bn for 2000-06); 2) multiannual actions funded by EAGGF, section "orientation" (rural development measures in the Objective 1 programmes for 2000-06 17.5 bn - and the "Leader plus" programme with 2.1 bn over seven years); 3) the funds will be available from 2005 for rural development with modulation of aid decided on during CAP reform last June (EUR 1.2 bn when the level of reduction of direct aid is 5% as from 2008).
On Friday Mr Fischler declared to the press that "rural development policy has to be greatly simplified and become more suitable". He explained that "During the next few months, I will fully commit myself to obtaining a single fund in the future for financing all of the rural development policy.. a single programming instrument, a single mechanism for financing and a single control mechanism". In his final remarks to the conference in Salzburg, Mr Fischler said that a clearer message had been sent, "we must ensure that the work of the people involved in our programmes is not obstructed by useless administrative bureaucracy". He announced that this was why it would be better to delineate the responsibilities of the Commission and Member States better in the future. He considers that , "we can be proud of what we have achieved over recent years but we know that we can do better: we need a simpler policy, that is more flexible and based on partnerships".
The Commissioner also said that it was necessary to draw the lessons of the Leader initiative, "our laboratory for new ideas in rural development". He called on actors and decision makers to "avoid sterile debate" which pitted rural development rural development against cohesion policy because in the enlarged Union they would need both of them.
Commissioner Michel Barnier especially highlighted the future European cohesion policy, confirming that the Commission would be proposing a reform around three chapters: convergence for States and regions that are significantly behind and which will receive most from this budget, as well as those that are affected by the statistical effect "Objective 1 and 1-mark 2"); competitiveness and jobs for the other regions thanks to the new Objective 2 "more targeted and more focused on the Lisbon and Göteborg priorities"; accessible cooperation for all areas to work together in territories beyond borders. Mr Barnier indicated that, "there would therefore be in each of the these three chapters the means for meeting the rural challenge and undoubtedly in order to take into account the natural handicaps that weaken low population areas such as mountains and islands". The Commissioner warned that with the accession of 10 new Member States the number of farms would increase by 74% and the number of farmers by 56%. Mr Barnier exclaimed that "it will be at that moment, with the fractures and inequalities that are more serious of those of today, that we hear the experts and university lecturers and even political leaders say that cohesion policy is archaic, outmoded and old (allusion to the Sapir report and ideas of Gordon Brown: Editor's note).
On behalf of the EU Committee of the Regions, Robert Savy, President of the Regional Council of Limousin said on Thursday during the conference that "we are right to be worried" about funding for rural development. The loans will be released by the aid modulation system (adopted during CAP reform last June) and which would only benefit from 6% of rural development, he regretted.
(Mr Savy also called for the rural development policy to remain under Community scope, and therefore not be renationalised) and applied at regional level. He recognised, moreover, that it is difficult to create a single rural development instrument in a field at the border between EAGGF and European Regional Development Funds (ERDF). The Committee of the Regions considers the current conception of rural development, considered as just a prolongation of farm activities, as far more restrictive. According to Mr Savy, it would be necessary to integrate the multi-functional nature of farming, tourism, support to craft activities and to SMEs, access to the information society, business services and services to the population, and a habitat policy. As the Committee of the Regions sees it, there is real potential in developing new production and employment in rural areas in the non-food crop sector (bio-fuels, bio-materials and bio-molecules) for chemicals and health, renewable energies, and services. According to Mr Savy, these matters could be the subject of an indepth reflection with a view to the creation of activity in rural areas, in liaison with energy policy (Kyoto Protocol, reflection on the future of nuclear energy), habitat (wood and new materials) or industrial policy (plant molecules). He recognised, however, that "only a strong European-scale political resolve can lead to this effort of anticipation".