Brussels, 20/07/2004 (Agence Europe) - The European Union's Committee on Agricultural Structures and Rural Development (STAR) gave favourable opinions on Tuesday on the 2004-2006 programmes for rural development in Poland (EUR 3.6 billion in total, including 2.8 billion in Community funds), Hungary (EUR 754 million total including Community contribution of EUR 602,30 million), Slovakia (total of EUR 561.8 million in public funding with Community funding of EUR 397.1 million) and Slovenia (EUR 353.1 million in total including EUR 281.6 million from the EU budget).
Also, the European Commission approved the sectoral agriculture and rural development programme for Slovakia for the same period (2004-2006). Contrary to all the precedents, this programme is financed by Structural Funds and will cover the Objective 1 regions of the country. For this programme, the budget amounts to EUR 182.9 million (of which EUR 181.1 million is financed by the EAGGF-Guidance and EUR 1.8 million from FIFG, the Financial Instrument for Fisheries Guidance.