Opinion of the Economic and Social Committee on the "Communication from the Commission to the Member States laying down guidelines for the Community initiative for rural development (Leader+)"

(2000/C 51/18)

On 19 October 1999 pursuant to Article 262 of the Treaty, the Commission decided to consult the Economic and Social Committee on the above-mentioned communication.

The Economic and Social Committee decided to appoint Mr Bastian as rapporteur-general for its opinion.

At its 368th plenary session on 8 and 9 December 1999 (meeting of 9 December) the Economic and Social Committee unanimously adopted the following opinion.

1. Introduction

1.1. The Committee welcomes the draft Commission communication laying down guidelines for the Community Leader+ initiative. It is pleased that this initiative to support rural development is one of the four Community Agenda 2000 initiatives kept for the 2000-2006 programming period.

1.2. Rural areas make up more than 80 % of EU territory and contain more than a quarter of its population. The Committee therefore welcomes the Leader+ initiative as a complement to other rural development measures under the Structural Funds, and hopes that this package of programmes will help preserve a dynamic rural fabric in the Union.

1.3. On the basis of experience with Leader II, the Committee would like to make the following comments.

2. Financing of Leader+ through the EAGGF guidance section

2.1. In the interests of administrative simplification, the Commission proposes that Leader+ should be financed through a single Structural Fund, the EAGGF guidance section, and no longer through the EAGGF guidance section, the ERDF and the ESF, as was the case with Leader II.

2.2. Just as rural development policy, which has now been designated the "second pillar of the CAP", will from now on be financed partly through the EAGGF guarantee section, the Commission wants measures relating not just to agricultural activity but also to rural development in general now to be financed through the EAGGF guidance section (hitherto limited strictly to agriculture).

2.3. The change, though limited and experimental at this stage, cannot be made under the guise of rationalisation alone. The Committee feels that it represents a deliberate policy direction for the EU which calls for further serious debate if it is to be continued after 2006.

2.4. For the time being, and in accordance with the main purpose of the EAGGF guidance section, the Committee would like many agricultural development projects run by farmers and their families in rural areas - including small agricultural based industries - to fall under the Leader+ development strategies.

3. Extension of Leader+ to all parts of the EU

3.1. Eligibility under the Leader initiative was previously restricted to Objective 1, 5b and 6 areas, but has been extended under Leader+ to include all rural territories, with Member States permitted to define a beneficiary area.

3.2. The Committee welcomes this major change compared with Leader II, and believes that it will give the Member States more autonomy in choosing priority areas.

3.3. However, the Committee is concerned that there might be a proliferation and dilution of projects, which could reduce the effectiveness of the initiative. This fear is all the more justified given that while eligibility has been extended under Leader+ the annual budget (EUR 2020 million at 1999 prices over seven years, compared to six years for Leader II) is lower.

3.4. The Committee therefore calls on the Commission and the Member States to avoid the risk of spreading aid too thinly, which could be counterproductive in terms of achieving the desired results, and to try and ensure that the rural development programmes as a whole are well coordinated (cf. point 5 below).

4. The pilot nature of projects eligible under Leader+

4.1. The Commission's draft communication sets out (e.g. in point 14) the criteria for evaluating development strategies proposed by Local Action Groups (LAGs).

4.2. As a general principle, the Commission requires that these strategies must be of a pilot nature to be eligible for Community co-financing (cf. point 37).

4.3. The Committee considers this requirement to be consistent with the purpose of Leader+ to promote and support the implementation of original and high-quality strategies for integrated rural development.

4.4. Like the Commission, the Committee sees this pilot nature requirement as one of the selection criteria for proposed strategies, of the same order as integration, coherence with the territory, transferability of methods and complementarity with regional rural development programmes.

4.5. The rationale of Leader+ is that to be eligible a strategy must embrace a large number of local projects and initiatives so as to provide a coherent response to the needs of the people and regions concerned.

4.6. Some of these projects and initiatives will not be innovative in themselves, but will nevertheless be needed for putting into effect the integrated development strategy envisaged.

4.7. The Committee agrees with the Commission that the innovative - or "pilot" - aspect of a strategy must be the development plan viewed as a whole. Moreover, this selection criterion must be assessed differently depending on whether the territories concerned have already been involved in the Leader I and Leader II programmes.

4.8. The Committee also appreciates the Commission's concern that Leader+ development plans should be based on a "strong theme" that is typical of and unites the territory. The Commission is thus aiming to avoid a situation in which a simple series of local projects is presented as a coherent local development plan.

4.9. The Committee warns, however, that this requirement should not have the effect of discouraging truly integrated multisectoral approaches. Rather it would like the Commission and the Member States to specifically encourage multisectoral integration.

4.10. In view of its concern with equal opportunities and awareness that women and young people can boost development in rural areas, the Committee approves the Commission's proposal regarding these two key groups. It welcomes the Commission's request for Member States to examine the needs of women and young people working in rural areas and to put forward proposals responding to these needs and securing the measures necessary to remove existing discrimination, while taking into account the economic diversification of rural areas.

5. Complementarity with other Community programmes

5.1. It is important to avoid overlapping between the different Community instruments for rural development, duplication of funding and potential unfair opportunities this would create for the beneficiaries. The Leader initiative must apply where traditional rural development programmes cease to operate.

5.2. This naturally applies to coordination between Leader+ and measures covered by the new Regulation (EC) No. 1257/99 (the second pillar of the CAP) and all programmes that have complementary objectives in terms of job creation, vocational training, the craft sector or the social sphere.

5.3. There must be the same complementarity between the Interreg initiative and the support that Leader+ (part 2) can provide for transnational cooperation between rural territories in the EU.

5.4. For instance, the Committee believes that Leader+ could be a priority organisational instrument in mountain areas, which tend to be divided between several administrative bodies. The Leader programmes have demonstrated their relevance in mountain regions. The Committee would like to see a continuation of activities started in these regions and would like Leader+ to promote exchanges of experience and cooperation between the different mountain regions of the EU through networking and transnational projects. This example obviously does not imply that Leader+ does not offer a genuine opportunity for less-favoured regions in general.

5.5. The Committee also recommends that transnational cooperation projects should not be limited to the Member States. It should also be possible to extend them to include the countries of eastern and central Europe (CEECs). The Committee is aware that Leader+ funding is available only to the Member States, but it would nevertheless like to see easier access to pre-accession funds for CEECs that wish to become involved in rural cooperation programmes with EU territories.

5.6. The Committee also asks the Commission and the Member States to ensure that Leader+ complements Community-financed environmental programmes. It is therefore pleased to see that the priority themes proposed by the Commission include enhancing the value of sites of Community interest selected under Natura 2000. More generally, the Committee endorses the environmental dimension of rural development policy, including the promotion of good agricultural practice.

5.7. With reference to its recent opinion on the third stage of the financial instrument for the environment (LIFE III)(1), the Committee stresses the importance of disseminating and using the findings of projects financed by LIFE, in the context of both LIFE-Environment (land use development and planning) and LIFE-Nature. In that opinion, the Committee pointed out that "national and EU funding instruments operating in the fields of regional policy and agricultural policy (such as the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Funds) should play a much greater and more innovative role than has hitherto been the case". This obviously also applies to the Leader+ initiative.

5.8. The Observatory for Innovation and Rural Development will have a key role to play in ensuring effective coordination of Leader+ and the other Community instruments supporting rural development.

5.9. To help potential beneficiaries understand the system, the Committee suggests producing a guide to all existing Community policies concerning rural development and the relevant eligibility criteria.

5.10. This could be one of the first tasks assigned to the Observatory for Innovation and Rural Development led by the Commission, in collaboration with the competent authorities of the Member States.

5.11. The Committee would like action taken by the Observatory to be evaluated by an independent working group comprising representatives of the socio-economic interest groups concerned by rural development and chaired by the Commission.

6. Composition of Local Action Groups (LAGs)

6.1. LAGs remain one of the specific features of the Leader+ initiative, and probably the most important in terms of promoting a bottom-up approach to local development.

6.2. Experience with Leader I and Leader II has nevertheless shown that a majority of existing LAGs are run predominantly by government representatives. Although they are frequently efficient, these LAGs have not been seen by the local population as a new mouthpiece for local democracy, but as an additional administrative layer.

6.3. The Committee shares the Commission's wish that the LAGs should represent the different socio-economic interest groups in the territory concerned. It therefore endorses the setting of a 50 % ceiling on government representatives (civil servants and elected office-holders).

6.4. On the other hand, the Committee asks the Member States not to abuse this rule by requiring that 50 % of members be government representatives in LAGs that are composed mainly of private sector players, which they frequently are in Finland for example.

6.5. This new rule introduced by the Commission should allow several local interest groups to be represented in a given LAG. The remaining membership of the LAG must be negotiated between government and non-government players, and should not be determined by unilateral administrative decision.

7. Networking

7.1. Communication, or sharing experiences, has been one of the main features of Leader I and Leader II. Promoting networking between groups has been an ongoing task of the network organisation unit managed at Community level by the AEIDL ("Leader" magazine, seminars, missions and visits among the LAGs, etc.).

7.2. The Committee welcomes the Commission's willingness to step up the proactive approach to networking driven by the national network organisation units and a European Observatory for Innovation and Rural Development.

7.3. Drawing on experience with Leader I and Leader II, the Committee recommends that these network organisation units properly define the different types of networking activity, their objectives and the results expected, differentiating between specific cooperation activities between LAGs and the means of communication made available to them.

7.4. The Committee recommends that in addition to general information about ongoing projects, the Observatory and the national units promote a participatory approach based on visits, staff exchanges and specific projects set up by the LAGs on topics of joint interest.

7.5. Networking will thus help bring local development out of the isolated context in which it often takes place.

8. Implementation

8.1. The Committee commends the bottom-up approach that informs the Leader+ initiative. This approach makes it possible to actually assess the diversity of rural Europe and could presage the decline of blanket top-down approaches applied across all parts of the EU.

8.2. With regard to the mainstreaming principle under Article 6 of the Treaty and in line with Article 8 (pursuant to recital 27) of Regulation (EC) No. 1260/1999, the Committee would call on Member States to ensure that the environmental authorities are involved in the preparation, implementation and assessment of Leader+ programmes and, to that end, in the work of the monitoring committees. The same applies to the drawing-up of development plans by the local action groups; all local players, including environmental and farming organisations should be involved as closely as possible in this work.

8.3. In order to help local players produce innovative projects, the Committee would like the Commission and the Member States to make every effort to:

- clearly explain the eligibility criteria for LAGs and projects;

- simplify the administrative procedures which the LAGs must complete once their projects have been selected.

8.4. Notwithstanding the methods of financing that the Member States will choose, the Committee thus favours the global grant system, which gives more freedom to the LAGs in allocating the funds they receive. For this system to be completely effective, the authorities concerned in the Member States must ensure that allocation procedures and guarantee requirements are not so complicated that they cause delays with co-financing.

8.5. As proposed in the draft communication (cf. point 31), the Committee asks the Commission and the national and regional authorities concerned to provide information at the beginning of the initiative about their accounting requirements so as to simplify the financial management of Leader+ at the various institutional levels.

8.6. The Commission also sets a six-month time limit for Member States to submit their proposals for Leader+ programmes after the communication has been adopted and published. The Committee feels this deadline to be rather tight, especially for projects to be set up by territories that have no previous experience of participatory activities.

8.7. The Committee therefore recommends keeping the flexibility introduced with Leader II by allowing Leader+ development plans to be adapted during their implementation. If a plan is adapted, objectives, strategies and indicators must also be redefined in order to promote "good practice" in project design.

8.8. The Committee also recommends that the LAGs, in particular LAGs that have recently been set up, receive proper technical support during the project design stage, and that they be fully informed about best practice and innovative measures documented during Leader I and Leader II.

8.9. With the above recommendations in mind, the Committee favours rapid adoption of the draft Commission communication and of the necessary legislation to implement Leader+.

Brussels, 9 December 1999.

The President

of the Economic and Social Committee

Beatrice RANGONI MACHIAVELLI

(1) OJ C No. 209, 22.7.1999.