WRITTEN QUESTION E-2201/01

by María Ayuso González (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(23 July 2001)

Subject: Community Rural Development Initiative - Leader+

The Commission notice to the Member States of 14 April 2000(1) states, inter alia, that the strengths of the Leader approach are:

- the mobilising of local actors to reflect on and take control of the future of their area,

- its decentralised, integrated and bottom-up approach to territorial development,

- and that the aim of Leader+ is to encourage and help rural actors to think about the longer-term potential of their area and cooperation in the broad sense of the term will be a fundamental component of Leader+.

In view of this:

1. should not local actors have the freedom to mobilise themselves, provided that they comply with the requirements laid down by the Commission, and is this not the aim set out by the Commission in its notice;

2. can a regional government decide which municipalities should constitute the various local action groups;

3. does the Commission consider that cooperation can be free, voluntary and spontaneous, if a regional government imposes its ideas on the municipalities and districts in the region?

(1) OJ C 139, 18.5.2000, p. 5.

Joint answer to Written Questions E-2201/01, E-2202/01 and E-2203/01 given by Mr Fischler on behalf of the Commission

(5 September 2001)

The Honourable Member is asking the Commission a number of questions on the Community Initiative to link up development measures in the rural economy (Leader+), and more particularly its application in the Autonomous Community of Castile-La Mancha. These questions concern, in particular, whether a regional government like that of the Autonomous Community Castile-La Mancha can really decide on and apply its own rural development strategy in the context of Leader+, given that the Initiative seeks to mobilise local actors.

The Commission therefore wishes to reiterate some of the main points in its communication to the Member States of 14 April 2000(1) laying down guidelines for the Community initiative for rural development (Leader+) for 2000-2006.

The Initiative aims in particular to encourage and help rural actors to think about the longer-term potential of their area, by supplementing the mainstream programmes implemented under Council Regulation (EC) No 1257/1999 of 17 May 1999 on support for rural development from the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF) and amending and repealing certain Regulations(2) (point 8 of the communication). Following on from this, it is clearly the members of the local action group (LAG) who must define and implement a development strategy for their area (point 12 of the communication).

In the same vein, under Action 1, support for integrated territorial rural development strategies of a pilot nature it is stipulated that each Member State should specify, in the light of the particular situation of its rural areas, the criteria for selecting, by call for proposals, development plans drawn up by local action groups (point 14 of the communication).

Turning to the question of territory, the area to be covered by a plan must in all the cases be defined by the groups which are set up following the bottom-up approach described in the guidelines in the Commission's communication. In principle, any potential local action group which meets the general conditions stated above should be able to take part in the call for tenders and the selection process.

Although Leader+ follows on from the Community Initiatives Leader I and Leader II, none of the local action groups set up under Leader II have an automatic right to continue operating under Leader+. On the contrary, the Commission wishes in principle to encourage the emergence of new groups that will apply the Leader approach in new areas. However this does not preclude the creation of new groups covering larger areas than the old ones.

Coming to the individual municipalities named by the Honourable Member in Castile-La Mancha, it is not, then, the Commission's role to decide whether a particular municipality should belong to the territory of one or other local action group. Rather, its role is to check that the conditions laid down in the communication are met. This also applies to the local action group quoted by the Honourable Member Asociación Concejo de Mancomunidad de Cabañeros, the results of whose work in the area of the Cabañeros nature reserve are well known to the Commission.

The Leader+ programme for Castile-La Mancha was submitted within the time limit laid down by the Spanish authorities. The Commission made comments, some of which concerned the zoning of the territory and the method for selecting groups. A revised programme was submitted on 16 July 2001, including the corrections needed to ensure that the objectives set out the communication are met, so that the Commission can now approve it.

(1) OJ C 139, 18.5.2000.

(2) OJ C 160, 26.6.1999.