Commissioner argues for retention of ‘rural’ policy within the CAP

EUROPEAN “rural” development policy absorbed into regional policy would probably no longer be “rural“, according to EU Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel.

She told a conference in Brussels that the magnetic power of towns in regions defined as “rural” would attract too much of the funding in such a scenario.

“I’m at the firm conviction that rural development should stay in the Common Agricultural Policy and I will fight for this.