EU rural budget is ‘disappointing’
Speaking at Green Week in Berlin, she said she sees rural development as the most forward-looking part of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and a real-life insurance policy for rural regions.
It will also come to play an increasing role in policy in the period after 2013.
Ms Fischer Boel said it is clear the agreement reached on the EU budget for the 2007-2013 period “is not everything we wanted.”
“But it will at least provide financial certainty for member states to prepare their new rural development programmes and as we embark on the next stage of our reform process,” she said.
“Our new rural development regulation will give much greater scope to use this money for the creation of new growth and jobs in the countryside.
“Under the budget deal, expenditure in the EU-27 in 2013 will be roughly the same as the 2006 level for EU-25 - around €11 billion.
“This course hides the fact that in 2013, the EU-10 will receive 19% more rural funding than in 2006, but the EU-15 will have to make do with 36% less.
“My priority is to use the money in the best way possible to further our goals of job creation and ecological protection in rural areas,” she said.
Ms Fischer Boel recalled saying at Green Week last year that European agriculture was entering a new era. But even she had been surprised by the pace of developments in 2005.
“My highlight of 2005 was the agreement by EU agriculture ministers on reforms to the sugar sector.
“I am convinced that the deal will give sugar production in Europe a long-term and viable future,” she said.
