Opening by Oberkirchenrätin Katrin Hatzinger at the event "Ensuring Civil Society Participation in Rural Development 2021-2027 "

     Ladies and gentlemen,

dear guests,

thank you very much for coming. As director of the Brussels Office of the Protestant church in Germany I would like to welcome you, also on behalf of the other organisers. We are pleased to see you here at our official side event to the European Week of Regions and Cities 2019.

Today, we will speak about rural development. To be more precise, we will speak about the people on the ground who make rural development happen, every day, in practical terms: citizens, communities, NGOs, and other players like churches for example. In rural development, civil society is joining forces with public authorities, enterprises and other players. Together, they improve infrastructures, services and social cohesion to make rural areas stronger and fit for the future by initiating projects for the rural area. In many cases, such projects receive funding from the European Agricultural Funds for Regional development – often, but not exclusively, through the LEADER programme.

In the future EU budget, the Common Agricultural Policy is expected to be reformed and modernised. The second pillar of the CAP – which is the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development – is going to be merged under one legislative package with the first pillar, that is direct payments to farmers.

Agriculture is, without any doubt, a central element in securing the future of rural areas.

[Our church has strongly advocated for strengthening sustainable agricultural practices in the Common Agricultural Policy, and for a stronger effort for climate protection. We therefore both welcome the introduction of eco-schemes in the future CAP and advocate for a transfer of funds from the first pillar to the second in order to finance measures that will increase animal welfare.]

Yet, our office, along with the German Leader Association (BAG-LAG) and the European Leader Association for Rural Development (ELARD), would like to point out that rural development is about more than agriculture and forestry. Rural development also has to take into account social infrastructures and social services and the fight against poverty, deprivation and exclusion. Yet, we see that non-agricultural rural development is about to lose visibility in the proposals for the reformed CAP. The second pillar of the CAP – the Agricultural Fund for Rural Development – is facing stronger budget cuts than the first pillar, that is the direct payments; this is even aggravated by the fact that up to 15% of the budget can be shifted from one pillar to another, in both directions. We strongly support the possibility to shift funds from the first to the second pillar, but are sceptic that the possibility to transfer funds the other way – to direct payments – might aggravate the already strong loss of funding in the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD).

In the current programming period, social inclusion, fighting poverty and boosting economic development have been prominent features of the EAFRD. These topics are frequently a product of bottom-up rural development and civil society engagement. In our opinion, these topics should remain a central part of the agenda of the future, reformed CAP. We therefore welcome the fact that the European Parliament, in its report which was finalised just before the European elections, clarified that social and territorial cohesion should remain a clear objective of the future second pillar of the CAP.

Civil society should be involved not only in the implementation, but also in the programming and monitoring of funding for rural development. We therefore welcome the fact that the partnership principle, as set out in the Common Provisions Regulation, will also be valid for the LEADER programme. We feel that rural development as a whole should be covered by the partnership principle and therefore support the initiative of the European Parliament to bring the entire EAFRD back under the umbrella of the Common Provisions Regulation. This would also make it possible to continue enjoying synergies with the other European Structural and Investment Funds, as it has been the case in the current programming period.

Ladies and Gentlemen, with today’s event we would like to put a spotlight on the role of civil society in rural development in the next Multiannual Financial Framework. This topic has perhaps not received as much attention as the agricultural, environmental or climate-related aspects of the Common Agricultural Policy in the past months, but from our point of view, it is equally important. I hope that today’s discussions will contribute to closing that gap to some degree.

I want to end with a big thank you especially to Ulrike Truderung from my office for the organisation and the moderation and to all our experts on the panel.

I wish us all a fruitful discussion, interesting inputs to take home and now hand over to Hartmut Berndt, the President of the German LEADER association for his impulse.