A MAJOR change in the way the EU's agricultural budget will be spent in future was signalled yesterday by Mr Franz Fischler the EU Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development who indicated that there had to be an end to a "purely sectoral approach".
His remarks to the major EU Rural Development Conference are being interpreted as indicating that funds currently being paid to farmers will be redirected to the rest of the rural community.
Mr Fischler said it was not logical that rural development should be restricted to a small number of areas in the Union.
The EU funding for rural development is £27 billion up to 1999 but is available to only 34 per cent of those who live in rural Europe, about a quarter of the Union's population.
"What we definitely do not need is a purely sectoral approach. On the contrary, the wide range of rural players and interests makes an integrated multisectoral approach necessary.
"I think we are still concentrating unduly on the maintenance and continued development of the sectoral aspects of rural areas. Too little emphasis is still being placed on the strong interrelationships with other policies and the need for diversification.
"The various policy sectors covering rural areas have developed relatively independently from one another and have been guided by their own distinctive mechanisms.
"Therefore it is not surprising that this has given rise to incoherencies, contradictions and even conflict", he said.
Outlining the range of rural development programmes, nearly 500 in all, the Commissioner said that these had to be remedied by means of radical simplification.
"This conference must provide an adequate redefinition for the future of a Community framework for an effective development policy for rural areas," he added.
The Commissioner said that, while they had to secure the future of European agriculture, they must also go beyond this. Rural development policy must consistently foster the creation of jobs outside agriculture and the improvement of the infrastructure and the range of services on offer.
Mr Fischler is holding a press conference in Cork on Saturday to outline his view of the future.
The Commission is aware that farmers are in a minority in rural Europe, and while a vibrant agricultural sector is important for the well being of rural communities, the needs of the rest of the Community must be catered for.
Almost 50 per cent of the EU's budget is spent on agriculture, but with a dwindling number of farmers and pressure from the World Trade Organisation to cut subsidies, agriculture is unlikely in its present form to be able to command a similar slice of the budget when it is renegotiated in three years.
Before meeting the Commissioner to present its rural development policy, the Irish Farmers Association president, Mr John Donnelly, said he was glad the Commissioner had acknowledged the importance of mainline farming in rural development.
But Mr Joe Healy, president of Macra na Feirme, warned that rural development in a European context was in danger of becoming a major industry, using up billions in EU funds annually.
He said he accepted that programmes such as Leader had had a huge impact on rural areas, but the level of red tape associated with it was leading to confusion.
The conference, which continues until Saturday, is being attended by ministers from eight EU countries, along with ministers from seven eastern European countries and delegates from the US, Japan and Canada and other international organisations.