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EUROPEAN RURAL DEVELOPMENT UNDER THE COMMON AGRICULTURAL POLICY’S ‘SECOND PILLAR’: INSTITUTIONAL CONSERVATISM AND INNOVATION Janet Dwyer, Neil Ward, Philip Lowe, David Baldock To cite this version: Janet Dwyer, Neil Ward, Philip Lowe, David Baldock. EUROPEAN RURAL DEVELOPMENT UNDER THE COMMON AGRICULTURAL POLICY’S ‘SECOND PILLAR’: INSTITUTIONAL CONSERVATISM AND INNOVATION. Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis (Routledge), 2007, 41 (07), pp.873-887. 10.1080/00343400601142795. hal-00514658 HAL Id: hal-00514658 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00514658 Submitted on 3 Sep 2010 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. 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Regional Studies For Peer Review Only EUROPEAN RURAL DEVELOPMENT UNDER THE COMMON AGRICULTURAL POLICY'S 'SECOND PILLAR': INSTITUTIONAL CONSERVATISM AND INNOVATION Journal: Regional Studies Manuscript ID: CRES-2005-0248.R1 Manuscript Type: Main Section P16 - Political Economy < P1 - Capitalist Systems < P - Economic Systems, Q01 - Sustainable Development < Q0 - General < Q - JEL codes: Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics, R58 - Regional Development Policy < R5 - Regional Government Analysis < R - Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics Common Agricultural Policy, Institutional learning, Regional Keywords: development, Rural development http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cres Email: [email protected] Page 1 of 36 Regional Studies 1 2 3 4 EUROPEAN RURAL DEVELOPMENT UNDER THE COMMON 5 6 AGRICULTURAL POLICY’S ‘SECOND PILLAR’: 7 8 9 INSTITUTIONAL CONSERVATISM AND INNOVATION 10 11 12 Janet Dwyer 13 14 Countryside and Community Research Unit 15 16 For PeerUniversity Review of Gloucestershire Only 17 18 19 Dunholme Villa, The Park 20 21 Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, GL50 2RH 22 23 24 Telephone: 01242 714128 25 26 Fax: 01242 714395 27 28 Email: [email protected] 29 30 31 Neil Ward 32 33 Centre for Rural Economy 34 35 University of Newcastle upon Tyne 36 37 38 Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU 39 40 Tel: 0191 222 6623 41 42 Fax: 0191 222 5411 43 44 45 E-mail: [email protected] 46 47 Philip Lowe 48 49 50 Centre for Rural Economy 51 52 University of Newcastle upon Tyne 53 54 Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU 55 56 57 Tel: 0191 222 6623 58 59 Fax: 0191 222 5411 60 E-mail: [email protected] 1 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cres Email: [email protected] Regional Studies Page 2 of 36 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 David Baldock 10 11 Institute for European Environmental Policy 12 13 14 28 Queen Anne’s Gate, London SW1H 9AB 15 16 For PeerTel: Review 020 77 99 22 44 Only 17 18 Fax: 020 77 99 26 00 19 20 21 E-mail: [email protected] 22 23 24 25 26 Regional Studies codes: P16 - Political Economy < P1 - Capitalist Systems < P - Economic 27 28 Systems, Q01 - Sustainable Development < Q0 - General < Q - Agricultural and Natural 29 30 31 Resource Economics, R58 – Regional Development Policy < R5 - Regional Government 32 33 Analysis < R - Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 2 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cres Email: [email protected] Page 3 of 36 Regional Studies 1 2 3 EUROPEAN RURAL DEVELOPMENT UNDER THE COMMON AGRICULTURAL 4 5 6 POLICY’S ‘SECOND PILLAR’: 7 8 INSTITUTIONAL CONSERVATISM AND INNOVATION 9 10 11 12 Abstract 13 14 15 The EU Rural Development Regulation (RDR) was launched in 2000 as the new ‘second 16 For Peer Review Only 17 pillar’ of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), promoting sustainable rural development. 18 19 The rhetoric surrounding the Regulation emphasised decentralised, participative delivery and 20 21 a territorial and multi-sectoral focus – relatively new and unfamiliar principles for the CAP. 22 Evidence from a European study of RDR Programmes is used to evaluate how this 23 24 experiment has performed in the initial years, highlighting the need for further institutional 25 26 adaptation to enable effective delivery. The relevance of lessons learned in the design and 27 28 delivery of EU regional policy is also highlighted. The prospects for more effective adaptation 29 are assessed in the light of the most recent sets of CAP reforms. 30 31 32 33 Keywords: Common Agricultural Policy / rural development / regional development / 34 35 institutional learning 36 37 38 39 40 1. Introduction 41 42 1.1 Context and background to the Rural Development Regulation 43 44 45 The launch of the Rural Development Regulation (RDR) as part of the European Union’s 46 Agenda 2000 reforms to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was seen by many to herald 47 48 a new approach towards EU rural and agricultural policies. Hailed as the ‘Second Pillar’ to 49 50 the CAP, it was hoped that the RDR would pioneer a territorially focused, multi-annually 51 52 programmed support policy which would help to redefine the key goals of the CAP and 53 54 demonstrate new ways in which these goals could be pursued (LOWE et al ., 2002). The new 55 approach adopted several of the features of earlier EU Structural Fund policies for lagging 56 57 regions and contrasted starkly with the dominant instruments of ‘Pillar 1’ of the CAP, which 58 59 remained sectoral and, indirectly at least, linked to agricultural production. 60 3 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cres Email: [email protected] Regional Studies Page 4 of 36 1 2 3 The RDR’s genesis was linked by observers and the Commission (e.g. BRYDEN, 1998, CEC, 4 5 1997) with the rhetoric and principles espoused at the Cork Conference of November 1996. 6 7 The then EU Agriculture Commissioner, Franz Fischler, convened this major European 8 9 gathering on rural development in an attempt to build political and stakeholder support for his 10 11 ideas on CAP reform. Commissioner Fischler talked about the need to move away from a 12 narrow sectoral focus on the agricultural industry and towards a broader rural development 13 14 policy, tailored to local needs and conditions and drawing in a wide range of partners. Above 15 16 all, the policy objectiveFor shouldPeer be “sustainable Review and integrated Only rural development”, he argued. 17 18 The declaration that emerged from the Conference, although not agreed by all participants nor 19 endorsed by the Council of Ministers, spoke of “making a new start in rural development 20 21 policy”, and set out ten guiding principles. These emphasised: sustainability, particularly of 22 23 natural and cultural resources; a multisectoral and territorial focus; the need for integrated, 24 25 multiannual programmes; the importance of building private and community-based capacity 26 in each local area through participation and decentralisation in design and delivery; and the 27 28 need for monitoring and evaluation involving stakeholders. 29 30 31 32 The principles of the Cork Declaration departed significantly from the way the mainstream 33 34 CAP then operated (under the Guarantee Section of the European Agricultural Guidance and 35 Guarantee Fund or EAGGF), with a relative absence of obvious territorial characteristics 36 37 (SHUCKSMITH et al., 2005). Since its inception in the early 1960s, the chief policy 38 39 instruments of the CAP have been a mix of market stabilisation and support mechanisms for 40 41 the major agricultural commodities produced by Europe’s farmers – the so-called Common 42 Market Organisations or CMOs (for cereals, beef, sheepmeat, dairy products, olives and 43 44 wine). These mostly deployed centrally-designed price support and market intervention 45 46 instruments, budgeted on an annual basis, which took relatively little account of territorial 47 48 variability across the EU. The CMOs have accounted for the large majority of CAP annual 49 50 spending (even in the period 2000-2006, the proportion will be 85%), most CMO spending is 51 compulsory and fully EU-financed, and the market regimes have traditionally been the focus 52 53 of most discussion in Agriculture Council meetings. 54 55 56 57 Since the early 1970s there have been other CAP measures, funded under the Guidance 58 Section of the EAGGF, used largely to promote structural adjustments in agriculture. Unlike 59 60 the Guarantee-funded CMOs, the Guidance Section allowed for multi-annual budgeting by the Member States and its structural measures were voluntary and only part-EU funded (‘co- 4 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cres Email: [email protected] Page 5 of 36 Regional Studies 1 2 3 financed’). Nevertheless, the measures were still specified in considerable detail in EU 4 5 Regulations, so that their application was relatively standardised across the Community and 6 7 insensitive to territorial variations. Thus, many Member States have long operated schemes 8 9 for, say, investment aid to agricultural holdings or support for the processing and marketing of 10 11 agricultural products, for which any farmer or food processing business that meets the EU 12 criteria has been eligible to receive support, subject to available funds. 13 14 15 16 A small proportionFor of EAGGF Peer Guidance Review aid was territorially Onlydelimited. Less Favoured Area 17 18 (LFA) aid, introduced in the mid-1970s, was the first explicit, Community-wide instrument 19 for geographically targeted support 1. Subsequently, a new suite of CAP structural aids was 20 21 added which was to be delivered through multi-annual strategic programmes as part of the 22 23 regionally-targeted, area-based programmes funded jointly with European Regional 24 25 Development and Social Funds, in the periods 1989-93 and 1994-9.