1. Introduction
Rural development is a relatively new policy in the history of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Born from
an intense cooperation between the structural agricultural policy and the regional development policy (the reform of
the structural funds of the late 1980s), it was consolidated as global policy only in Agenda 2000. In 1988, the
strategy for the “future of the rural world” identified one of the main fundaments of a common rural development
policy: the extreme disparity between the rural and non-rural regions of Europe. This strategy highlighted the need
to envision better approaches and to provide more financial resources than the different countries could provide
separately.
If we consider the positions expressed the most recently by the different participants, the importance of the
second pillar after 2013 is confirmed and there is a large consensus around the pertinence of its role in front of the
challenges to come. In his opening discourse for his hearings from the European Parliament (January 15, 2010), the
commissary Cioloş declared: “Rural development policy will have to contribute to the restructuring and
modernization of farms […]; it has to help agriculture to adjust to climate change and to contribute to the reduction
in green-house gas emissions. The rural development policy will have to make better use of the European agriculture
diversity; to promote public-private partnerships and innovation networks engaging the local actors of development,
in close cooperation with the cohesion policy.”
The topic of sustainable forest exploitations occupies an important role in the debate on the future of the
Common Agricultural Policy, and in the future the long-term support provided for the EU forests should focus more
on the adoption of sustainable production methods that strike a balance between the economic, social and
environmental concerns.
The European Commission estimates that efficient and sustainable forest exploitation approaches can generate
more environmental, economic and social advantages than any other land use*
Feader puts considerable funds at the disposal of the sustainable forest exploitation and this support is largely cofinanced
through the measure of Axis 2.
The following Table provides a synoptic view on the main measures and funds available for co-funding by the
European Unio