4.1.2. Country cases

Estonia
Estonian agricultural policy with zero or even negative levels of agricultural support can be seen as an antidote to CAP. However, the existing agricultural policy has resulted in a rapid decline of agricultural population and in an increase in unemployment. Estonia is trying to drive its agricultural policy as cheaply as possible. It aims at restructuring and modernising agriculture in order to enhance its competitiveness on the international market. However, the market itself is distorted, mostly due to the subsidised EU exports of agricultural commodities.

The long-term objective is also to enable the rural areas to become attractive places for the non-farming community to work and live. In this respect, effective mechanisms of rural development policy have to be set up. Preparation of a legislative background for rural development can be seen as a first step in this direction. Estonia does not rely solely on the future support of Structural Funds in rural development, but is also developing its own structures.

Slovakia
For Slovakia, the importance of creating rural development policies based on the bottom-up principle was stressed. New employment opportunities for people who leave agriculture have to be provided. However, the unstable present political situation hinders development of an integrated rural development policy.

Lithuania
Whilst Lithuania was a part of the USSR, the traditional village structures were demolished. With the decline of state farms, new players are entering the rural economies. The objective of rural support measures is to decrease the reliance of farmers on public support and to stimulate the local communities into organising themselves. The existing rural development policy framework should be simplified, with clear priorities and enrichment of corresponding funds and the principle of partnership.

The Lithuanian experience provides an interesting example. While the EU Structural Funds support still builds upon redistribution of the public resources, Lithuania has decentralised the policy making process and reduced the role of the Government in providing policy guidelines. The state is promoting rural development with lump-sum financial assistance, while decisions about development priorities and co-financing are taken at the regional level. When/if the EU Structural support does come, it will be just an additional financial source for the implementation of existing policies. This appears to be similar to the structure being proposed for post-Agenda 2000 measures in some of the existing EU member States.

Romania
The Land Law (1990) restored private ownership of land, but only up to 10 ha, and no financial or other kind of support for the land owners has been provided. This generated a high degree of land fragmentation and large number of subsistence farms (the average farm size in Romania is now 2.4 ha). Industrial restructuring - especially in the mining industry - increased unemployment in rural areas. In addition, Romania has an ageing rural population resulting from out-migration by young people to the cities. High unemployment rates are particularly evident in regions which were artificially industrialised, where the transition has led to a spectacular collapse of the industrial base and provoked high levels of out-migration.

Since 1997 a policy for rural development has been worked on and a fund for rural development will be coming into operation during 1998. Four Rural Observatories (newly established NGOs around four Universities) will carry out studies and research related to rural development activity. Partnerships between MAF - DGDR and different institutions and bodies involved in rural area development (Ministry of public works and territorial planning, Ministry of labour and social assistance, Ministry of industry and commerce, Ministry of water, forests and environmental protection, etc.) have been studied and are currently in the process of approval.

The institution building and legal harmonisation process in the field of agriculture and rural development is in progress in preparaton for the EU accession. However, it seems to be slow and difficult because, on the one hand, specialists are neither prepared nor trained for it and, on the other hand, there is a lack of communication both between the applicant countries and the EC and between different directorates of the Commission, for example: DG I, DG VI, DGXXVI, etc.

Hungary
Farm co-operative networks have been established within the county organisational level. With the opening of the land market, a problem of land speculation by foreign owners has emerged. Partly as a consequence, lively environmental lobbies have developed. It has been stressed that EU rural policy should provide a flexible policy framework to embrace the wide variety of country/region specific development problems. The problem of regional absorption capacity was raised, highlighting the importance of capacity building.

Slovenia
At present, the competence for policies and programmes with rural impact is dispersed between different ministries. The existing rural development policy in Slovenia can be described as top-down, sectoral, poorly co-ordinated and lacking in reconciliation of tasks between the ministries which often brings an overlapping of functions. Public support in the most remote regions (which are, as a rule, determined also by difficult conditions for agriculture) is almost exclusively limited to infrastructural investment support and agricultural price support measures.

The existing Slovene rural development policy concepts are challenged by far more comprehensive and structured EU policy mechanisms. In this respect, redefinition of rural development policy in Slovenia should not be seen as an imperative of simple adoption of the EU policy framework but rather as an opportunity to design its own set of guidelines, to provide an institutional framework that would match the corresponding EU structures and to encourage enrichment of public funding with private funding.