Rural Development in the European Union - Statistical and Economic Information - Report 2008

This report provides, at national and regional levels, statistical and economic information covering the three objectives of Rural Development policy 2007-2013. It also contains specific analysis on some selected topics. An overview of Rural Development budget over the 2007-2013 period is included together with the first information on the financial monitoring of RD programs in EU-27 and in Candidate Countries.

Information needs for rural development have evolved alongside policy developments.

For this reason, the European Commission's Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development now prepares a specific report aiming to provide, on a regular basis, a comprehensive set of information on rural areas and the implementation of the EU's rural development policy.

Most of the information presented in this report can already be found in various sources and documents (Eurostat databases, European Environmental Agency, DG Agriculture and Rural Development's statistical and financial reports), but it has been here compiled in a structured way and integrated in a single document.

This report contains two types of information:

statistical and scientific information on the main features of rural areas,
administrative information on the status of the implementation of Rural Development Policy (financial monitoring of the measures).

In order to ensure the highest relevance of the data to current issues in rural development, priority has been given to the set of common "baseline" indicators which has been proposed in the context of the Common Monitoring and Evaluation Framework (CMEF) for Rural Development Programmes 2007-2013 that clearly defined three objectives:

improving the competitiveness of agriculture and forestry,
improving the environment and the countryside,
improving the quality of life in rural areas and encouraging diversification of economic activity.

When possible and relevant, time series have been elaborated for these indicators.

Some topics of interest are analysed in more details.

The overview of the implementation of the rural development policy covers the programming period 2007-2013. It describes the structure of the financial programming and provides the first information in terms of financial execution for EU-27. The financial programming in Candidates Countries, in the framework of the "Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance", is also briefly introduced.

Published in December 2008

Full text [pdf, 14 MB]

Foreword and table of contents [pdf]

Chapter 1 : Introduction [pdf]

Chapter 2 : Situation [pdf]

Chapter 3 : Statistical description [pdf, 7,5 MB]

Foreword-Content

Annexes 3.A to 3.C [pdf]
Annexe 3.D [pdf]
Tables:

Summary tables [xls, 1.4 MB]
Regional tables [xls, 8.6 MB]

Chapter 4 : Implementation [pdf]

Tables:

Tables [xls, 1 MB]

Report 2007

Report 2006

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