Agriculture

Agriculture and forests cover the vast majority of our territory and play a key role in determining the health of rural economies as well as the rural landscape. Agriculture still has a valuable contribution to make to their sustainable economic. Farmers perform many different functions ranging from food and non-food agricultural products to countryside management, nature conservation, and tourism. Farming can thus be described as having multiple functions.

• Europe is both a major exporter and the world’s largest importer of food, mainly from developing countries;
• The European farming sector uses safe, clean, environmentally-friendly production methods providing quality products to meet consumers’ demands;
• The EU farming sector serves rural communities. Its role is not only to produce food but also to guarantee the survival of the countryside as a place to live, work and visit;

Europe’s agricultural policy is determined at EU level by the governments of Member States and operated by the Member States. It is aimed at supporting farmers’ incomes while also encouraging them to produce high quality products demanded by the market and encouraging them to seek new development opportunities, such as renewable environmentally friendly energy sources.

Agriculture and Rural Development: http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/index_en.htm

The CAP – Promoting Sustainable Agriculture: http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/capexplained/sustain/index_en.htm

How much the CAP costs: http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/capexplained/cost/index_en.htm

Funding Opportunities under CAP: http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/grants/index_en.htm

Tourism

Tourism is a key sector of the European economy. It comprises a wide variety of products and destinations and involves many different stakeholders, both public and private, with areas of competence very decentralised, often at regional and local levels.
The EU tourism industry generates more than 5% of the EU GDP, with about 1,8 million enterprises employing around 5,2% of the total labour force (approximately 9,7 million jobs). When related sectors are taken into account, the estimated contribution of tourism to GDP creation is much higher: tourism indirectly generates more than 10% of the European Union's GDP and provides about 12% of the labour force.
The Lisbon Treaty acknowledges the importance of tourism outlining a specific competence for the European Union in this field and allowing for decisions to be taken by qualified majority. A specific article on tourism specifies that “the Union shall complement the action of the Member States in the tourism sector, in particular by promoting the competitiveness of Union undertakings in that sector”.

Co-operation in Tourism

The need to enhance the understanding and visibility of tourism being a wide and multisectoral phenomenon, requires a strong cooperation with other organisations, public administrations, destinations, stakeholders, academic world, etc.
The Commission is already collaborating with the different services. Given that at present the Community has no direct tourism competence, a number of areas in other European policies have a considerable and even growing impact on tourism. As an example, a number of actions in the fields of sport, education, vocational training, youth, culture, consumers, regional policy, etc. are supported through other EU programmes.
To provide a source of information and support on implementation of EU programmes at national and regional level the Commission Enterprise Europe Network (EEN) was set up. EEN is a network specifically designed for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) but also available to all businesses, research centres and Universities across Europe, made up of close to 600 partner organisations in more than 40 countries that offers support and advice to businesses across Europe.

Calypso - Social Tourism

European Destinations of Excellence

Action for Sustainable Tourism

Visit Malta – The Official Tourism site for Malta, Gozo and Comino