The Secretary of State for Agriculture and Food, Begoña García Bernal, has demanded this Wednesday in Naas (Ireland) that the European Commission’s proposal for the future Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which contemplates the mandatory nature of Leader starting in 2028, be linked to a sufficient, stable and predictable financial allocation.
"Each euro of Leader is a rural euro. It is money that arrives directly in our towns and that their inhabitants decide how to invest to create opportunities and build their future," García Bernal said during her appearance at the High-Level Forum on Rural Policy, promoted by the European Commission and the Irish Presidency of the Council of the EU. The Spanish official took part in a panel devoted to the future of Leader alongside her counterparts from Ireland and Germany, Jerry Buttimer and Klaus Heider, respectively, as well as representatives from Poland and the European Leader Association for Rural Development (ELARD, by its English acronym).
In her address, the Secretary of State positively assessed that the Community Executive keep Leader as a mandatory intervention within the framework of the CAP. However, she warned that in the new proposal the minimum reserve of 5% of the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD/Feader) that governs the current period disappears.
For this reason, Spain is committed to preserving, as a minimum and in absolute terms, the volume of resources allocated to this tool within the current framework, so that its capacity to act in rural territories is not diminished.
García Bernal proposed that the funds directed to Leader be integrated into the objective set by the European Commission to allocate 10% of the non-reserved resources to the CAP to rural areas. She recalled that all Leader interventions are implemented in rural areas and contribute directly to that purpose, without this implying limiting that percentage exclusively to this initiative.
Spain currently devotes 9.5% of its EAFRD resources to Leader, with an allocation of 747 million euros in the CAP Strategic Plan 2023-2027, well above the European minimum threshold of 5%. Between 2014 and 2022, this approach mobilized around 1,000 million euros through 253 Local Action Groups and supported the creation of more than 11,900 jobs.
On this line, Spain calls for maintaining the multisectorial character of Leader and transferring to the future National and Regional Association Plans the framework of the current Strategic Plan of the CAP, which combines a common framework for the whole country with broad scope for flexibility for the autonomous communities.