Country profile on rural characteristics Spain - RuDI

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4 Policy principles and delivery structures of ruraldevelopment policy4.1 The approach and structures of rural development policySpain’s rural development strategy for the period 2007-2013 develops in line with theobjectives set out by the Lisbon and Goteborg agreements related with competitivenessimprovements and employment creation, as well as sustainable development andenvironmental protection.To add to these objectives, the rural development strategy in Spain was designed withthe aim to alleviate and possibly stop the severe depopulation faced by certain ruralareas. The strategy also sets out as an important point the goal of remediating to thepossible negative environmental effects of agriculture. The Spanish rural developmentstrategy also gives a special importance to improving the competitiveness of agricultureand livestock farming, as well as to agro-food industry. From an environmental stand,Spanish rural policy places special priority on the optimisation of water resources use, aswell as on reducing the risk of forest fires.The Spanish rural development policy is considerably decentralised, to the point thatmost of the policy making, including the management of the CAP-related measures, isadministered at regional level (NUTS 2). Spain is also one of the European countries thathas most enthusiastically taken up and implemented the LEADER initiative within its ruralterritory. The Spanish central administration plays mostly a coordinator role and acts asthe regions’ representative in front of the EU.Rural development policy in Spain is rapidly shifting from a position of extremecentralisation (existing under the dictatorial government) towards a bottom-up approach.Many voices, especially from regional administrations, argue that the pendulum has nowswung too far towards an endogenous focus.As it is clearly represented in the country’s Strategic Rural Development Plan, Spain stillhas a very sectoral approach to rural development, where agriculture represents itsdominating core. Very little horizontal or cross ministerial/sectoral coordination is beingdone in relation to policies affecting rural areas and its citizens. There is, however, withthe introduction of the new Sustainable Rural Development Law (Law 45/2007) a newattempt to bring greater horizontal governance around the country’s rural policy-making.This new law inspired from the Mexican example, goes far beyond the measures setunder the second pillar of the PAC and has a wider perception of rural policy and ruraldevelopment. The law not only establishes the required institutions to allow adequatecross-ministerial horizontal governance, but it also establishes the framework for themuch needed vertical coordination in the decentralised Spanish context. Althoughentered into force in January 2008, this law is not yet operational also because ofcontrasting views between the central government and some Autonomous Communitiesconcerning the subjects touched by the law, which in part refer to areas that aretransferred to the regional governments and thus out of the central administrationcompetences.Agriculture and livestock farming have a dominant position in rural developmentstrategies. If we consider the three main axes of Pillar 2, we can observe that theapplication of these measures in Spain has been highly biased in favour of agriculture(axis 1 and 2). More than half of the Spanish public funds dedicated to rural developmenthas been oriented towards the first axis. And as a consequence of the regionaldisaggregation of the Spanish programmes, this distribution varies from one Spanishregion to the other (see map in 4.1). All of the regional rural development plans havedevoted a part of their budgets in excess of the European average to measures limited toimproving agricultural competitiveness. Even in the case of the measures falling underthe remaining two axes, a significant sectoral character has been introduced with severalactions limited to on-farm implementations.In the two last decades, the Spanish rural development policy has included importantinfrastructural investments that have greatly improved accessibility and service provision22
for the Spanish rural population. Together with infrastructure investment, many publicand heritage sites have been refurbished and renewed, thus bringing additionalattractiveness to many rural towns and communities. This has not only increased thepride and living standards of the rural population, but it has also given to rural areasgreat resources with which to attract tourism.In fact, tourism has also been within the focus of the Spanish rural development policy,offering support to local organisations and helping in adding value to local heritage andtouristic assets. There has also been a deliberate effort aimed at assisting rural tourismindustry operators to build networks and a collaboration in their efforts to develop andpromote Spanish rural tourism as an alternative or complement to the traditionallydominant sun and beach tourism. Furthermore, the different editions of the LEADERprogram have all played an important role in developing and supporting local tourismentrepreneurial projects in rural areas.Rural society in Spain has traditionally been considered as disadvantaged with respect tothe urban society, and therefore in need of ad hoc development policies to overcome itsbackwardness. In various moments of Spanish history, public and private initiatives havebeen undertaken to remedy this situation. Their origins go back to the end of the 18 thcentury in the framework of the policies oriented to educate rural population. Later on,rural development (understood then basically as improvement of agricultural production)became more formalised with irrigation plans, regional initiatives or crop-specificinitiatives and the creation of the Service of Agricultural Extension at the middle of the20 th century. From that period four stages can be considered:1. The transition and incorporation to the European Community (1976-1986)1975 started a new period that culminated with the accession of Spain to the EEC in1986. This stage was characterized by profound changes originated by the politicaltransition to democracy together with a difficult economic situation. These events hadimportant impacts in rural areas. From the economic point of view, there was the rise ofinput prices as a consequence of higher oil prices. From the social perspective, certainrural areas experienced higher agricultural unemployment and scarcity of services. Themost important changes with respect to the rural context came from the political front.On the one hand, the competencies over agricultural legislation were transferred fromthe central administration to the Autonomous Communities. On the other hand, theadoption of EU rules following the entrance into the European Community implied aneven greater reduction of the Spanish central administration’s decision power in theareas of agricultural and rural development policy. These changes significantly affectedthe governance structure over rural policy.2. Rural development after accession to the ECGiven the relative delay of Spain with respect to the EU12 countries, a large proportion ofthe Spanish territory was classified as Objective 1 (10 regions from a total of 17 regions).Therefore Spain has been a net recipient of funds since its access to the EU.In this period most of the funds oriented to rural development came from theDevelopment Plans for regions Objective 1, and to a lesser extent from Objective 2 andObjective 5b. Although these are programmes of a wider regional development, theyhave always included an axis specifically devoted to agriculture and rural development.Community initiatives such as LEADER that are based on engagement of local actors intheir rural development strategies were also introduced over this period.The programming period 2000-2006 introduced new changes resulting from the approvalof the Agenda 2000 in March 1999 which included reforms to the CAP. The most relevantchanges with respect to rural development policies were: the recognition of ruraldevelopment as the second pillar of the CAP and the approval of the Regulation 1257/99on rural development measures, which established the basis for a common ruraldevelopment policy in Europe.3. The current programming period 2007-2013 and the Law on Sustainable RuralDevelopment2007 marks the start of a new programming period of the EU (2007-2013) whichintroduced some changes with respect to the previous ones and it is a transitional periodtowards a reduction of EU resources envisaged for 2013. The new Law 45/200723
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Page 30: ReferencesCarlos Arroyos. Desarroll

Country profile on rural characteristics Spain - RuDI

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