Published in Scientific Papers. Series "Management, Economic Engineering in Agriculture and rural development", Vol. 24 ISSUE 1
Written by Floriana-Bogdana CIOBANU, Marius VLADU

The LEADER programme provides new opportunities for rural development, identifies the local gaps/needs and implements the new solutions using a bottom-up approach. The publication follows the evolution of the programme both at European and national level, namely in Romania. The information was generated by the Ministry of Agriculture website and Rural Development and by the European Commission. They were processed by the Court of Accounts. In the European Union it was first introduced 32 years ago while in Romania only 16 years ago. The central mechanism and at the same time the beneficiary of this programme is the LAG (Local Action Group), meant to facilitate implementing the LEADER principles. The programme became compulsory to every member state between 2014–2020 and each state had to provide 5% of the rural development fund for the LEADER policy, excepting Croatia since it had just adhered to the EU, in 2013.In Romania, between 2011–2012, 163 LAGs were established while currently the number goes up to 259. However, parts of the Romanian territory are still not covered by any LAG, although they are eligible for the LEADER implementation. On the other hand, between 2014–2020 some LAGs’ functioning authorizations were canceled. In Europe, a number of 143,487 LEADER projects were registered. Although the EU planned to provide funding of up to Euro 9.2 billion, the real amount was of 7 billion.

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