Situation and outlook. Rural developments

Since the CAP was created, the European countryside has undergone one of the most radical changes in its history. Confronted today with the globalisation of the economy and the booming of information technology, it is perhaps not wrong to imagine that a further comparable change is underway.

This is the context for this report on European rural areas and the Community structural policies which concern them. As well as setting out the different instruments which have accumulated over the last 30 years, it aims to provide the reader with concrete information and food for thought about the European countryside.