The main outcomes of the  9th European Rural Development Network Conference “Rural development policies from the EU enlargement perspective”

8-9 September, Serbia

The 9th European Rural Development Network Conference organized by Institute of Agricultural Economics in Belgrade was concerned with outcomes of research on policies facilitating rural development effectiveness and their ability to stimulate development processes in Candidate Countries. During two days of the conference speakers from Poland, Hungary, Italy, Slovakia, Slovenia, Serbia, Austria and Romania presented impact of rural development programs implementation investigated form different scientific perspective. Sustainability of ongoing rural development process was discussed regarding improvement of rural population living standard. Rural development programmes and cohesion policy performance in different EU region were presented regarding their effectiveness and adequacy to challenge contemporary problems of EU rural areas. To forecast possible impact of  EU policies on agriculture and rural development econometric models were applied. Critical analysis of specific instruments of EU agriculture and rural development policies were followed with recommendation to policy making process. Necessity of local resources efficient utilization as a base for local development was stressed together with need of  stronger coordination action on regional level. Final discussion suggested moderate effectiveness of EU rural policies while evaluated from regional and national perspectives. However, same of the measures could be consider effective on micro (farm and local community) level. This outcomes are of high importance for Candidate Countries that struggle to effectively use potential resources for development in line with EU policies.