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European LEADER Association for Rural Development

ELARD

The European LEADER Association for Rural Development (ELARD) is an international non-profit making association (aisbl) set up to improve the quality of life in rural areas and to maintain their population through sustainable, integrated local development.

Lobbying Activity

Response to Strategy for the EU’s outermost regions

5 Jan 2026

As the European LEADER Association for Rural Development (ELARD), we welcome the opportunity to contribute to the consultation on the EU Strategy for the Outermost Regions and the regulatory simplification package. The nine EU outermost regions (RUP) combine unique assets with structural challenges, and require governance, funding, and regulatory approaches tailored to their realities. In this context, the LEADER-CLLD methodology represents one of the most effective EU instruments for enabling inclusive and place-based development. Local Action Groups (LAGs) in outermost regions are often the only structured, permanent multi-stakeholder platforms capable of translating EU objectives into local development dynamics. They ensure that remote territories, small islands, and rural communities can articulate their priorities, design integrated strategies, and implement targeted interventions. LEADER-CLLD also improves regulatory accessibility by enabling local intermediaries to support beneficiaries in navigating EU rules and requirements, thereby reducing administrative burdens and increasing absorption capacity. Despite these strengths, outermost LAGs face several persistent bottlenecks. EU-level regulatory complexity (particularly regarding multi-fund CLLD, public procurement, state aid, and the articulation of different EU programmes) creates disproportionate administrative demands for territories with limited human and institutional resources. Furthermore, insufficient flexibility in programme management hampers LAGs ability to respond to the rapidly evolving socio-economic conditions that characterise the RUP, including climate vulnerability, insularity, high transport costs, and demographic pressures. To address these constraints, we emphasise the need for an enabling regulatory environment for LEADER-CLLD in the next programming period: simplified cost options across all funds, proportionality in controls, stable multi-fund architectures, and clearer guidance on cooperation. Strengthening LEADER-CLLD in the ORs will directly contribute to raising living standards, promoting entrepreneurship, supporting the green and digital transitions, and enhancing the resilience of local economies. In this regard, we wish to highlight the recent initiative developed by three of our members (LEADER France, Minha Terra (Portugal), and REDR (Spain)) to establish a dedicated cooperation platform for LAGs in the outermost regions. This platform aims to facilitate continuous exchange of practice, mutual learning, and the identification of shared interests across the RUP. Its first milestone was the conference of outermost LAGs held this month (Congrès des RUP) in Guadeloupe. The congress brought together LAGs from all ORs to showcase projects, co-develop policy recommendations, and launch the platform formally as a long-term mechanism for collaboration, capacity-building, and the dissemination of innovative approaches. This initiative demonstrates the strong commitment of outermost LAGs to European cooperation and offers a ready-made vehicle for reinforcing regional integration, including with neighbouring overseas countries and territories. We therefore encourage the European Commission to actively support such platforms through targeted funding, cooperation opportunities, and improved regulatory frameworks for LEADER-CLLD. Strengthening local governance is indispensable for unlocking the full potential of the outermost regions, and LEADER-CLLD stands as a proven instrument to deliver inclusive, sustainable, and locally anchored development.
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Response to Strategy on Intergenerational Fairness

10 Nov 2025

The European LEADER Association for Rural Development (ELARD), representing over 2 600 Local Action Groups across Europe, welcomes the Commissions initiative on Intergenerational Fairness. We stress that fairness cannot be achieved without addressing rural inequalities, where demographic decline, limited services, poor connectivity, and underrepresentation constrain opportunities for both young and older generations. The LEADER-CLLD approach has proven effective in addressing these challenges through bottom-up, inclusive, multi-generational participation. It empowers communities to design local solutions, ensures meaningful engagement across age groups, and fosters cooperation, innovation, and intergenerational learning. Young people participating in LEADER initiatives develop skills, civic engagement, and opportunities that encourage them to remain in rural areas. The project RURBEST 2022 illustrates these principles in practice. It empowered rural youth to participate fully in the European Rural Parliament (ERP), contribute to the 2022 ERP Manifesto, and engage in capacity-building, networking, and peer learning. Youth were integrated alongside older participants, strengthening intergenerational collaboration. Outcomes included enhanced youth leadership, stronger representation in European forums, action stories of local impact, and partnerships supporting sustainable rural development. The project also addressed youth outmigration by providing skills, mentorship, and pathways to meaningful engagement in their communities. ELARDs LEADER Youth Community further demonstrates intergenerational cooperation. Led by young people with older mentors, it promotes dialogue, learning, advocacy, and collaboration across Europe. The network contributes to policy discussions, strengthens links between LAGs and rural youth, and offers a scalable model for intergenerational engagement. Recommendations for the EU Strategy on Intergenerational Fairness: 1. Recognize and strengthen the role of rural areas in the Strategy Embed rural territorial cohesion explicitly as a pillar of intergenerational fairness. Address structural challenges of rural territories as core drivers of unequal generational opportunities. Include rural youth realities in the Strategys evidence base and evaluation framework. 2. Reinforce LEADER/CLLD as an instrument for intergenerational equity Ensure strong and stable funding for CLLD in the upcoming Multiannual Financial Framework beyond 2027. Promote youth participation systematically in LAG governing bodies and strategy design. Encourage LAGs to develop youth-specific measures and intergenerational initiatives. 3. Support youth-led rural networks and participation mechanisms Recognize youth organisations within rural territories as essential partners. Support the permanent development of the European Rural Youth Parliament and similar networks. Facilitate access of youth groups to EU institutions and policymaking processes. 4. Improve enabling conditions for young people to remain in and return to rural areas Invest in high-quality digital and physical connectivity infrastructure. Support entrepreneurship ecosystems, micro-enterprises, and rural innovation hubs. Strengthen access to public services, education and training in rural regions. Promote youth-focused green transitions, sustainable farming, and bioeconomy opportunities. 5. Promote intergenerational collaboration and knowledge exchange Support mentorship schemes linking experienced community leaders with young rural activists. Encourage cooperative intergenerational governance in rural development. Fund projects that foster cross-generational creativity, leadership and learning.
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Response to Generational renewal in agriculture

11 Jul 2025

For this strategy to deliver sustainable results, the EC must adopt a broader, territorial approach: one that recognises that generational renewal in agriculture cannot succeed without generational renewal in rural areas as a whole. While targeted support for young farmers remains essential, farming cannot exist without functional, vibrant rural communities. A young farmer also needs access to a doctor, a vet, a teacher for their children, and digital infrastructure to innovate. The absence of these services undermines the attractiveness of rural areasnot only for farmers, but for all rural youth. A truly effective strategy must therefore embrace a multisectoral and multistakeholder approach, engaging local communities and supporting diverse rural professions and services. Without this, we risk reinforcing the cycle of rural depopulation, land abandonment, and intergenerational disengagement from the agricultural sector. Key recommendations for a successful generational renewal strategy: 1. Acknowledge the territorial dimension of generational renewal - The long-term viability of agriculture depends not only on the next generation of farmers, but on the wider ecosystem that sustains rural life. Healthcare, education, cultural activities, mobility, housing, and access to broadband are all critical determinants for young people deciding whether to remain in or return to rural areas. The strategy must align with the ambitions of the LTVRA and reinforce the right to stay as a concrete policy objective. 2. Support rural youth in all their diversity - Youth in rural areas must be seen as agents of change, not only as future farmers. Many wish to engage in entrepreneurship, social innovation, digital services, creative sectors or sustainability-related professions. Programmes such as LEADER/CLLD have shown that community-led, bottom-up approaches can effectively support youth-led projects and participatory governance. The new strategy should promote such inclusive instruments and encourage youth involvement in LAGs. Likewise, youth participation in rural policymaking must be reinforced. Rural Youth Dialogues, rural youth councils, and youth-representative roles in LAGs or monitoring committees can ensure policies respond to young peoples aspirations. The strategy should propose concrete mechanisms to institutionalise rural youth engagement across Member States. 3. Foster coordination across EU instruments. Generational renewal is not the responsibility of the CAP alone. Cohesion Policy, Erasmus+, Horizon Europe, ESF+, and InvestEU must be mobilised in synergy. Cross-sectoral tools such as multi-fund CLLD can offer integrated solutions tailored to local needs. Simplifying administrative burdens and harmonising rules across funds are critical to making this approach work on the ground. 4. Secure continuity and visibility for LEADER/CLLD. LEADER has a proven track record of creating local jobs, increasing social capital, and improving quality of life in rural territories. Its potential to support youth retention and rural resilience should be explicitly recognised in the generational renewal strategy. Ensuring stronger resourcing, stability, and accessibility for LEADER post-2027 is a precondition for territorial cohesion and long-term sustainability in rural areas. The renewal of generations in farming is not only a matter of successionit is about creating conditions in which young people can and want to live and work in rural territories. If we focus solely on agriculture without addressing the broader rural context, we will fail to reverse rural decline and youth outmigration. A multisectoral, place-based, and youth-driven approach is essential to ensure that farming remains viableand rural areas remain liveablefor future generations.
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Meeting with Peter Berkowitz (Director Regional and Urban Policy)

5 Mar 2025 · Exchange of views on the future of cohesion policy and rural development

Meeting with Raffaele Fitto (Executive Vice-President) and

4 Mar 2025 · Discussion on rural areas and rural development

Meeting with Isabel Carvalhais (Member of the European Parliament, Rapporteur)

25 Jan 2023 · Generational renewal in the EU farms of the future

Meeting with Emma Wiesner (Member of the European Parliament)

25 Jan 2023 · Möte om ELARDs arbete

Meeting with Janusz Wojciechowski (Commissioner) and

18 Jan 2023 · Long-Term Vision for Rural Areas CAP Objective: Generational Renewal

Meeting with Toma Šutić (Cabinet of Vice-President Dubravka Šuica) and European Rural Community Alliance and PREPARE Partnership for Rural Europe AISBL

18 Jan 2023 · Meeting on 5th European Rural Parliament

Meeting with Irène Tolleret (Member of the European Parliament)

12 Jul 2022 · rural development

Meeting with Dubravka Šuica (Vice-President)

17 Nov 2020 · Long term vision for rural areas

Response to Evaluation of the impact of LEADER on balanced territorial development

8 Oct 2020

ELARD welcomes the initiative that will assess whether the common agricultural policy has helped improve socio-economic aspects of territorial development. However, we find that any evaluation of LEADER/CLLD should incorporate the benefit that this method can provide at local level. We must evaluate not just LEADER in isolation but the totality of the CLLD methodology. There is a need to include the outcomes achieved using different funds in this method. Therefore, activities involving fisheries, rural-urban linkages, integration to work, for example, are very important measures that the same organizations at local level are providing, through CLLD and not only LEADER. You state that this evaluation will seek to capture LEADER effects, identify factors of success and focus on whether LEADER has: • boosted economic development, diversification and social inclusion • improved local services • strengthened the social fabric in rural areas. ELARD would like to point out, that it is very important in future programmes to define and formulate clear long-term effects that can be targeted. (F)LAGs need a clear strategical framework to relate to and to evaluate if the LEADER-method has been effective, it must be clear to all agents in the system, what long-term effects are targeted. ELARD has more than 2 200 (F)LAGs as members, and while we can imagine that some have aimed to reach these outcomes that now will be examined, others may not, since the long-term effects have not been formulated and included as aims or targets in the strategies. We suggest, that in future there should be one chapter in the local strategies, where (F)LAGs themselves define their targeted long –term- effects. We believe that the (F)LAG-structure provides added value, and it would be important for this evaluation to include how the independency and private (mostly NGO) structures of (F)LAGs (as not public actors), supports the achievement of the mentioned objectives. We propose to also explore to what extent LAGs could assist in the long- term objectives of; (1) The Green Deal and (2) The democratic recession of the EU. We believe that this evaluation can provide examples on how the greening of Europe could be formulated as a long -term effects as well as on the democratic recession of the European Union. Furthermore it could be interesting to explore, how LAGs without sufficient effects can reinvent themselves, and to examine what are the factors of success from LAGs with good effects from its work LAGs that have not been so successful. Unfortunately, we believe that this evaluation will be too late to influence CAP and other policies that affect CLLD. The evaluation should serve as a basis for political decisions; however, these decisions are in many ways already long taken at European level, and to some extent also at national level. In order to provide some substantial outcomes for the next programming period, we propose to make an earlier evaluation – in addition to the suggested one, that examines the mid-term evaluations of (F)LAGs around EU in order to give policy-suggestions for the programming period 2021-27. This additional evaluation should be mainly paper-work and it should have an ambition to present conclusions by early 2021 in order to make an impact on political decisions. ELARD also wishes to point out, that it is important to involve the participation of ELARD and its members, the national LEADER-networks, as well as regional ones in any evaluation. LAG-networks as stakeholders should be explicitly mentioned in the roadmap, just as other stakeholders organisations are mentioned in the roadmap. Many networks have already done surveys on this matter. We are happy to provide you with information about our latest survey “What future do you want in rural areas”, where you can find some important answers. http://elard.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/ELARD_REDR_Report.pdf
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Meeting with Peter Wehrheim (Cabinet of Commissioner Phil Hogan)

19 Jun 2018 · Role of Leader

Meeting with Robert Schröder (Cabinet of Commissioner Carlos Moedas)

19 Jun 2018 · the role of LEADER and CLLD in the integrated and sustainable development of rural, coastal and urban areas