ABSTRACT
Rural development was traditionally understood as driven by agricultural development in the sense of modernization (Almas, 1998, p. 79) as framed in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the EU. Since the mid-1980s this policy has changed and been supplemented by the increasingly important structural policies. The Structural Funds represent development-oriented policy instruments with the aim to homogenize levels of economic development in the European regions. In the mid-1990s, the separated policies for rural areas are redesigned under the guiding idea of rural integration or integrated rural development. This paper deals with the integration of rural policies starting from a new component within the CAP, that indicates the change this policy has undergone since the 1980s, that is, the agri-environmental policy as a pillar of the reform of the CAP in 1992 and its continuation under Agenda 2000. 1 The starting point of the analysis is the diagnosis that European policies move from a sectorial approach (agriculture) to one that is more territorial (rural). Further developments along these lines are indicated in the Agenda 2000. In future, the concern of policy will be less to support farmers per se and more to ensure the sustainable production of environmental and other public goods together with the prosperity of the wider rural population. Support is therefore likely to become increasingly focused over time on environmental measures and on rural development policies to develop the capacity of rural areas to support themselves (Shucksmith and Chapman, 1998, p. 225).
