Common Agricultural Policy Reform: ECOVAST engages in the European Commission debates
ECOVAST’s Secretary General, Pam Moore, Vice President Phil Turner and Past President Michael Dower, have spoken this year at debates in Brussels hosted by the Directorate General, Agriculture and Rural Development.
On 11 March, Pam Moore spoke at the Rural Development Advisory Committee raising the importance of historic buildings, industrial sites and other built features in the farmed and forested landscape. Funding for cultural heritage should be more widely considered and there will be a further opportunity to influence the CAP Reform at a conference in December 2010 on the topic of ‘public goods’
More details are available here.
There was an enlarged meeting of the Advisory Committee on 3 June at which Michael Dower and Phil Turner called for a strategy for rural development - a Common Rural Development Policy. They urged that funding from many sources (Rural Development, Structural Funds etc) should be drawn together. For this it was suggested that there should be a deeper role for LEADER in delivery at regional and sub-regional level.
Public goods - biodiversity, landscape etc - also include cultural landscape (The European Union was urged to sign up to the European Landscape Convention of the Council of Europe). On 10 December 2010, on behalf of PREPARE, Phil Turner attended the debate on the output of the DG AGRI Rural Development Thematic Working Group 3 on Public Goods, when Steve Trow was at the top table and spoke on behalf of Europa Nostra on cultural landscapes and built heritage.
In the context of cultural landscape a special plea was made for built heritage, as set out in the paper "Europe's Living Landscapes" produced by Steve Trow in conjunction with Europa Nostra, RED, ECOVAST and others.
More details are available here.
As a climax to the public debate, Commissioner Ciolos convened a major two-day Conference in Brussels on 19 and 20 July, attended by over 600 people representing a wide range of bodies. ECOVAST was represented by Past President Michael Dower, who - in the final plenary session - made a direct plea for the landscape to be treated as a major policy issue, and for small towns (the subject of ECOVAST’s ASSET programme) to be given full recognition as focal points of social, cultural and economic life in rural areas.
The ECOVAST paper submitted to the Commission, and the document “Europe’s Living Landscapes”, have been posted on the discussion group set up by ECOVAST on the ARC2020 Initiative site:
http://www.arc2020.eu/pg/groups/1390/european-heritage-landscape-and-people/
Phil Turner attended the ARC2020 conference on 4 November 2010 hosted by the Committee of the Regions in Brussels to reach consensus on a “Communication of Civil Society to the EU on the Future of Agriculture and Rural Policies”.