Rural development in European Union policy

the Treaty of Rome, the Common Market was established, agriculture of the six founding member states was strongly influenced by state interventionism. In order to include agricultural production in the free movement of goods, while maintaining public interventionism in the agricultural sector, national intervention mechanisms incompatible with the free movement principle had to be abolished and transferred to the Community level. Actions in this direction led to defining the objectives of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) as the first common policy established in the framework of the European Economic Community. Over time, it turned out that market mechanisms are far from sufficient and should be supplemented by structural instruments pertaining to the need for rural development. The aim of the European Union's rural development policy, which is the second pillar of the CAP, is to support the rural areas of the EU and to meet numerous economic, environmental and societal challenges. Its greater flexibility (compared to Pillar I) enables regional, national and local authorities to develop their own rural development programmes based on European mechanisms. In contrast to Pillar I, which is financed wholly by the EU, programmes under Pillar II are co-financed from EU funds and national, regional or local funds. The purpose of this article is to analyse the fundamental determinants of the rural development policy, its increasing role in the EU's economic strategy and the prospects for its further functioning. While preparing the text was used a method of critical reference to the literature of the subject of research, as well as a method of analyzing secondary sources, including studies describing substantive issues concerning the broadly understood agricultural policy of the European Union.