Green Infrastructure in the Rural Areas as EU Environmental Policy Measure

The concept of green infrastructure is currently indicated as the key tool for the inclusion of territorial aspects of biodiversity protection into the other economic sectors, including agriculture. In the strategic documents regarding green infrastructure, the European Union highlights the need to promote this concept through the main EU policies, including agricultural policy. The aim of this article is to identify the legal basis for the creation and operation of green infrastructure in the EU, especially in rural areas and recognize tools to implement this concept into the agricultural policy, and then attempt to evaluate how this concept affects the European policy on agriculture. The author indicates that green infrastructure has great potential for application in the theoretical dimension, as well as a tool for spatial planning and the environment policy. It allows for a new approach and perception of the role of green areas in spatial planning and regional policy. These possibilities have been already recognized by the European Union. The emerging influence of the concept of green infrastructure on the European policy on agriculture could be noticed, but it has no decisive character (even if analyzing only ecological determinants of its spatial dimension). The implementation of green infrastructure into agricultural policy is indirect and legal instruments have not been developed yet. In this regard, the author calls for a broader inclusion of this issue.