EU Directives

 

Directives are issued by the European Union Parliament and are then normally translated into UK law. See Acts, Regulations and Statutory Instruments for further information on EU directives. Other policies that you may need to be aware of or wish to investigate further are: the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the Rural Development Regulations (RDR).

Rural Development Regulation (RDR) and Rural Development Plans (RDP’s)
Each Member State is required to submit Rural Development Plans (RDP) that sets out how the RDR will be applied. There are separate RDPs for England, Scotland and Wales.

EC Funding

• The majority of EU funds to support forestry are delivered through the grants paid under each country's grant schemes.
• This financial support comes from the European Agriculture Guarantee and Guidance Fund (EAGGF).
• The Guidance part of the fund (also called Structural Funding) is paid within defined Objective areas.

EU Objective Areas
Structural Funds are targeted to geographical Areas, to achieve various Objectives.

• Objectives are mutually exclusive - i.e. an area can get Objective 1 funding, or Objective 2 funding, but not both.
• Objective Area status applies for a specified date range (e.g. 1994-1999).
• Objective Areas are defined in terms of geographical areas (NUTS4 units).
• There are currently two types of Objective area numbered 1 and 2.

Objective 1
This provides high levels of support to raise the wealth creation capacity of targeted regions. It usually applies to areas where wealth creation per head (per capita Gross Domestic Product) is less than 75% of the European average. The aim is to promote the development and structural adjustment of these regions in order to speed up their economic growth. 

Objective 2
This helps areas hardest hit by industrial decline to create a new economic base. These are areas where the unemployment rate is higher than the European average or the proportion of people employed in industrial jobs is above the EU norm.
 
Extra funds
The RDR allows EU Member States to redirect a proportion of the payments intended to directly support agricultural production, and to use it for schemes that are eligible under the RDR. This allows more funding to be available for forestry.  This is called modulation.