Why do we need a more locally focused rural employment policy in the EU

In practice the EU suggestions are translated mechanically to national and regional policies, in many instances, without taking into account the real interests and needs of the inhabitants at different regional levels. This way the capitalization of EU policies and funds is not as efficient as it should be since the endogen potentials of localities are not utilized properly. Our hypothesis is that the rural areas of the EU are so diverse that the significant differences in employment, economic, social, educational and infrastructural features of rural regions necessitates a more locally focused policy which could be supported by analyse statistical data. The analysis is based on the Eurostat General and Regional database and on national statistical databases. What are the reasons that one size fits all solutions has to be avoided and has to be changed with locally adapted policies? Probably this question can be answered partly by the facts of statistical data with which the differences, in some cases extremely huge alterations amongst territorial features, can be demonstrated. Differences based on ruralty are a common topic of rural policies and rural science in EU countries however the differences in rural features of different countries may be notably important. Analysing the employment-unemployment indicators and those indicators that closely related to employment we found that in many instances the major differences are between the post-socialist new member states (NMS) and the EU 15 countries.