Understanding the Institutional Evolution of the European Rural Policy: A Methodological Approach

Last decades have seen the development of a new rural policy. Different problems occurring in rural areas have pushed the EU Commission to draft policy instruments aiming to address them. However this rural policy path has not always been explicit neither has followed a continuous trend but rather has seen a series of forward and backward steps. Given the lack of a method to establish the relevance and the level of political acceptance of EU rural policy, a methodology has been developed. This methodology has tried to identify the EU political procedure trend, though this is not a formal sequence, and to establish a classification of different events according to a proposed hierarchy. Several EU documents, decisions, directives and financial resource allocations have been analysed. Within the review performed, each rural policy milestone has been classified following the proposed hierarchical chart. This has enabled the drawing of the different backs and forwards taken by this process. Besides, it has lead to the interpretation of the rural policy instruments current position in relation with other European policy instruments.