Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-02-14-Speech-1-084"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20000214.4.1-084"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, those who work on rural areas know that, of the programmes which the European Union has managed, the LEADER programme, both LEADER I and LEADER II, is one of its success stories, and I hope that the same will be true of LEADER+. One of the reasons why it has been so successful is that the basic concept of the LEADER programmes aroused substantial interest in activities amongst the population concerned. I am glad that LEADER+ is to remain true to this underlying concept.
There is a problem, however, which we need to address together. Because LEADER is a kind of workshop with a bottom-up approach, a huge number of ideas have come to fruition in recent years through LEADER I and II which of course at some point will no longer be brand new or as successful as they once were. And because of the programme’s success and its basic approach they will of course at some point then be dropped from LEADER.
That is why, where the good LEADER projects are concerned, we need to ensure that those which have proved to be outstanding are not suddenly discontinued; instead the ideas which have proved to be worthwhile need at some stage to be transferred into the standard programmes as a reliable, positive component of our support to rural areas. Of course this is also the basic idea. It is to take new ideas and try them out in LEADER, with the participants on the ground, with the local organisations on the ground, with many non-governmental organisations, with the churches, with all those who have helped actually to get new ideas up and running in rural communities.
Here we must ensure that the good schemes, those which are really excellent, are then somehow transferred into rural development policy to safeguard the future of this laudable work.
My request to the Commission is that it should make sure that the organisations and sections of the population which get involved really are accepted. There should be no attempt to have one or other organisation, which is just being formed with a view to contributing a new idea and is not yet so well known, pushed a little on to the sidelines, say because of official local or regional policy. Have faith in the successful results which LEADER has had so far. At the beginning it is sometimes a little like chasing a rainbow if we say that a plan is too idealistic. And then when the work and the action start something emerges which the official policy, including ourselves at this level, could never have imagined would suddenly have developed so well. That was the charm of LEADER, and that should please not be lost!"@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples