The European Commission’s rural development policy is one of the two pillars of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). It helps meeting the challenges faced by rural areas and contributes to their sustainable development. Support is provided for rural development programmes defined at national or in some cases regional level, which for a certain number of years (now: 2007-2013) set out the measures to be undertaken and the funding allocated to each of these measures.
In its early days, rural development policy was essentially sectoral (dealing mainly with agricultural structures), with limited territorial aspects.