Presentation of the ELO Cross-Border Programme

“Building a dynamic sustainable rural world in an enlarged EU”

supported by the European Commission

The Tartu seminar is part of a wider scheme elaborated by ELO and its members, today the
Estonian Landowners Organisation with the cooperation of the Estonian Farmers Federation,
with the support of the European Commission.

What is the PRINCE Programme?

For one year ELO and its members lead a programme to bring together landowners and land
managers of each New Member States with representatives of the European Commission and
local political decision makers and one or two professionals from the EU-15 (here from
Denmark):

A conference, organised in Brussels (beginning of 2006) brings together the members of the
ELO network, its partners, the stakeholders involved in the Enlargement process as well as
representatives of the national and EU authorities. This event aims at gathering all the actors
of the EU rural world and to launch a debate on the future of the countryside and rural
development. It brings the local, regional, national and European actors together to analyse
the issues of the rural activities and the EU responses and to induce synergies between the
organisation invited to carry on the programme at regional and local level.

A round of three regional conferences organised at regional level in the new MS tends to
focus on common rural issues for countries of the same geographical region by again bringing
together MS, new MS. They can therefore debate and exchange experience on the situation
concerning their countryside, on the difficulties to cope with the implementation of “Acquis
Communautaire”, on the future implementation of the Rural Development policy, on the
opportunities of entrepreneurship and on the benefits of the Enlargement.
 Mediterranean and Black sea region: Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Slovenia,
Malta, Cyprus;
 The Heart of Europe: The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Austria, the UK (who has
developed close ties with Czech Republic), Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia,
Hungary;
 Baltic Region: Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Eire (who has developed close ties with
Latvia), Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia.

A series of 10 workshops at national / local level. In 2003-2004 ELO as organised with the
support of the EU Commission a series of twinning to promote rural cooperation throughout
the EU25. Building on this experience ELO uses the close ties created between MS, new MS
at the occasion of these meetings. The issues debated at European and regional level can then
be discussed by the actors directly involved on the ground, with case studies at hand: Estonia,
Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Malta, Cyprus.
These workshops are organised in new MS with the cooperation of twinned MS from the
EU15. Each event includes a theoretical part and a case study.
What are the competitive advantages in Estonia?

New technologies can give access to education, market, services. A good transportation grid is
also needed but the risk is to turn the rural areas in urban suburbs without their proper
economic added value.
Estonia has a good potential and the issue is to detect the opportunities to develop them. There
is obviously a lack of fund to help rural development

At the same time there are also some legal limitations, some MS implement the EU legislation
in a too restrictive way. One of the problems to develop rural areas in Estonia is that hunting
and shooting rights are not in the hands of the landowners creating management distortion
The Intergroup on “sustainable hunting, biodiversity and rural activities” of the European
Parliament adopted a recommendation in favour of the restitution of hunting rights to
landowners or at least that landowners can have access to compensation for game damages. In
Spain 75 000 commercial shooting businesses contribute to the wealth of the countryside.

Climate change: the increasing erratic weather events shall be taken into account and the
climate change mitigation strategy should support good practices favourable both to climate
change mitigation and to the environment in general.