Press Release: Rural development: €5 billion in total injected into rural development programmes following last vote on Health Check and Recovery package changes

The Rural Development Committee voted on 29 January 2010 on the last proposals from Member States/regions for using EU Recovery Plan and CAP Health Check funding and other transfers within the CAP to address issues including the economic and dairy crisis, and climate change. In the period October 2009 – January 2010, all rural development programmes were modified and the additional funding of about €5 billion is now ready to be invested in agriculture, the environment and broadband in rural areas. The January 2010 RDC voted on the last 7 of these modifications (see IP/09/1568 , IP/09/1813 and IP/09/1945 for October, November and December approvals). (See annex 1 tables). The majority of the funds will be concentrated in the areas of bio-diversity (31.2% of all funds, or €1.5 billion) and water management (26.9% or €1.3 billion). Dairy restructuring received 14.5% of the total budget (0.7 billion), climate change measures account for 14.2% or €0.7 billion, with renewable energy re-enforcement being 5.6% of the total additional budget ( €0.3 billion). The development of broadband infrastructure remains an important policy issue for rural areas. Member States have thus decided to invest 35% of the EU Recovery funds for broadband, which equals €360.4 million out of the available €1 billion