1. Cork 2,0 Declaration, its Action Plan and CAP Renewal
Christine Falter
DG Agriculture and Rural Development
European Commission
ELARD Leader/ CLLD gathering
Brussels, 31 May 2017

2. Cork 2.0 Declaration (Sept. 2016): "A better life in rural areas"
Stakeholder conference developed 10 policy orientations:
- "implementation of integrated strategies and multi-sectoral approaches" (point on rural prosperity)
- "strengthen urban-rual linkages" (point on rural viability and vitality)
- "Building on the success of Leader…bottom-up and locally-led initiatives should be rolled out to mobilise rural potentials" (point on enhancing rural governance)
- "...further simplify [CAP] implementation; reduce administrative burden on beneficiaries and administrations; wide application of simplified cost options" (point on advancing policy delivery and simplification)
-> emphasizes importance of Leader/ CLLD, reinforcing its role
-> Leader / CLLD links to / can address all 10 policy orientations
-> applying Leader principles to "mainstream" policy
simplification is not only the job of the European Commission; we often find that additional rules and complexity is added at the level of Member States and regions – goldplating
""Subsidiarity should be better applied in the implementation of ESI Funds leaving it to programme authorities to verify the respect of national rules.(…) Member States should make full use of the simplification options provided in the new period and refrain from gold-plating (…)." (HLG)
"ESIF legislation package should be streamlined to a coherent package of regulations and further harmonised to ensure one set of clear rules for all funds. (…) the requirements applicable to ESIF should be aligned as far as possible with other funds and centrally managed programmes (…)." (HLG)

3. Cork 2.0 Action Plan
Implementation of Cork Declaration – a job for stakeholders, networks and policy makers
● ELARD gathering as part of follow-up
● DG AGRI exploring shift from compliance to result-orientation / performance based delivery (one of key conclusions of Cork 2.0) -> how to make this work for Leader/ CLLD?
● ENRD work on Leader implementation, identifying lessons on what works and what needs to be improved
● Conference on CLLD organised by 4 ESIF DGs (November 2017)
● Simplification: changing Regulations for wider application of simplified cost options, umbrella projects…

4. CAP renewal - COP 21 on climate change
- UN Sustainable Development Goals
- Budget focussed on results
- White Paper on the Future of Europe
- Simplification (High Level Group on European Structural and Investment Funds)

5. Key words Bottom-up and locally-led initiatives
Integrated strategies and multi-sectoral approaches
Improved interrelations and partnerships
Local initiative and rural capacity-building
Reduce administrative burden