Copyright 2006 Accademia dei Georgofili
Rules and institutions in the new CAP. The rules of European agricultural law have been subject of continuous and relevant reforms in the last few years. As some scholars pointed out, European agricultural law appears as a sort of permanent workplace, where every day new buildings replace buildings erected only a short time ago. Even in Italian internal law, the permanent workplace is a fair representation of a continuous movement of reforms, in which it is some times difficult to see strategic lines within day-to-day decisions. The paper looks at those tendencies of European and Italian legislation in agriculture, and comes to the conclusion that the new PAC in an enlarged Community of 27 Member States in moving in direction of a policy, which emphasizes the role of local institutions, within the principles of complementarity, partnership and subsidiarity. The new EC Regulation No. 1698/2005 on rural development is discussed as a significant example of the tendency toward a governance method, which tries to assure strategic unity together with a multiplicity of differentiated choices on local and regional basis.
