Rural Europe on the move English_E_version_all | Page 57

Learning to listen
Bottom-up LEADERship
“LEADER and methods of participation
are quite new in Poland,” Elzbieta tells
me. “Unfortunately, a number of groups
are mainly controlled by politicians or
municipalities as LEADER projects are
perceived as a source of power.”
That sounds familiar to me: I have
witnessed a similar situation in my region
of Valencia, during the programming
period of LEADER + (2007-2013).
Some LAGs were controlled by local
mayors, often in a paternalistic way and
sometimes on the verge of cronyism,
leaving almost no space for civil society
participation. “We know what is good
for the territory, leave it in our hands”
I remember one of them saying in a
meeting. Under such circumstances
LEADER principles are more of a token
action. The public is informed when main
decisions are already made, or consulted
through narrow, closed questions with no
real debate.
These readymade projects undermine
the spirit of LEADER. The EU clearly
demands participation of stakeholders
in rural programmes and projects. But
what we see is that in many cases these
democratic principles are not yet part of
the public administrative practices. Often
simply training of civil servants and civil
society is what’s needed. And that is what
we offer in our Forum Synergies training
workshops.
“Readymade projects
undermine the spirit
of LEADER.”
14. Knyszyńska Primaeval Forest
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