MAIN DIRECTIONS IN THE EU MEMBER STATES RURAL DEVELOPMENT POLICIES: SIMILARITIES AND DISSIMILARITIES

The paper presents the comparison of key challenges addressed as the most significant to face within the rural development programmes 2014-2020 (RDP 2014-2020) in different Member States of the European Union. The paper aims to indicate main similarities and dissimilarities in the needs of the country's territories and priority targets of their rural development policies. The study presents the data on the amount of funding allocated to particular priority within the RDP 2014-2020 in each Member State. The study was based on the European Commission's data (factsheets on Rural Development Programmes 2014-2020 for each country). The study results in the prioritization of distinguished challenges (priorities), where the level of importance to each challenge was assigned based on the amount of budget allocated to each priority. The research indicates that the issue of restoring, preserving and enhancing ecosystems in agriculture and forestry gains the greatest interest in the countries of European Union (the objective was given the highest priority rank in 24 out of 28 EU Member States), whereas the issue of resource efficiency and shift to low carbon and climate resilient economy in agriculture, food and forestry sectors (the priority coefficient assessed on the level of 7.4 %) and the issue of food chain organisation, animal welfare and risk management (the priority coefficient assessed on the level of 8.9 %) play the least significant role.