The role of rural development funds in EU pre-accession countries: the case of IPARD II

The European Union is a key strategical priority for the pre-accession countries in the Western Balkan and Turkey. The Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA) assists countries aspiring for EU membership to prepare their institutional and administrative capacities for future compliance in all sectors including agriculture and rural development. Apart from the financing component, the role of IPARD is much broader in preparing the preaccession countries for effective implementation of structural and rural development funds upon accession. This paper aims to provide a comparative cross-country analysis on the IPARD programme 2014-2020 (IPARD II) funding of the current beneficiaries (Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey). The main derived indicators include the use of IPARD II funding, measures and absorption rates. IPARD II payments are effectuated in all candidate countries from 2019, while payments started earlier in 2017 in Turkey and in 2018 in North Macedonia. With the prolonged start of the IPARD II programme, significant amount of the available funds remains unused, and the number of implemented measures is still limited. There are noticeable country differences in terms of expenditure among measures, but overall, the largest share of used funds so far is dedicated to investments in physical assets in primary production and processing. All countries have established some form of institutional and administrative capacities for implementing the agricultural and rural development policies, especially for the IPARD funds. Still, there is a need for additional capacity building, due to numerous factors, among which the dynamic environment with many continuously changing aspects (CAP reform, accession methodology, climate change or issues arising from the ongoing Covid-19 pandemics). Further promoting the programme, strengthening the national institutions’ set-up and capacity, aligning to the beneficiaries needs, and supporting them in preparing viable or sustainable projects are recommendations for better use of the current funds, as well as for the preparation of IPARD III cycle