ELARD

LEADER-CLLD as the engine for the Right to Stay We are ELARD, the European LEADER Association for Rural Development, representing more than 2,800 Local Action Groups (LAGs) across 27 Member States. Our networks empower rural, remote, and peripheral communities to design and implement their own development strategies. The Right to Stay demands place-based, community-led solutions: exactly what LEADER-CLLD delivers.

As the European LEADER Association for Rural Development (ELARD), we welcome the opportunity to contribute to the consultation on the EU Strategy for the Outermost Regions and the regulatory simplification package. The nine EU outermost regions (RUP) combine unique assets with structural challenges, and require governance, funding, and regulatory approaches tailored to their realities.

In a rapidly changing and increasingly fragmented global context, the EUs long-term role in the world will depend not only on its external power projection, but also on its internal capacity for resilience, cohesion and democratic legitimacy. Strategic autonomy, competitiveness and credibility are ultimately grounded in the Unions territorial, societal and governance foundations.

ELARD welcomes the initiative that will assess whether the common agricultural policy has helped improve socio-economic aspects of territorial development. However, we find that any evaluation of LEADER/CLLD should incorporate the benefit that this method can provide at local level. We must evaluate not just LEADER in isolation but the totality of the CLLD methodology.