The importance of PIC LEADER, given the successes that the program has achieved, inside and outside the EU, as a local initiative program. With local execution, decision-making and management, for the integrated development of rural territories, to which Global Subventions (FEDER, FSE and EAFRD) were awarded, to implement the respective strategies decided in the territories. With the close participation of local actors.
It seems to us a challenge to assess what impacts have been felt/felt in the territories, given the successive changes to the governance models that the program has been subject to and which lead, among others:
- Integration into structural fund programs, to the detriment of the global subsidy, losing the initial character of integrated development;
- Loss of the initial upward approach character;
- Excessive bureaucracy associated with an increasing increase in context costs and the loss of technical availability to think about the animation and promotion of territories;
- Changes in the already established territorial identity.