LEADER is the abbreviation of: „Liason entre actions de
developpement de l’economie rurale”, which means: Connections between actions
for development of the rural economy.
LEADER is a programme for subsidization of the EU for the
development of the rural area and is being coordinated by the Federal Ministry
for agriculture, forestry, environment- and waterindustry in Austria.
Since Austria joined the European Union, the country took
part on several programmes which are called LEADER II, LEADER+, LEADER 07-13
and LEADER 14-20. Meanwhile the number of LEADER regions in Austria was
growing.
The subsidies für LEADER projects come from the pot oft he
austrian programm für rural development and get cofinanced by the european
union, the federation of austria and the goverment of lower austria. The
requirement to get LEADER-subsidies ist to create a regional development
strategy (LES), the implementation of a regional board of management (local
actiongroup) and a local implementation structure (LEADER management).
The implementation of the LEADER promotional
programme takes place in 77 regions in Austria where of 18 regions are located
in Lower Austria. The emphasis responsible regional office in Lower Austria is
the LF3 (agricultural subsidization).