Agriculture Ministry to Distribute €167 mn among 95 Local Action Groups via PPA

Trencin, 28 July (TASR) - The Agriculture Ministry will distribute €167 million among local action groups across Slovakia through the Agricultural Payment Agency (PPA) up to 2029, Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Richard Takac (Smer-SD) announced at a news conference following his visit to Trencin Regional Authority on Tuesday, adding that all the 95 local action groups will be supported via the Leader Initiative. "The previous government limited the number of local action groups in the strategic plan to 65. We've changed that. We didn't want to create a battle or a kind of competition between local action groups. We decided to support as many action groups as responded to the call and met all the criteria. All 95 action groups that submitted applications were successful," said the minister. The first 22 contracts with representatives of local action groups were signed in Trencin on Tuesday by PPA general director Marek Cepko. PPA will sign contracts with additional action groups within a month. The initial amount of more than €36 million will start appearing in the accounts of the action groups in early September, covering some 95 percent of their operating costs. The action groups will start drawing another €125 million for projects as of next year until 2029. "There are several changes when compared to the rural development programme. Our task is to speed up and streamline all procedures and to reduce red tape. That's why we've separated all intermediate links between PPA and local action groups. Each action group will have its own project manager, a person with whom the action groups will address the issue," emphasised Takac. The minister stated that the Leader Project is very important for the whole of Slovakia and for rural development. At the end of the previous programme period in 2023, the level of funds drawn for local action groups amounted to 8 percent, and prognoses stated that €50 million might be lost. "By the end of 2025 we managed a miracle - we didn't lose a single euro, and we've withdrawn 100 percent of the funds for local action groups. In two years, we've drawn what was supposed to be drawn over ten years," added Takac. ko/df