On 17 June 2014, a project workshop on 'Mainstreaming climate change into rural development policy post 2013' took place at the European Commission in Brussels. Organized by Ecologic Institute in cooperation with DG Climate Action, the workshop provided an opportunity to present and discuss the draft technical guidance for Member States on how to design and integrate new and innovative climate actions in rural development programs. All presentations are available for download.

Through a combination of presentations and interactive discussions with representatives from a range of Member States and stakeholder groups, the project team presented the preliminary guidance and sought feedback from practitioners on the content and design of the guidance so as to optimize its value. The project final outputs will be available from mid-September 2014.   

The workshop began with an introduction by DG Climate Action on project background, in particular the need and opportunities for increased mitigation and adaptation action in rural development policy. Ana Frelih-Larsen, senior fellow at Ecologic Institute, introduced the project and outlined the elements related to the LEADER instrument and joint actions. Michael MacLeod of Scotland's Rural College (SRUC) presented the technical fiches for climate mitigation and adaptation actions. Finally, Bernhard Osterburg of Thünen-Institut presented the potential combinations of measures under rural development programmes (RDPs) and opportunities for climate action under the thematic sub-programmes. The different elements of the guidance were then discussed in small groups using the World Café Discussion Method.

The workshop was based on a project led by Ecologic Institute in collaboration with Scotland's Rural College (SRUC - UK), Thünen-Institut (Germany), Solagro (France), National Institute of Agricultural Economics (INEA – Italy), and Research Institute of Agricultural Economics (AKI – Hungary).