Las cooperativas y su relación con los fondos estructurales de la Unión Europea: un estudio de la política de desarrollo rural

At the door of the XXI century, the Agenda 2000 and the agreements reached at the European Council of Berlin opened the possibility for a new design of European policies. The three fundamental aspects discussed were: the reformulation of Structures Policy, the reformulation of Common Agrarian Policy, and the necessary adjustments for the adaptation to the entrance of new members into the European Union, creating for it a specific financial framework for the period 2000-2006. This work shows the evolution and the perspective of the structural financial instruments from the reformation with the objective to achieve greater effectiveness, as well as the necessary assumption of competences and functions on the part of the members States. On the other hand, it discusses the change tendency that implies to fit agriculture inside a wider socio-economic framework. Indeed, the agrarian sector must not be approached in an isolated manner but rather as an economic activity with an important weight in the development of the different European regions, that have to be favoured to attain territorial balance and economic and social cohesion; which implies the fortification of the rural policy to secure this balance as a fundamental pillar of the Common Agrarian Policy. At this context, co-operative businesses play a crucial role as agents involved in the processes of territorial development, not only due to their dynamics as economic actors but also for their contribution to economic and social cohesion.