THE ROLE OF CONSULTANCY IN THE PROCESS OF APPLYING FOR EUROPEAN FUNDS FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT

In the context of the present world economical crisis, the pre-accession and structural funds assigned by the European Union (which have been and still are high for Romania) can represent an important financial support for ensuring the sources of sustaining the investments meant to contribute to increase the living standard in rural areas, in the case of acceding countries and for member states that joined in 2004 and 2007. Still, for countries it is important to have a high level of acceding these funds, because history proved that few countries absorbed the whole amount of money from the pre-accession funds (Czech Republic is a positive example in this context) and the structural funds (Spain and Portugal are positive examples in this context). An important factor in accessing European funds is represented by the structures of consultancy (public and private) that may advise the potential beneficiaries of these funds, for both elaborating the projects of investments and their implementation.