Abstrakt: | In Polish law there is no legal definition of the rural area, but is it a mistake of Polish legislator
who did not introduce this term? However, legislature of the European Union also did not define
this term but there is a lot of legal acts which use this concept without defining this content. The
concept of rural area is determined by economic, social, demographic, and cultural development.
It is obvious that the rural area in recent years is still evolving. The concept of mono-functional development
of the rural area has been transformed into the concept of multifunctional development.
Multi-functional development of rural areas on the one hand, the development of non-agricultural
activities and restructuring of agriculture on the other. The concept of the rural area in the old and
new agricultural policy is determined by three factors: social structure, spatial structure and production
structure. The new agricultural policy is also a question of financing widely understood
agriculture from the Rural Development Programmes. Through these programs, the definition of
the rural area is modified, depending on the specific actions for which European Union funding
is granted. No single definition of the rural area in the Polish legal system should be viewed as
negative for the Polish legislator. The search criteria for separating the rural area should be based
on flexible and diversified grounds, among others, location of the rural area in the country, development
of rural space, depending on the environment and whether related to the quality of the
local community. |