Towards a shift from agricultural to rural development policy. The case of the Republic of Macedonia

Public support for agriculture in R. Macedonia is characterized by a significant evolution, but it is still largely affected by the lack of a consistent long-term development-oriented strategy. Within this framework measures for agricultural and rural development are changing on annual basis generating consistent disorientation among final users. However, with the Strategy for Approximation of the Macedonian Agro-Food Sector to the CAP of the EU, Macedonian agricultural policy has taken a major step towards the process of identification of its own resources in order to create the necessary basis for the design of a new agriculture and rural development policy. The paper aims at assessing the place that agriculture has in the overall economy and especially in the rural areas of R. Macedonia, analyzing the basic structure and income and investigating how subsidies and support strategies are evolving in light of the European integration process.