The MPs supported conceptually in the first reading the bill concerning local action groups (LAGs) that was drafted by the Government. The LAGs are now registered as legal entities. The proposed bill comes as a solution for registering these groups and regulating their activity, IPN reports.

The necessity of the bill derives from the amendments proposed to the law on the principles of subsidization for developing agriculture and rural areas. The GALs are to be financed with public funds within the state program LEADER that can benefit from almost 5% of the National Agriculture and Rural Development Fund.

LEADER is an EU initiative, a method and program instrument to support locally-driven rural development interventions to reinvent rural areas and create local jobs.

For the second reading, the bill could be merged with a similar bill that was drafted by a group of MPs.

In 2020, the LAGs implemented about 350 micro-projects to the total value of almost 20 million lei from different foreign sources.