ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL AREAS IN EUROPEAN UNION MEMBER STATES IN 2000-2012

Abstract

This paper focuses on the analysis of some certain aspects of economic development of rural areas in EU Member States during 2000-2012 and aims to define its main tendencies. The synthetic indicator, constructed on the basis of the primary variables, such as GDP per capita, cereal yield, livestock production index and agriculture value added per worker, has been used to evaluate rural economic development. While creating a synthetic indicator, factor analysis has been employed. The research covered all the countries of the EU. The results indicated that among them the highest level of rural economic development in terms of applied indicators occurred in Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Slovenia, France and Malta, and the lowest - by Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Poland and the Czech Republic.