Abstract
The contribution analyses how the members of Local Action Groups (LAG) from the European LEADER programme (2007-2013) devise and pilot development projects in the eastern part of Germany. The study emphasizes the monographic approach – in the Henneberger Land LEADER region in western Thuringia - to gain an understanding of how these cooperative networks are working to diversify rural activities through the mobilization of new land resources. In these rural areas of the former GDR, decollectivized rapidly in the early 1990s, the LEADER programmes contribute to the implementation of rural policies based on principles of endogenous development and on the mechanism of local governance. As they involve different actors, requested for their level of political responsibility, their work or their participation in community life, the GAL raise the question of coordination of the local action for the territorial development.