Abstract
The contribution proposes a geographical analysis of the application of the European program LEADER (Liaisons Entre Actions de Développement de l’Economie Rurale), as a public policy device aimed to promote the territorial development. Based on a retrospective approach to this Community initiative program, etablished following the reform of the structural funds of 1988, then integrated into the second pillar of the CAP after the 2003 reform, the analysis focuses on the transfer and the reception in the European Union of a development model for rural areas, based on the principle of a bottom-up and integrated approach. A retrospective analysis of the transfer mechanisms and forms of reception of this model of territorial development in the Member States will help to inform the evolution of the europeanization process and to measure its effects on the socio-economic integration of rural territories, at a time when the LEADER program is being challenged by the new orientations of the cohesion policy and the common agricultural policy.