According to the EU definition and practice Local Action Groups (LAGs) are made up of public and private partners from the rural territory. They include representatives from different socio-economic sectors and they receive financial assistance to implement local development strategies, by awarding grants to local projects. They are selected by the managing authority of the Member State, which is either a national, regional or local, private or public body responsible for the management of the programme.

There were 893 LAGs selected under the Leader+ Community initiative which covered the period 2000-2006 and included only the 15 Member States before enlargement. However, the New Member States were given the option to implement Leader+ type measures for the remaining period of the programme since they joined the EU in May 2004. Six out of the ten new Member States have decided to implement these measures in their Objective 1 programmes (2004-2006): Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary, and Poland. These Leader+ type measures have been mainly focused around the acquisition of skills such as training and building local development partnerships, called ‘Scheme 1’ measures. Once LAGs have been selected they will be able to fund projects under local development strategies (‘Scheme 2’) which will last until the end of the programme.
For more information please refer to: http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/rur/leaderplus/faq_en.htm