The rural development in Central and Eastern Europe countries (CEECs) following
the land reform, which has been implemented through the land restitution to former
owners or through the land distribution to workers, is burdened with structural issues,
since in many cases the small scale and fragmented land ownership has taken extreme
forms. As a result other serious problems, especially land abandonment, have arisen.
All this has been accelerated by the retirement of an older generation of more
traditional farmers and by the migration of young people to urban areas. It has also
become obvious that an attractive living and working environment is needed to appeal
to enterprises that seek to invest in the rural areas of CEECs. In solving above
mentioned problems and creating attractive environment for investment, the land
consolidation (LC) is seen as an essential foundation; and now has become one of
Europe’s core objectives in the global framework. It is expected that land
consolidation process will allow solving not only structural problems of rural land,
but it could create viable rural areas through improvements to the rural services and
infrastructure, incentives for economic diversification, and etc. The aim of this article
is to discuss the cause of land fragmentation and current situation of land ownership
in CEECs; also to investigate what approaches from Western European countries,
especially, concerning land consolidation, are transferable to the land management
and rural development in CEECs.