About us

CEETTAR stands for European Confederation of Agricultural, Rural and Forestry Contractors. Established in 1961, CEETTAR represents about 150,000 companies and nearly 600,000 workers. It aims to represent the interests of land-based contractors in Europe towards the European Union bodies and towards EU associations in the sectors. In 2014, the European Network of Forestry Entrepreneurs decided to merge with CEETTAR, resulting in a stronger and more representative single organisation representing land-based contractors at EU level.

CEETTAR is present in 17 different countries in Europe. (You can find the list of the different members in the section “member organisations”).

The secretariat of CEETTAR is in charge of gathering its members regularly through different meetings, aiming at discussing several topics related to the organisation:

• General Assemblies, where members of the board (Presidents and Directors) are appointed every four years. During these meetings, activities of the past year, finances, and membership fees are also being discussed. There is one General Assembly per year.
• Heads of Secretariat meetings, where the appointed President and Directors are gathering. During these meetings, different topics can be discussed, mainly about recent news/advancements/progressions/general questions related to the sectors represented by the members. There is one Heads of Secretariat meeting per year.
• Management committees, where the reports of the last Heads of Secretariat and Standing committees meetings are being discussed, as well as execution of strategies and day-to-day operations by the organisation. There are four Management Committees per year.
• Standing committees and working groups, divided by sectors (Rural Activies/CAP, Forestry and Mobile Machinery), where all the topics about each sector (reports about members’ countries, reports of what has been done at EU level) are being discussed between members. There are two meetings per year and per Standing Committee.

CEETTAR aims to be a proactive force to benefit the contractors and the rural economy at European level. Its objective is to:

• Represent the national federations and defend their professional interests in relation to the institutions of the EU. This way, CEETTAR is recognised as representative organisation for contractors towards the European Institutions,
• Represent the national federations and defend their professional interests towards other associations which are active at European level and beyond. CEETTAR maintains constructive relations with COPA-COGECA (farmers), CEMA (agricultural machinery industry), EFFAT (workers)...
• Promote and develop exchange of views between members, through regular debates and questionnaires;

• The CEETTAR secretariat also hosts the secretariat of the European Mobile Seed Association (EMSA, see the dedicated section on the website), as well as another EU association of small and medium-size companies in the metalworking sector (European Metal Union: www.emu-sme.eu).

At EU level, CEETTAR is part of:

• The civil dialogue groups on CAP, Rural Development and Forestry & Cork and of the EU Rural Network Assembly of DG AGRI.
• The Expert Group on Forest-based Industries and Sectorally Related Issues, of the Working Group on Agricultural Tractors and of the Machinery working group on the machine directive of DG GROW.
• The Structured Dialogue with European Structural and Investment Funds of DG REGIO.
• The European Federation of Agriculture, Food and Tourism (EFFAT) in an informal social dialogue supported by DG EMPL.

At international level, CEETTAR is a member of PEFC international and holds an observer status in UPOV (Convention on Plant Variety Rights) and in ForestEurope.