19.07.2021 – 11:30

espon

Rome (ots)

The European Commission has developed a long-term strategy to make the EU’s rural areas “stronger, more connected, resilient and prosperous” by 2040.

This vision provides a platform for information exchange, incentives to create innovative systems in rural areas, sustainable mobility concepts and improved access to services and broadband Internet.

According to Eugenio Gianni, President of the Regional Council of Tuscany, it is essential that rural communities “become active agents of innovation” in order to usher in the end of the “urban-rural divide” and in the future to see rural areas as “a place of opportunity outside of pure agriculture” to consider.

In an article in the language of Ground ALLA journal published by ESPON, the European Union’s program specializing in regional policy analysis, the President of Tuscany explained that “the EU offers some tools to promote innovation and better connect rural communities”.

For him, this includes, among others, the European Partnership for Innovation for Agricultural Productivity and Sustainability (EIP-Agri).

Gianni added that these tools should be complemented by greater use of public-private partnerships “to create new synergies between sectors and attract greater investments in education, training, social services and security”.

In introducing the new Charter and Action Plan for Rural Areas, the European Commission strongly recommends that interventions be as compatible as possible with the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the Coherence Policy.

It also calls on the Committee to look at future decisions from a rural perspective and to make them “land resistant”.

Dubravka Soica, Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of democracy and demography, emphasized that it is “necessary at present” to integrate development plans and resources from cohesion funds and CAP into a single integrated strategy for addressing rural areas to achieve this. more attractive.

“There’s a lot of CAP in rural areas and a lot of cohesion in urban areas,” Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojchowski said at the moment.

“It’s time to change that,” Wojczykowski added.

“All funds have been boosted in the context of the EU’s reconstruction plan,” added Elisa Ferreira, Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms.

“In order for the funds to have a multiplier effect, it is necessary to use them not only from a sectoral perspective, but also from a regional one,” she added.

According to the research project escape from, implemented as part of the ESPON programme, the political measures taken by the European Union so far to stop the abandonment of rural areas have not yielded any tangible results.

In three out of five rural areas – which represent 40% of the region and 30% of the total EU population – population declines have already occurred or will occur in the next few decades.

In particular, the population of the affected areas is expected to drop to 157 million by 2033 – a decrease of 21 million from 1993.

Media contact:

Nikos Lambropoulos
Journalism and Media Project Expert
[email protected]
www.espon.eu

Original content by: ESPON, transmitted by aktuell news الأخبار