Rural areas need immediate and equitable policies and funding to address the many challenges they face, said members of the European Parliament’s Agriculture Committee on Tuesday 25 October.
The report by Isabel Carvalhais (S&D, Portuguese), which analyses the European Commission’s communication of 30 June 2021 on a long-term vision for rural areas in the EU, was adopted in the European Parliament committee with 36 votes in favour, 1 against and 10 abstentions.
The crises arising from the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have demonstrated the importance of rural areas for food security in Europe, say MEPs. These areas suffer from demographic decline, poverty, lack of employment and quality services (health and education) and poor connectivity.
The Committee on Agriculture is calling for public investment to ensure equal access to these services in rural areas. MEPs stress the need for synergies between EU funds and policies and call for proper implementation of the rural territorial dimension in the current Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) programmes. They call on the Commission to develop a mechanism to evaluate and monitor the contribution of each EU fund to rural areas.
For the future, MEPs propose dedicated funding for rural areas. To this end, the Commission should launch a study on the possibility of allocating a share of the European Regional Development Fund and the Cohesion Fund to rural areas.
The Agriculture Committee also calls for a compulsory and effective mechanism to assess the impact of new policies on rural areas, both at EU and national level.
The own-initiative report will be debated and adopted in the European Parliament plenary in December. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)