How does the 2021-2027 Cohesion Policy support mountains ?

The Montana174 project publishes a set of educational factsheets explaining how mountain communities can make use of the 2021-2027 Cohesion Policy to meet their specific needs.

Europe’s mountains: places of resilience and innovation

Today, mountains face many of the challenges of our century: from the alarming impacts of climate change to brain drain, ageing and outward migration. However, mountains have also showed that they can address these challenges and become places of resilience and innovation. Its inhabitants have built on their creativity to cultivate innovation, accelerate climate mitigation and adaptation, support tourism, foster youth and employment, and enhance mobility. The European Union contributed to make this real through the funds of the Cohesion Policy. Since 2009, the European Union decided to pay “a particular attention to mountain regions” via the Article 174 of EU Treaty on Functioning of the European Union.

How do European funds foster resilience and innovation?

European funds from the Cohesion Policy are crucial to enhance resilience and innovation in mountain areas. But how does this support arrive to mountains?

To explain this, the Montana174 project has published a set of educational factsheets  illustrating the resources that the 2021-2027 Cohesion Policy will channel in mountain areas via the Operational Programmes as well as Interreg programmes.

From these factsheets, it emerges that some resources of the 2021-2027 Cohesion Policy will finance the transition of mountain tourism towards an all-year tourism, to support investments to bridge the quality gap between educational facilities in rural and urban areas, to preserve mountain biodiversity, among many others. Some Operational Programmes, such as the one of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region in France foresees specific “interregional sections” dedicated to the Massif Central. In other cases, cross-border, transnational and interregional Interreg programmes can be used to finance new projects in Europe’s mountains. Overall, a large part of the budget can be used to finance green and digital transition in mountains and mountain residents.

Mountain actors shall not miss this opportunity!

Euromontana believes the 2021-2027 Cohesion Policy is a huge opportunity for mountain regions and calls on mountain stakeholders to take advantage of these funds to meet the challenges of our regions. To this end, Montana174 partners will organise a series of local workshops in our regions to prepare mountain stakeholders to uptake these funds between April and July 2022.

Stay tuned about our events to attend the workshops!