On 1 June 2017, the European Parliament Intergroup on Rural, Mountainous and Remote Areas – RUMRA – hosted a breakfast briefing in Brussels to discuss Cohesion policy in Rural Areas and the need for a EU rural agenda.
The breakfast briefing aimed to better understand the growth potential of rural areas and reaffirm the RUMRA Intergroup’s commitment to help build political consensus and trigger growth for regions that are often overlooked. Several examples where given to participants (See them here).
More than 60 participants participated to this event, including an impressive number of Members of the European Parliament (MEP), with Chair of the RUMRA Intergroup, Mercedes Bresso, Chair of the URBAN Intergroup, Jan Olbrycht, and MEPs Jozo Rados, Franc Bogovic, Momchil Nekov, and Herbert Dorfmann.
During the event, the need to support more the territorial cohesion was discussed. While the future Cohesion Policy should continue supporting excellence, it also aims to better address the territorial challenges in all regions, according to Matthieu Fichter, from the Cabinet of the Commissioner Corina Crecu (DG Regio). Thus, the next Cohesion policy might look for radical simplification to simplify its implementation at the stakeholders and managing authorities’ levels.
To better take into account the territorial cohesion, MEP Mercedes Bresso and Jan Olbrycht called for more interactions and complementarity between rural and urban areas. MEP Nekhov underlined the need to have more solidarity between the different areas, supporting the idea to have targeted funds for mountain areas, which are unfortunately often poorest than other regions. More generally, different MEPs supported the idea to have a new approach supporting the idea to have an Agenda for mountain areas. In particular, the Chair and Vice-Chairs of the RUMRA intergroup have published a new brochure “Towards a rural agenda: Caring for the heart of Europe” (The brochure will soon be available online) to do some concrete proposals on what a rural agenda could be.
For more information, visit RUMRA website
