The European Commission Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development has recently published the Cork 2.0 Action Plan. This Action Plan outlines planned and completed activities across the EU to implement each of the ten policy orientations of the Cork 2.0 Declaration concerning rural communities and possible policy responses.
This Action Plan sets out a number of concrete initiatives which the Commission, the rural networks as well as rural and agricultural stakeholders, including Euromontana, are to take to turn the aspirations of the Cork Declaration into real change on the ground.
Euromontana is very active in the implementation of the Cork Declaration and it is recognized in this Cork 2.0 Action Plan, the following contributions of mountain areas are explicitly quoted:
- The European Charter for Mountain Quality Food Products under the priority “strengthening rural value chains”;
- The Horizon 2020 project PEGASUS, in which Euromontana participates, under the priority “preserving the rural environment”;
- The Horizon 2020 project SIMRA, in which Euromontana and some of Euromontana’s members participate, under the priority “boosting knowledge and innovation”.
At Euromontana, we strongly believe that close collaboration between stakeholders and the European Commission is necessary to implement the Cork Declaration. Stakeholders alone won’t be able to implement the Declaration.
Thus, Euromontana has actively encouraged the European Commission to transpose the Cork priorities into a real Agenda for rural areas that Euromontana has advocated for several years with, notably, the members of the European Countryside Movement; the Members of the European Parliament RUMRA (Rural, Mountainous and Remote Areas) Intergroup, the Committee of the Regions and the European Economic and Social Committee.
To do so, Euromontana has sent its document: “Implement the Cork Declaration: Solutions for and from mountain areas” and has presented it to the Cabinet of the EU Commissioner Phil Hogan in January 2017. As a reminder, the document presents some contributions of mountain areas for the implementation of the Cork Declaration and suggests to the European Commission solutions that will benefit not only mountain areas but also all rural areas. The document explains how our network is already doing some efforts for the implementation of this Declaration and how we will continue these efforts in the near future.
We hope that this Cork 2.0 Action Plan is just a starting point with new actions planned in the coming months, and that the future CAP will better reflect the Cork priorities into the next programmation.
To read more:
- The Cork 2.0 declaration
- Euromontana’s document “Implement the Cork Declaration: Solutions for and from mountains areas
- European Commission’s Cork 2.0 Action Plan
