The "smart village" approach can improve people's lives thanks to the involvement of local communities and the use of digital tools. It requires that all EU policies promote and foster the attractiveness an quality of rural life by ensuring equal access to basic services as social and health care, as well as by offering better opportunities for small and medium-sized businesses and start-ups. The Commission should develop targets and indicators for monitoring the success of the long-term vision for rural areas. This is the key message of the opinion on "Targets and tools for a smart rural Europe" by Radim SRŠEŇ, Mayor of the Municipality of Dolní Studénky, adopted during the European Committee of the Regions plenary session.
Rural areas cover 80% of the territory of the EU and are home to 30% of the EU population, which face different living conditions from Europeans living in urban areas, namely the lack of access to digitalisation and shortcomings in infrastructure and services, which limit the establishment and operation of business and therefore the economic development of rural areas.
The rapporteur Radim SRŠEŇ (CZ,EPP), Mayor of the Municipality of Dolní Studénky, said: " Every crises brings an opportunity and now we have a unique opportunity to transform rural areas much faster than we would have imagined several years ago. We do have policies, we do have tools, we do have data and we also do have technologies to overcome rural-urban divide. Now, a place-based holistic approach and tailor-made solutions for every region, i.e. smart rural development, is needed! Engaging all EU policies and all possible resources (including cohesion funds and Next Generation EU funds) to fulfil the ambitions of Long Term Vision for Rural Areas and other EU strategies by clearly defining targets, goals and standards of quality of life is a must."
In June 2021, the European Commission put forward a Long-term vision for the EU's rural areas 2040 (LTVRA), which aims to make rural areas "stronger, connected, resilient and prosperous". By seizing the emerging opportunities of the EU's green and digital transitions, the vision intends to achieve balanced territorial development and stimulate economic growth, creating new opportunities to attract innovative businesses, ensuring access to quality jobs, promote new and better skills and ensuring better infrastructure and services in rural areas.
In the CoR opinion, the rapporteur Radim SRŠEŇ (CZ,EPP), advocated that implementing the LTVRA successfully means making better use of the smart village and partnership tools like LEADER and CLLD. Smart villages should become an integral part of regional development policy and create synergies with existing tools.
The smart villages concept requires the involvement of the local community and the use of digital tools to improve people's lives in rural areas. The concept implies cooperation with other communities and the adoption of smart solutions in both the private and public sectors that will improve the living conditions of people in these regions.
The Committee suggests to take into account when creating smart villages, the support of local production and consumption and the cooperation among municipalities to solve issues of common interest and to create decision-making process based on open data and transparency, available to create new solutions for the development of rural communities
In their recommendations, EU local and regional leaders highlighted that all EU policies should promote the attractiveness of rural areas and protect their quality of life and the rural population by ensuring equal access to basic services and opportunities. Therefore, CoR members call for better conditions to be created for the development of diversified small and medium-sized businesses and for start-ups to become a natural part of the development of smart municipalities in rural areas and also better access to quality healthcare and social care.
The Committee's opinion draws attention to the need of enhancing the digital skills and training of the population in rural areas and promoting secure and sustainable digital infrastructure and the digitisation of businesses and public services, that allow people to work from home and their community and get services at home. It welcomes the inclusion of rural areas in the European Declaration on Digital Rights and Principles for the Digital Decade.
Looking further into the implementation of the long-term vision, EU regional and local leaders underlined that the post-2027 Cohesion Policy should include specific EU-level regional targeting and earmarking for rural areas, with a minimum aid threshold in Partnership Agreements.
Finally, the Committee invites the Commission to include proposals for targets and indicators in its evaluation report on the implementation of the LTVRA and to propose how to integrate these targets in existing EU monitoring systems (e.g. the European Semester).