"Regions and cities must be involved by national governments when drafting national recovery and resilience plans. This is key for the recovery of rural areas." Samuel Azzopardi, EPP-CoR NAT Coordinator and President of the Region of Gozo made these remarks during an exchange of views between the Committee of the Regions' NAT Commission and the European Parliament's AGRI Committee on the new long-term vision for rural areas.
Azzopardi explained that notwithstanding the fact that formal consultation with LRAs has been prescribed by the European Commission, so far there is a general lack of willingness of national governments to involve regional and local authorities in the preparation of the national recovery and resilience plans and even smaller number of cases where feedback was taken on board. "We want to call on Members States to engage local and regional governments when drafting national recovery and resilience plans. We are in the frontline fighting the impacts of COVID-19 and have a responsibility to make best use of these recovery funds reflecting the needs of our territories and their citizens."
Azzopardi said that Rural policy is not only about agriculture. Speaking of opportunities ahead Azzopardi said "In the next years, rural areas will have at their disposal unprecedented amounts of EU financial support, for the recovery of rural areas from the COVID-19 crisis. On top of Multi-Financial Framework (MFF) comes the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) with almost 700 billion euros. This will be an opportunity for rural areas to embrace the twin green and digital transitions."
Concerning the European Union's long-term strategy for rural areas, Azzopardi claimed that this strategy was long overdue and called for concrete specific targets and deliverables.
The EPP-AGRI coordinator Herbert Dorfmann from the European Parliament stressed the importance of involving the regions in the drafting and implementation of the national plans of the new Common Agricultural Policy. In this respect, Dorfmann underlined that regions provide crucial services to citizens and therefore have to be part of the decision-making process. He added that new CAP could also contribute to the recovery of rural areas from the COVID-19 crisis.
During the exchange of views members discussed the EU Strategy for Rural Revival adopted by the Committee of the Regions in December 2020. The European Commission is preparing its communication on this topic in mid-2021. The initiative aims to start a debate on the future of rural areas by 2040 and the role they can play in EU society.