EDIN attended “bringing rural pact to citizens” in Brussels!

In the frame of the Rural Pact initiative, the Policy Lab gathered over 100 participants, relevant local actors and organisations (e.g. LAGs, smart villages, associations, hubs, third places, etc) involved in the design and implementation of initiatives or policies having an impact on local rural communities. 

The activity focused on how to implement the Rural Pact and Vision at local level. To do so, local actors were able to explain barriers that they face on the ground and helped the Rural Pact Office and European Commission representatives present to understand the need to open up possibilities for local-level actors to decide how to address local needs and opportunities. 

Atlantic Axis of Peninsular Northwest, the lead partner of EDIN, had been selected to attend the Policy Lab, not only to present its role in the Galicia – North of Portugal Euro-region, but also to speak about EDIN and let local actors from other European regions to get into the project. In this sense, we had the opportunity to meet other initiatives and projects focused on depopulated, which allowed us to establish synergies and exchange ideas and experiences.

During the working sessions, interesting issued were raised: what ingredients do the rural pact need to be implemented in an effective way at local level, how the European Commission can support the local actors to overcome their challenges on procuring funds, and how rural regions can be more attractive for talent.

Participants concluded that a “one size fits all” solution is not suitable for rural areas due to its variety and particularities. Instead, challenges in rural regions need to be addressed with a holistic approach, hearing the voices on the ground. For this purpose, communication channels or a figure of mediators need to be established. In addition, in order to revitalize rural areas, European Commission needs to leverage existing mechanism and avoid duplicating or creating new ones. Also, participants agreed that reducing bureaucracy and simplifying the languages of communications will allow local actors to engage more actively European initiatives like the Rural Pact.

In our case, we shared with other participants the common background of EDIN partners: the demographic challenge. In order to overcome this matter, we explained the purpose of our project: attracting digital nomads to our territories for develop our regions. Digital nomads are skilled professionals of high added value sectors who can work remotely. Attracting DN to the territories bring a number of benefits such as the provision of skills and talent in areas that are losing them, they can strengthen proximity service and they can be an opportunity to prescribe new areas to explore in terms of tourism. Therefore, linked with the ideas of “mediators” mentioned above, we see digital nomads as a potential dynamasing elements in our territories.

Summing up, it was a great opportunity to hear experiences from other rural/ depopulated regions and to propose ideas to enhance the dialogue between European responsibles and local actors, and of course, to spread the word of EDIN!