Event - Governance meeting

Rural Pact Coordination Group: second meeting

Rural Pact Coordination Group

07 Nov 2023, 09:00 - 07 Nov 2023, 16:30 CET
English
Brussels, Belgium
In-person

The second meeting of the Rural Pact Coordination Group aimed to formalise governance roles, adopt procedural rules, and strategise on implementing the Rural Pact's objectives in Member States, based on insights and feedback gathered since their inaugural meeting.

The Rural Pact Coordination Group (RPCG) is the key governance body of the Rural Pact formed by up to 30 representatives from the Rural Pact community. Acting as a network of organisations and institutions, the RPCG will play a crucial role in further developing and steering the Rural Pact, representing the diverse range of participants involved in this initiative. The RPCG is balanced in terms of the types of stakeholders involved (EU institutions and bodies, public authorities, NGO representations, business representatives, researchers and academia and citizens representatives), country of origin, diversity of rural contexts and gender.

The inaugural meeting of the RPCG marked a significant milestone in advancing the goals of the Rural Vision. Besides a discussion on the mandate and governance structure i.e. Terms of Reference & Rules of Procedure of the RPCG proposed by DG AGRI, the 30 members of the RPCG worked together on which actions to take to support the three objectives of the Rural Pact and discussed how they were willing to work together. The RPCG provided a lot of precious feedback on how to continue in steering the design and the implementation of the Rural Pact.

Following the first RPCG meeting, the members have been invited to provide feedback on the following documents:

Highlight report summarising the discussions in particular on the list of priority activities proposed by the RPCG;
Terms of Reference & Rules of Procedure of the RPCG;
Role of the Chair, for RPCG members expressing preference between the role of ‘convener’ taking the role of moderator and facilitator of the meetings and the role of ‘convener’ also playing the role of “Spokesperson” representing the voice of the RPCG vis-à-vis EU institutions, bodies and the rural Community at large.

In that context, the objectives of the 2nd meeting of the Rural Pact Coordination Group were:

To elect the Chair and Vice-chair of the Rural Pact Coordination Group, and adopt the Terms of Reference and the Rules of Procedure;
To discuss concrete actions on “Making the Rural Pact happen in Member States” based on the policy briefing;
To prioritise and organise actions of the Rural Pact Coordination Group, on the basis of the draft drawn up during the first RPCG meeting, including the organisation of the RPCG community group on the Rural Revitalisation Platform;
To discuss on activities and themes for events based on the Rural Pact Support Office Annual Work Programme for 2024.