Anchoring rural areas in the NRPPs: presentations and video recordings now available

The event brought together rural stakeholders, public authorities and European institutions to discuss how the proposed post-2027 NRPPs could help address the needs and priorities of rural areas. Discussions explored opportunities for rural stakeholders to engage in the preparation and implementation of the future plans, as well as approaches to monitoring investments and ensuring effective stakeholder involvement. 

EU Member States will be expected to identify rural needs, priorities and challenges and translate these into coherent packages of measures addressing multiple policy areas and supported through various policy domains. Discussions highlighted the proposed rural target, under which at least 10% of NRPP resources not allocated to agricultural or fisheries income support would be dedicated to investments supporting rural areas. 

The Policy Lab showcased practical experiences from Spain, France and Italy. These examples illustrated different approaches to integrated measures in support of territorial development, including functional-area planning, local innovation ecosystems, multi-level governance arrangements and the coordination of different funding sources and policy instruments. Participants reflected on the importance of local capacity, cooperation and governance structures in supporting successful implementation.  

The event further explored how future support for rural areas will be monitored and tracked, including through territorial tagging and performance frameworks designed to improve the visibility of investments reaching rural territories. Examples from Finland and Greece showed how to elaborate a fine territorial classification of rural territories and how connecting various datasets can prove useful to monitoring the use of EU funds.