First rural depopulation Congress spotlights European cooperation through the Rural Pact
Europe’s demographic resilience depends on empowering rural communities and ensuring that even the smallest villages remain “alive and full of future,” a headline message from the first International Congress on Depopulation of 23–24 September, Aragón, Spain.
Image by the Government of Aragón
The event was held in Segura de los Baños, a small Spanish municipality with fewer than 50 inhabitants. It brought together over 200 participants from European, national, regional and local authorities, academia, and civil society to discuss strategies for tackling demographic decline and revitalising rural areas.
How the Rural Pact contributes to tackling rural depopulation
Representing the Rural Pact Support Office, Team Leader Enrique Nieto Antón highlighted how the Pact serves as the EU’s collaborative framework for revitalising rural areas, including for tackling depopulation. With more than 3 500 members, it connects public authorities, organisations, and citizens committed to ensuring vibrant, future-ready rural communities. Through knowledge exchange, networking, and peer learning – including a dedicated Community Group on Rural Depopulation, good practices, and thematic events – the Pact helps transform shared challenges into opportunities for joint action.
Within the broader EU context, the EU’s rural vision and its Rural Action Plan provide a coherent framework for integrated rural development. Initiatives such as the Rural Observatory, offering data to better plan services, and the Rural toolkit for EU funding, guiding local actors in accessing funds, are already supporting this goal.
Across Europe, rural revitalisation is gaining ground through strategies like Catalonia’s Rural Agenda, Castilla-La Mancha’s Depopulation Strategy, Ireland’s Our Rural Future, and emerging regional and national Rural Pacts in Grand Est (France), the Netherlands, and Flanders (Belgium). Discover a range of examples of EU Member State action towards advancing the Rural Pact, making progress along the seven ‘ingredients’ identified in a dedicated Rural Pact Policy Briefing.
Importantly, systematic rural proofing is essential for ensuring that EU and national policies respond to the realities of rural territories, especially those most affected by population decline or at risk of being left behind.
From regional action to EU support
The Congress highlighted the principle that no rural area is too small to achieve meaningful impact when supported by local enthusiasm and talent. Aragón’s progress covers expanded rural housing, new road and transport networks, improved digital connectivity, and a fourfold increase in investment targeting depopulation.
At the European level, the Committee of the Regions (COTER Commission) underscored depopulation as an urgent challenge affecting regions, communities, and families across the EU. The European Commission outlined the framework of support available through cohesion policy and the common agricultural policy, emphasising the importance of translating funding into tangible territorial outcomes, fostering multilevel cooperation, and embedding rural proofing to ensure that EU and national policies respond effectively to rural realities.
The first International Congress on Depopulation was organised by the Government of Aragón’s Directorate-General for Depopulation with the support of its Brussels Office.