The 20th of December 2021 was a key day for rural development. The European Commission launched the Rural Pact, an initiative announced in the Long-Term Vision for the Rural Areas. This new pact aims to mobilise public authorities and stakeholders to act on the needs and aspirations of [...]
Authors: Blanca Casares & Lucia Garrido (AEIDL) The European Commission has published the Communication on the Long-Term Vision for Rural Areas up to 2040! Built on analysis, foresight activities, extensive consultations and contributions from communities, the Communication identifies the challenges that rural areas face, as well as highlights some [...]
The Farm Sustainability Tool (FaST) is a core platform for the generation and re-use of solutions for sustainable and competitive agriculture. FaST will help lay the foundations of a comprehensive digital ecosystem for sustainable farm and land management in Europe. It will support farmers in their administrative decision-making [...]
The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) has published the information report on the impact of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) 2014-2020 on the territorial development of rural areas. This report is an evaluation that includes of an ex-post qualitative analysis of the relevance, effectiveness and civil society’s [...]
The European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) recently published the briefing 'Smart villages: concept, issues and prospects for EU rural areas'. The document presents an overview of Smart Villages’s concept, its policy framework and the funding opportunities. It also provides information on smart village networks and projects and key [...]
The European Commission has recently presented the Green Paper on Ageing, launching a broad policy debate on the challenges and opportunities of Europe’s ageing society. In addition, a public consultation will run until 21 April 2021 to collect the public’s views on the impact of this demographic trend. [...]
The EU is launching two new large-scale pilot projects to boost rural economies through cross-sector digital service platform. The €30 million initiative, funded through the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme, focuses on rural digital service platforms, innovation ecosystems and the smart village approach. More than 50 partners from across [...]
On 13 October 2020, the BCO Network Support Facility (in partnership with the Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development from the European Commission) organised a workshop on young people’s vision for rural areas and digitalisation. The event took place during the European Week of Regions and Cities and [...]
The European Innovation Council (EIC) Prize on Blockchains for Social Good has awarded €5 million to six winners selected in a call to identify scalable, deployable and high-impact blockchain solutions for societal challenges. The winning solutions propose blockchain applications for fair trade and circular economy, increasing transparency in [...]
In the fourth and latest call of WiFi4EU, over 900 municipalities were awarded vouchers of €15 000, to support the installation of Wi-Fi equipment in public spaces. Browse through the list of awarded municipalities. The WiFi4EU initiative promotes free access to Wi-Fi connectivity for citizens in public spaces including [...]
