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Climate action, particularly climate change mitigation, can provide opportunities for the primary sector, rural communities and businesses to become more sustainable, resilient and competitive. These rural development stakeholders can make a major contribution to the European Green Deal, the roadmap for a sustainable EU economy. 

This edition of the EU Rural Review looks at how rural areas are making significant contributions towards climate action, also thanks to EAFRD support.

Achieving greater climate (and environmental) ambition is a key objective of the CAP revision. Member States must ensure that their CAP Strategic Plans (CSPs) demonstrate greater overall ambition towards the achievement of the CAP’s environmental and climate objectives, when compared to the previous programming period.

This Thematic Briefing is one of the tools developed by the ENRD in order to assist Managing Authorities and rural stakeholders in designing and implementing Smart Villages initiatives in key domains. The focus of the document is on promoting digital transformation in villages and rural areas.

This briefing introduces the main ideas presented at the 11th ENRD Thematic Group meeting on 'Smart Villages' which focused on how to design support for Smart Villages in the future CAP Strategic Plans (SP) based on the ideas being discussed by Poland.

This thematic Briefing is part of the series developed by the ENRD to assist Managing Authorities and rural stakeholders in designing supportive frameworks for Smart Villages initiatives in certain key domains. It focuses on renewable energy communities.

This document considers possible key steps for LEADER stakeholders planning Smart Villages development and provides recommendations for policy planners and LEADER stakeholders for the next programming period.

These orientations are based on the outcomes of the first ENRD LEADER Thematic Lab on 'Smart Villages'.

LEADER is one of the longest standing, most successful and popular European-wide initiatives.

This EU Rural Review explores how the seven LEADER principles are interpreted today by people who have been deeply involved with implementing LEADER in rural communities across Europe.

The articles show how the principles work in practice, how they deliver results and ensure sustained performance over time, and how they are adaptable to deal with the emerging challenges and opportunities facing rural areas.

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EU Rural Review 29 - LEADER Achievements

Finland is one of the countries that is most advanced in preparing a support framework for Smart Villages for the next programming period. This paper presents their proposal to design the future interventions in the CAP Strategic Plan (SP) in a way that is both simple to use and provides clear added value for rural communities.

The briefing was produced in the frame of the ENRD Thematic Group on Smart Villages.

Sustainable use and management of land and soils is at the heart of a sustainable and carbon neutral bioeconomy. This document, prepared in the context of the ENRD thematic work on Bioeconomy and climate action in rural areas, provides lessons learnt from the 2014-2020 Rural Development Programmes and ideas for the CAP Strategic Plans.

This thematic briefing is focusing on rural mobility, aiming to highlight factors and conditions to be taken into account when designing the future policies to ensure that Smart Villages strategies enable rural communities to design and test mobility solutions.

The document is targeted at Managing Authorities and other institutional actors involved in preparing the future CAP Strategic Plans as well as other policies for rural development.