Budućnost ruralnog razvoja nakon 2028.

- notes that political recognition of rural challenges and the ‘right to stay’ has increased in recent years, but is not yet matched by a coherent, visible and adequately resourced approach; recalls that addressing rural decline requires not only economic investment but also the guarantee of quality public services, decent employment and infrastructures as preconditions for the effective exercise of the right to stay;

- stresses that rural development must be recognized and treated as a core objective of the cohesion policy;

- considers that rural development goals should not be subsumed under sectoral agricultural support;

- notes that rural areas and communities remain systematically underfunded and stresses that making cohesion policy rural-proofed requires a mandatory rural dimension, making it possible to ensure that a clearly identifiable and sufficient share of EU funding effectively reaches rural areas through multiple policy instruments;

- stresses that the scale of EU support reaching rural territories must be at least proportionate to their demographic weight and should reflect their territorial extent, degree of territorial fragmentation, orography and strategic contribution to the Union’s economic, social and environmental objectives;

- proposes that minimum 10% Rural Target should be mandatorily earmarked to place-based integrated participatory approaches (such as LEADER/CLLD, Smart Villages, etc.);

- endorses the RPCG request to establish minimum requirements for defining rural areas, rural communities and rural development support at local level, building on the DEGURBA classification at LAU level while allowing flexibility for national and regional contexts.