Minister Ribera congratulated the Spanish Rural Development Network "for its 25 years of local action, working to identify opportunities in the space where they carried out their activity."
"I trust that the next 25 years will be as much or more productive, but above all I trust that in the next five years we will fill Spain with opportunities, facilitate the return, the installation, the maintenance of our young people in diversified activities in a rural world in that housing, mobility, services, care for our elders, or connectivity have to be day to day so that nobody can impede or be impeded their right to fly their imagination, to generate opportunities, to create wealth , to coexist with nature, to value all that they work for and what they contribute. Because regardless of where we live, our rural Spain is worthy of all these opportunities, "said Ribera.
For Ribera, the European Green Pact -the roadmap for the European Union to achieve climate neutrality in 2050- must be incorporated into the strategy of local action groups because it contemplates the development of rural areas and contains the keys that will be reflected in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) ) for the next period.
The opportunities for a sustainable exit from the crisis and rural development are detailed in its two strategies. The first, the 'EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030' identifies the recovery of marine and freshwater ecosystems, the improvement of protected areas in the European Union, the decrease in pollution, the greening of urban areas and peri-urban areas, the promotion of organic agriculture and the recovery and growth of European forests as priority lines of action.
Second, the 'From Farm to Table' strategy identifies food as a key sector in the transition to a model that reduces the environmental and climatic footprint of the food system, which limits the use of pesticides and is committed to a organic agriculture that protects health and encourages the digitization of this economic activity.
Both strategies propose measures to compensate those activities that have overcome the transition towards sustainable practices and create supports for producers. Both the CAP and the Common Fisheries Policy, but also the Horizon Europe initiative or InvestEU, guarantee investments and support to the sectors that incorporate the approach proposed in these policies into their activities.
Digitization, local economic reactivation and housing
Teresa Ribera has underlined that the commitment to a transition towards a decarbonised and sustainable model that promotes the restoration of ecosystems and adaptation measures based on nature, "needs living territories, rural communities with the capacity to develop new projects and initiatives", has pointed out.
Ribera stressed that the rural environment must be "the spearhead in plans for adaptation to climate change, in the protection of biodiversity and forest management, in the ecological restoration and sustainable management of our environment, the valorization of protected areas and the deployment of renewable energy. " For these reasons, the Government has placed the fight against depopulation as a priority line of work. Thus, the General Secretariat of the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, created in February of this year, develops the Strategy against the Demographic Challenge. Its objective is to lay the foundations for a country project that guarantees equal opportunities and the free exercise of citizenship rights throughout the territory, through the coordination and cooperation of all Public Administrations, the sustainable use of resources endogenous and close public-private collaboration.
The Strategy against the Demographic Challenge is committed to a transition towards sustainable development models, promoting innovative projects that facilitate the entrepreneurship of groups such as youth and women, as well as the social and labor insertion of the most vulnerable workers and that contribute to the energy transition and development of circular economy projects on a global scale.
Ribera has indicated that the Recovery and Resilience Plan that the Government of Spain will present to the European Union will integrate the priorities of the Demographic Challenge in all relevant lines and will take advantage of the financing advantages to advance in the digitization and full connectivity of the territory, the reactivation economic from diversification and innovation and the promotion of housing and the development of the Urban Agenda in priority areas for the demographic challenge.
"Digitization, local economic reactivation and housing are three fundamental work blocks for the reactivation of rural areas," said the vice president.
"We have a task ahead of us, a State Pact on the Demographic Challenge, an agenda agreed upon by the Government's Delegate Commission for the Demographic Challenge that underpins our commitment to connectivity, our commitment to the urban agenda, and our commitment to promoting to quality services with rural Spain ", he concluded.
