Op-Ed | From Declaration to Action – Rethinking Rural Power in EU Policymaking

Rural voices still seem to go unheard in EU policymaking. The Rural Pact Coordination Group proposes a new tool for rural stakeholders to take the power back: the Declaration on the Future of Rural Areas and Rural Development Policy in the European Union. After a recent test drive, Edina Ocsko unpacks why rural voices struggle to shape policy and identifies some concrete next steps.

Op-ed by Edina Ocsko.

The ‘Declaration on the future of rural areas and rural development policy in the European Union’ is a strategic proposal for the post-2027 EU funds and policies, adopted by the Rural Pact Coordination Group (RPCG) on 12 December 2024. Just like many other strategic documents, the RPCG Declaration highlights the critical role of rural areas and communities, and demands more effective EU policies and more funds to support rural development. 

This Declaration is neither the first—nor likely the last—to call attention to the importance of rural areas and communities, and the need for stronger policies, funding, and visibility. Yet, despite repeated efforts, the post-2027 EU budget negotiations and strategic priorities still offer little reason for optimism. Recent developments suggest a continued lack of strong focus on rural development. At the recent European Congress on Renewal and Rural Development (8–10 May 2025), organised by the Polish EU Presidency, policies for farmers were once again presented as policies for rural areas—a conflation highlighted by Hannes Lorenzen. The agenda of the high level event running parallel on ‘Shaping the Future of Farming and the Agri-food Sector’ (8 May 2025) also concentrated almost exclusively on agriculture and food systems, leaving broader rural development concerns largely unaddressed.

The RPCG Declaration is backed by a highly diverse and representative group of organisations with the potential to significantly influence the shaping of future rural policies. Yet, rural voices still seem to go unheard when we look at the planned priorities of relevant EU policies.

The online session organised by the Smart Village Network Services (SVNS) / E40 on 28 May 2025 aimed to explore the question of whether the Declaration remains “just another wishlist that will be left behind” and what we can still do to “turn words into action”. 

The power struggle

The over eighty participants of the SVNS session included the ‘usual suspects’ of rural development events—from grassroots actors to EU-level representatives. During the session we wanted to explore both the power participants believed they had to influence policy; and their interest in using the Declaration as a tool to do this. We asked participants to position themselves on the ‘Power-Interest Stakeholder Matrix’ (see outcomes below). 

The exercise has validated and illustrated our prior assumption: although rural stakeholders express strong willingness to engage with the Declaration, most perceive their capacity to influence policy as low—as evidenced by their clustering in the bottom-right quadrant of the matrix.

The same exercise was repeated during the RPCG meeting of 4 June 2025. While the power-interest balance is much more optimistic, leaning much more towards the ‘high power – high interest’ segment of the matrix; the overall picture is still not fully positive in terms of expected policy influence of the very rural actors who are expected to have strong influence on shaping rural development policies. Half (50%) of the members present positioned themselves in the upper right (high power-high interest) quadrant of the matrix, but closer to the ‘medium’ lines; EU institutional (Committee of the Regions, European Economic and Social Committee) and national government representatives being at the higher ends of both perceived power to influence policy and interest in using the Declaration. Two representatives (c. 11%) placed themselves in the ‘low power-high interest’ segment; and only 1 participant positioned him/herself towards the ‘high power-low interest’ end. Others are on the middle lines of the matrix.

Unequal power: Why rural voices struggle to shape policy

What we often perceive is that rural lobbyists routinely step into the ‘policy ring’ and put up a genuine fight — but they’re often outmatched by far more powerful opponents. Despite their efforts, the imbalance in resources and influence leaves them little chance of strongly shaping the policy agenda. In practice, the political and policy agenda remains dominated by stronger sectoral interests—primarily agriculture in the rural context; and by territorial actors—such as urban regions and cities.

Agriculture & food vs. wider rural development

Firstly, rural interest representation — beyond agriculture — remains significantly weaker than that of the agricultural sector. This imbalance is clearly reflected in the unequal weight of Pillar 1 and Pillar 2 funding under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Several factors may explain this power disparity, including:

• Focused vs. fragmented interests: Agricultural interests revolve around a well-defined sector and stakeholders (farmers, agribusinesses, cooperatives), making it easier to organise, lobby, and negotiate; while rural interests span a wide range of issues.
• Stronger vs. weaker institutional presence: While agriculture benefits from powerful institutional representation with direct access to policymakers; rural interests are often characterised by fragmented networks, grassroots groups, or local authorities with limited lobbying capacity.
• Well defined/tangible vs. more intangible benefits: Agriculture and food are perceived as — among others — being essential for key EU priorities such as food security; while rural development is often focused on benefits that are less tangible, e.g. demographics, services, social cohesion and local community engagement.

Urban / regional vs. rural

Among the territorial interests, urban (cities) and regional interests are much stronger than rural interests. This is exacerbated by the policy divide between the rural aspects that are relatively marginalised within the CAP, while other territorial interests are strongly supported by Cohesion Policy:

• Concentration of political and economic power: Urban areas concentrate population, capital, institutions, and infrastructure and urban voters make up a large and growing share of the electorate. This makes them natural hubs of political and economic influence — giving urban interests better proximity and access to power than rural interests.
• Institutional representation at the regional level: Regional interests are often represented through formal governance structures (e.g. regional governments, metropolitan authorities, interregional alliances like the Committee of the Regions in the EU) that are well-resourced and have legal mandates to participate in policymaking. Rural communities, in contrast, are typically represented by underfunded local authorities with fragmented voices.
• Skills and resources to get involved: Regions and cities often have dedicated teams of policy analysts, lobbyists, and consultants (and often have co-financing resources) enabling them to prepare compelling proposals, gather data, and engage effectively in various funding initiatives, while rural areas struggle with capacity — both in terms of human resources and technical expertise.

Preaching to the choir or changing the game?

While the EU places strong emphasis on rural development in the policy discourse — reflected in initiatives like the Long-Term Vision for Rural Areas and the Rural Pact — rural stakeholders still hold relatively limited power to translate these aspirations into concrete policy outcomes. Despite the compelling case for stronger support to rural areas and communities, no real breakthrough has been achieved from one programming period to the next. In fact, community-led local rural development support may even have lost momentum over time. For those who see rural areas as vital to Europe’s future, this is a sobering reality.

The fact that most rural advocates believe strongly in the need to strengthen rural development, yet feel they lack the power to influence policy, highlights serious shortcomings with implications on future policymaking. There is a real risk that while we are convinced that we’ve done all we can to advance the cause, in reality we are discussing rural development issues primarily among ourselves.

Firstly, we must resist the comfort of advocating for rural development only within familiar circles. While vocal support is essential, it is far from sufficient if we remain confined to conversations with like-minded colleagues. Too often, we reassure ourselves that we’re making a difference by presenting at events, speaking on panels, or contributing to discussions — yet, in reality, we may simply be preaching to the choir.

We need to more critically examine the lack of real policy influence — and consider what can actually be done to change it.  A key step is to identify stakeholders who hold significant policy power and also have a strong interest in advancing rural development. As the power-interest matrix suggests (above), we should engage more strategically and work in a targeted, collaborative way with those individuals and organisations that are both influential and genuinely committed.

Secondly, it’s time to move beyond the unproductive divides such as agriculture vs. rural; urban vs. rural; regional development vs. rural development. Instead, we need to build strategic alliances with other — often more powerful — interest groups that share overlapping goals, above all with the agricultural and food sectors.

Furthermore, finger-pointing must also stop. Different governance levels (especially regional/ national governments and EU institutions) often blame each other, which only weakens the cause. On the one hand, the EU governance level often uses the ‘shared management’ principle argument to put the responsibility on the Member States for the lack of sufficient support for rural areas. However,  if rural development is truly a core European value, it must be backed by clear, enforceable EU provisions for national/ regional governments — such as mandatory earmarking of funds for rural development (see provisions of the Declaration). On the other hand, Member States and regions also need to step up and take rural priorities seriously — through targeted planning and investment; the EU already provides the vision and tools for this.

Finally, the ‘rural development crowd’ needs to be more united and make a joined-up effort. For that, we need to have a common understanding of key issues and more in-depth policy debates around key subjects. There seem to be many unexplored critical questions, starting with seemingly obvious ones on ‘What are we actually fighting for when we fight for ‘rural development’?’ : 

• • What do people make their living from in rural areas? How far is agriculture the most important rural sector – e.g. in the sense of being directly linked to rural areas and providing healthy and secure food for all? 
  • Do we understand the precise role and added value that different farm types have in rural development (small / family vs. large farms; regenerative farm models vs. conventional/ industrial agriculture)?
  • What is the value of other economic activities in rural areas (some of which – e.g. excessive tourism – often exhaust our environmental resources)? 
  • To what extent do we want various ‘newcomers’ to move into rural areas; should we rather ‘give back’ as much land as possible to nature? 
  • To what extent should security and competitiveness priorities prevail over sustainable local development goals?

We should seriously ask ourselves if we – and policymakers – have clear answers to such questions, that could help us strengthen our joint case in policy debates.

What’s next?

If we still see hope in policies changing direction and being shifted towards genuine local rural development goals, what we can do in the short term is:

• Recognise the problem of not having sufficient policy influence, and seek ways to address this, rather than taking comfort in the idea that expressing our views in favour of rural development priorities at events or engaging on platforms alone constitutes meaningful action.
• Apply differentiated strategies for each segment of the power–interest matrix — focusing especially on identifying and engaging more closely with those who hold real policy influence, and working with them in a targeted and strategic way.
• Seek alliances with other interest groups that we often view as our opponents (including farmer organisations, Cohesion policy stakeholders/ ministries, etc.) in order to find common ground and strengthen collective influence.
• Clarify the core questions underpinning rural development — so that advocacy becomes more informed, pragmatic and united, rather than vague and fragmented.

 Edina Ocsko is Director of E40 (of which Smart Village Network Services is an initiative) and Vice Chair of the Rural Pact Coordination Group

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