EditoriALL

Wiktor Szydarowski, ESPON EGTC Director

Dear readers

Public services are the backbone of any community, crucial to make a place attractive and livable. They include healthcare, education, transportation, and infrastructure. While their importance is undeniable everywhere, access to public services becomes key for the survival and prosperity of remote regions.

Public services aren't just about convenience; they play a vital role in social cohesion. As Loïg Chesnais-Girard, President of the CPMR, points out, access to quality services fosters a sense of security and belonging, combating extremism and euroscepticism.

Tibor Navracsics, the Minister for Public Administration and Regional Development of Hungary, highlights a concerning trend: “Convergence is effective, but significant issues persist at both national and regional levels, and detailed analysis reveals polarisation and the concentration of economic and social resources within countries”.

Massimiliano Mascherini of Eurofound describes the situation as a "political recognition gap, a phenomenon where rural communities perceive a lack of acknowledgement and appreciation for their concerns, values, and way of life”.

However, regional disparities are not necessarily linked to remoteness. It is often that some regions “although not necessarily physically located at a significant distance from centres, are in a particular shadow situation” due to a number of weaknesses - as described by Gergely Tagai, Mar Ortega Reig and Carsten Schürmann, who summarise the main results of a flagship ESPON project on “Inner Peripheries”.
In addition, Gilberto Pelosi from the European Commission sheds light on how essential services become more expensive for low-income households, which further marginalises them.

The solution to address such a complex and multidimensional problem lies in strengthening public service provision in remote regions: Zsuzsanna Farkas and Kristóf Orbán of Hungary's Ministry of Public Administration and Regional Development argue that “If good services are provided, people will choose to commute rather than leave rural areas, while investors will also prefer places where public and private services are sufficient”.

Nicolas Rossignol from the ESPON EGTC explains how a new mechanism could be envisaged aiming at boosting access to public services, following the example of the recently launched “talent booster mechanism” by the European Commission. 

Alison Weingarden from the OECD acknowledges the need to adapt service delivery models in the face of demographic changes. “Yet, as trends like ageing, urbanisation, and population decline continue, school networks might need reorganising” - she notes.
Stefano Palmieri from the EESC emphasises the role of civil society organisations in ensuring effective implementation of Territorial Agenda 2030 (TA 2030). Strong governance is fundamental to achieving the envisaged priorities.

Cross-border cooperation offers promising solutions. Pavel Branda, a member of the CoR, highlights the importance of the Interreg cross-border cooperation strand, and Roland Hesz of CESCI suggests sharing central functions across borders, which leads to economies of scale and improved quality of life for all involved.

In the end we may need a paradigm shift: Ulla Higdem and Windy Kester Moe from Inland Norway University advocate for accepting population decline and employing innovative planning strategies in rural areas.

Rural regions after all “act as proactive regions that, despite limited resources, are able to shape their future”, as Sina Redlich from the BBSR points out.
And we have some great examples to share in this direction:

Dominik Bertram & Tobias Chilla of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, on small towns in the European Alps; Anita Līvija Rozenvalde of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development of Latvia, on unified state and municipal customer service; Gyöngyi Schwarcz of the Research Institute for National Strategy of Hungary on a village caretaker service; Chiara Litardi from Eurofound on co-working spaces in Ireland; and Attila Nagy, Mayor of Csetény, on grassroot initiatives in public service delivery. 

Enjoy your reading