Treatment of rural areas under cohesion policy

Question for written answer  E-006724/2020
to the Commission
Rule 138
Jadwiga Wiśniewska (ECR), Zbigniew Kuźmiuk (ECR)

Article 174 TFEU provides for the priority treatment of rural areas. The provision explicitly states that ‘Among the regions concerned, special attention is paid to rural areas’. In reality, however, rural areas are not only not favoured under cohesion policy, but also discriminated against. Only 11% of funds from the Regional Development Fund, 7% from the Social Fund and 8% from the Cohesion Fund are targeted at rural areas, which make up more than 90% of the EU territory and where about 40% of EU citizens live. What is worse, in the current draft of the new cohesion policy contained in document COM 372/2018, urban areas are given preferential treatment over rural areas. Two separate chapters of the document are devoted to them, while rural areas are largely neglected. Urban areas are mentioned in this document 53 times and rural areas only twice.

Does the Commission intend to implement the priority for rural areas contained in Article 174 of the Treaty, and if not, why?