News

• The European Parliament's report "Improving essential services in EU regions: The role of Cohesion Policy" analyzes the accessibility of essential services in rural areas
• The study highlights the role of Cohesion Policy in financing healthcare, care and early childhood education in non-urban areas.
• Rural regions face greater access difficulties and higher costs

Access to essential services such as healthcare, elderly care, and early childhood education has become one of the main challenges for the future of rural Europe. Population aging, depopulation, and the exodus of young people to cities are exacerbating territorial inequalities and making it difficult to maintain basic services in many regions.

The European Parliament 's study, "Improving essential services in EU regions: The role of Cohesion Policy," analyzes the role of European Union (EU) instruments in providing these services in rural, remote, and sparsely populated areas. The report highlights the importance of these investments in ensuring quality of life, strengthening territorial cohesion, and contributing to the social and economic sustainability of these territories.

Depopulation and accessibility

The study confirms that demographic changes are having a direct impact on service delivery in rural areas. Population loss and aging increase costs and reduce resource availability. The main effects are:

• Reduction in the working population and lack of qualified personnel.

• Increased costs to maintain basic services.

• Greater distance and difficulty of access to hospitals, educational centers or social services.

• Risk of deterioration in the quality of life in rural areas.

European investment in essential services

The EU has strengthened its support for these territories through various financial instruments, with Cohesion Policy playing a particularly prominent role :

• More than 15.2 billion euros of European funding is allocated to essential services.

• The total investment exceeds 22.6 billion euros, including national co-financing.

• Most of it is directed to less developed, rural or demographically disadvantaged regions .

• The funds are concentrated on healthcare , long-term care, and early childhood education.

In addition, instruments such as the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) or the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) also contribute to improving these services, although with less specific territorial focus.

Spain facing the demographic challenge

The study also includes examples and trends that directly affect Spain, where rural depopulation and the aging population are having a significant impact on access to basic services:

• High number of municipalities with population loss in the last decade.

• Difficulties in maintaining services in rural and low-density areas.

• Examples of territorial investments , such as in Castilla-La Mancha.

• Specific challenges in territories such as the Canary Islands due to their outermost region status.

The key role of Cohesion Policy

The report underlines that Cohesion Policy is the main European tool for addressing territorial inequalities and improving access to services in rural areas through:

• Funding of health, social and educational infrastructure .

• Support for the digitization and modernization of services.

• Use of territorial tools adapted to each region.

• Increased funding intensity in disadvantaged areas.

Likewise, there are initiatives such as Integrated Territorial Investments (ITI) or Participatory Local Development through LEADER (CLLD) that allow solutions to be adapted to the specific needs of each territory.

Pending challenges

Despite the progress, the study warns of several challenges that highlight the need to ensure the continuity of services beyond the initial European funding:

• Ensure stable funding for the maintenance of services.

• Strengthen long-term planning at the national and regional levels.

• Adapting service delivery models to territories with low population density .

• To prevent funding criteria from penalizing rural areas.

The report also points out that the design of the next European budget must take into account the particularities of these territories in order to avoid further gaps.

Recommendations for rural areas

The study puts forward a series of proposals to improve the effectiveness of European policies, strengthen the attractiveness of rural areas and contribute to population retention:

• Prioritize funding in rural and sparsely populated regions.

• Guarantee a minimum level of essential services.

• Combining investment in services with local economic development .

• Strengthen the training and availability of qualified personnel.

• Improve accessibility to services in remote areas.

• Promote the role of local and regional authorities .

• Promote more flexible and adapted financing models.