A vidékfejlesztés helye és szerepe a fejlesztéspolitikában

The policy importance of rural development has been increasing in both the European Union and Hungary since the turn of the millennium. This is supported by the fact that in June 2021 the European Commission formulated a vision for stronger, connected, resilient and prosperous rural areas and communities by 2040, which it intends to achieve by adopting an EU-level Rural Development Action Plan, by establishing a Rural Pact mobilizing a wide range of EU, national, regional and local actors, and by using previously unused rural development solutions. The appreciation of rural development policy in Hungary is indicated by the fact that in the 2021-2027 programming period, this is the only development policy area where the level of national co-financing for EU support is increasing significantly compared to the previous period, from 17% to 80%. Based on this, our study reviews the changing role of rural development in time and space, the main changes in the system of objectives and instruments, and the financing background in order to ensure that the EU and national rural development resources available in the next programming period can further promote the development of rural areas. Our analysis points out that in order to establish a rural development policy aimed at the long-term development of rural areas, it is inevitable to redefine the concept of rural areas, to review the EU and domestic delimitation methodology of rural areas, and to renew the data collection and evaluation systems, methodologies, and theories that enable the monitoring of the results and effects of rural development interventions in order to establish a development policy with an integrated approach that focuses more on the needs of the countryside and its environment than before.