Rural Pact Coordination Group

To steer the process, organisations involved in the preparation of the Rural Pact consider useful to create an informal group, representative of the participants in the pact to further develop it and steer its process.

The group is established as a Commission special group steering the Rural Pact process. The lead DG is DG Agriculture and rural development, and the co-lead DG is DG Regional and urban policy.

The European Commission has tasked the “Rural Pact Support Office” to:

• Collect 40 good practices per year covering the four building blocks of the Lon-term vision for rural areas;
• Regularly monitor and analyse commitments for action carried out under the Rural Pact and assess contribution toward its objectives;
• Keep the Rural Pact community informed through the website, social media channels, the monthly newsletter and the annual Magazine;
• Build synergies and complementarities with all relevant EU policy networks and initiatives working on and for rural development;
• Liaise and maintain close contacts with the Rural Pact community including to identify topics and support activities of interest for the community;
• Organise webinars for capacity building and peer learning, as well as high-level policy events until end of 2025, in particular 7 policy action labs (4 physical and 3 online), 1 high-level policy forum,  and 11 good practice webinars;
• Organise the Rural Pact Conference in 2024;
• Organise and animate two 1-day meetings per year of the Rural Pact coordination group (1 physical, 1 online).

The Rural Pact Coordination Group will oversee these tasks and will be able to give strategic orientations by making proposals to the European Commission. The RPSO will organise two meetings per year of the Coordination Group, including one in-person meeting and one on-line meeting. For the in-person meeting the reference location is Brussels, however, the meeting may be organised in any of the EU Member States.