The Rural Pact Coordination Group

What is the Rural Pact coordination group?

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

The group was 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.

List of members

English language

List of members of the Rural Pact Coordination Group

(PDF – 149.47 KB)

Mandate

The mandate has a duration of three years. Members can be replaced following the rules laid out in C(2016) 3301 final.

Acting as a network of institutions and organisations, the group is responsible for:

  • Exploring ways to develop the Rural Pact further for its different types of participants, by agreeing on activities to be taken by the group members or Pact participants, and themes to address.
  • Engaging and encouraging their stakeholder groups or partners to become members of the Rural Pact and disseminate information about the EU rural vision and activities the Rural Pact members are taking.
  • Monitoring the commitments to action of Rural Pact members at their level of governance.
  • Evaluating progress towards the objectives of the Rural Pact and, ultimately, the ten shared goals of the rural vision.
  • Suggesting events or tasks to be organised under the Rural Pact or subjects to be addressed in communications to the Rural Pact community by the Rural Pact support office (pending agreement of the European Commission and conformity with the support office contract).

Support from the European Commission

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 oversees these tasks and is able to give strategic orientations by making proposals to the European Commission. The RPSO organises 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.

Useful documents

English language

Expression of interest

(PDF – 540.59 KB)

English language

Terms of Reference

(PDF – 116.83 KB)

English language

Rules of Procedure

(PDF – 83.98 KB)