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The countryside should be provided with better public services, and cities need more peace and quiet. This was the message of the Minister for Regional Development at the Rural Conference 2023, organized by Századvég Konjunktúrakutató Zrt. in Budapest.
People move to the countryside because of its livability and tranquility, while cities are attractive due to the higher quality of public services, and this needs to be balanced, Tibor Navracsics stressed at the event. He noted, however, that it is typical for people to move to the countryside for the sake of peace and quiet, and then to demand developments that deprive them of tranquility.
Commenting on the new concept of the Regional Development Law in preparation, the minister said that
the territorial development fund would make the implementation of programs more predictable, while an agency-type regional development service attached to government offices would help local authorities.
Regional thinking must be embedded, and development policy must focus on individual regions and cities, Navracsics stressed.
In his assessment of the situation, he said that Hungarian regions are slowly catching up with the EU average GDP, but this is “low intensity and fragmented.” While Budapest is now at 156% of the EU average, many regions are only a third of that, “slowly catching up or stagnating.” Among the stagnating regions, the minister mentioned the Western Transdanubian region, adding that the Central Transdanubian region has taken the lead due to large investments.
In terms of infrastructural progress, there has been a great improvement in road transport on the border edges, also a basis for the industrial development of these regions,” he continued. The “west-east development gap” is being steadily replaced by a “north-south development gap,” and that therefore an increased development policy is needed in the southern regions.
Speaking about demographic trends, he pointed out that suburbanization had been very pronounced in recent times, with smaller towns losing population and the population of surrounding municipalities increasing. He said that this is most visible in Budapest, where the agglomeration is growing strongly, and this has been compounded by the epidemic.
Regarding the new regional development concept, he pointed out that
a new element will be the promotion of interconnection between large regions, the model program being the complex development program for South Transdanubia, which, as he indicated, is to be submitted to the government this autumn.
He also noted that cooperation with Croatia, whose region on the other side of the border is also a “depressed area,” is expected.
In the minister’s view,
a “minimum level of public services” should be defined in regional development, with a certain level of public service functions guaranteed by the state. In areas where services are lacking, something must be done, either to raise the level of public services, or to help people get to the settlements and towns where they can get the services they need by improving transport infrastructure.
Navracsics stressed the need to offer more to people living in rural areas, adding that this would be served by the regional development service, providing assistance to local governments that cannot carry out regional development work on their own. The service would have two-way communication, with signals from counties and districts being “channeled” into government decisions.
Via MTI, Featured image: Facebook/Navracsics Tibor
