Euromontana adopts the Declaration of Chambéry

Mountain representatives adopt the Declaration of Chambéry to « Improve the attractiveness of mountain areas for young generations »

300 representatives of European mountain areas assembled in Chambéry at the invitation of Euromontana, the European network for cooperation and development of mountain areas and Rhône-Alpes Region in France, to discuss how they might use future policies and actions to improve the attractiveness of mountain areas for young people.

Young people are positive about living in mountain areas but they face difficulties

Preparatory work undertaken by Euromontana and Rhône-Alpes region demonstrated that a majority of mountain young people are positive about living and working in mountain areas, both for environmental and social motives. However, the difficulties they encounter, such as too few and not diverse enough employment opportunities, insufficient supply of educational opportunities, lack of infrastructure in terms of adapted housing, health, daily transport, ICT and an insufficient provision of cultural activities lead young people to leave mountain areas.

Recognising mountains development potential and empowering young people

To improve the attractiveness of mountain areas for young people, Euromontana representatives have adopted the Declaration of Chambéry in which they call authorities and policy-makers to recognise mountain areas as poles of development likely to bring a significant contribution to European growth strategy and to invest in these territories, so that a diversified economy can flourish, valorising their comparative advantages and endogenous potential.

They have emphasized in particular the need to support innovation and entrepreneurship, to favour the recruitment of young people in local economy and to improve communication of job opportunities. They have also insisted on the necessity to improve the supply of education opportunities and match the gap between education made available in mountain areas and the local economy. Development of university branches, research centres in mountain areas an re-thinking the education system taking into account opportunities related to ICT have been mentioned.

From a sectoral point of view, Euromontana representatives call upon the recognition of the pivotal value of mountain farming, which produces a lot of public goods, and therefore ask for targeted support for young farmers who establish themselves in mountain areas (specific direct payments top-ups, efficient supply chain organisation, support to investment and access to land, specific mentoring). Employment of young people in the field of tourism should also be facilitated, overcoming in particular the challenge of seasonality through adequate responses in the field of housing (rented housing, social housing) and support to pluri-activity (multi-skills training, groups of employers...). The opportunities for employment of young people in highly innovative sectors such as energy, e-health, ICT, risk management and climate change have also been explored with positive outcomes. In all sectors, adequate training, facilitating transmission of businesses, access to risk capital and to credit have been identified as key issues.

Providing young people with adequate services and a dedicated place in society

Participants have also explored solutions to improve services taking into account the needs of young people, especially in the fields of housing, health, transport, ICT, childcare and schools as well as even basic access to water and electricity in most remote and disadvantaged areas of South-Eastern Europe mountain areas. A lively and diverse provision of cultural activities is also deemed essential to attractiveness to young people, especially in off-peak seasons.

Development of urban-rural linkages and of inter-generational links has been identified as crucial, as well as training and mentoring to ease integration of young people and help young people to start their businesses.

Convention participants also argued for an enhanced formal and informal participation of young people in developing political strategies and in decision-making bodies.

Euromontana committed itself to provide a voice to young people in mountain areas, to explore ideas for mountain youth projects and to systematically integrate the youth dimension in the different themes that it addresses.

A flexible framework for better integrated mountain development strategies

More generally, Euromontana representatives call upon policy-makers at all levels to setup a flexible, adequate policy framework for 2014-2020 which will allow mountain communities to invest in the sustainable integrated development of mountain areas while contributing to smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. This requires the possibility to intervene at the most adequate scale (functional territories), using integrated policy development tools combining all EU, national and regional funds and private funding in a simple, user-friendly way.

• download the press release
• download the Declaration of Chambéry
• access the European mountain Convention contents