The High Mountains participated in the European Commission’s public consultation on the new strategy Right to Stay: Your Region, Your Future, submitting a comment based on their experience from the mountain and rural areas of Epirus and, in particular, from their work in Eastern Zagori.
The Right to Stay strategy concerns the conditions needed so that people living in rural, mountain, remote, or marginalised areas can remain, work, participate, and build their future in their own place. It is not only about people returning to the countryside, but mainly about how local communities can have the infrastructure, services, opportunities, and support networks they need in order to stay alive.
In our intervention, we stressed that this strategy is particularly important for mountain and rural areas, where population ageing, demographic decline, lack of services, and limited economic opportunities are gradually weakening the social and productive fabric of local communities.
In mountain and rural areas, many people who wish to return to or settle in the countryside face significant barriers: difficulty finding housing, limited job opportunities, gaps in transport, education, healthcare, digital connectivity, and everyday services. This is precisely why the strategy must recognise mountain, rural, and sparsely populated areas as places with specific needs, but also with significant potential for social innovation, ecological transition, cooperation, small-scale productive ecosystems, and community development.
A key point of our intervention was that the right to stay cannot be secured only through physical infrastructure projects. Roads, digital connectivity, housing, schools, and healthcare services are absolutely essential. But on their own, they are not enough.
What is often missing is local social infrastructure: the people, organisations, networks, and support mechanisms that can help residents, newcomers, local authorities, and professionals address the practical difficulties of living and working in these areas.
In this context, we proposed that the strategy should support the creation of local mechanisms for attracting and retaining population, such as local offices, community support structures, or local service hubs. Such mechanisms can help municipalities and local communities map available housing, land, employment opportunities, services, and local needs; support individuals and families who want to move, return, or remain; connect newcomers with residents, producers, professionals, and community organisations; activate local communities and the diaspora; and contribute to the development of long-term strategies for the regeneration of mountain and rural areas.
Through our work, we have seen that there is growing interest from people living in large urban centres who are seeking a different life in rural and mountain areas. However, the process often remains fragmented, informal, and difficult. People need guidance, reliable information, local contacts, relationships of trust, and continuity in support. At the same time, local communities themselves also need support so they can function as welcoming environments, without treating new residents as an easy solution to deep and long-standing problems.
That is why we believe that the Right to Stay strategy must place particular emphasis on local support systems, developed in cooperation with municipalities, social enterprises, cooperatives, civil society organisations, local producers, cultural associations, educational institutions, and community networks.
For The High Mountains, the right to stay is inseparably linked to the right to participate in shaping the future of one’s place. It should not be treated only as a cohesion policy or a demographic issue, but as a broader strategy for strengthening local democracy, social cohesion, ecological resilience, and community development in Europe’s rural and mountain areas.
Through our participation in the consultation, we called on the European Commission to ensure that the Right to Stay strategy creates real funding opportunities for mechanisms that attract and retain population, strengthens the role of municipalities and social and solidarity economy actors, and recognises rural and mountain communities as active co-creators of Europe’s social, ecological, and democratic future.
Because the right to stay in one’s place is not simply a matter of remaining. It is a matter of dignity, participation, and the possibility of building a life where there is community, memory, nature, and future.