Towards Greater Interventionism and Directionality in Rural Development Policies: The Basque Example (Spain)

Abstract

Many rural communities are facing a new context marked by depopulation, being close to abandonment. Others, for different reasons, are also facing a process of disestablishment. The Basque rural areas are at the expense of an urban environment that gives preferently residential function. The approval of the new rural development law is part of the need to apply an intervention model that takes into account the current situation. The research pursues the objective of assessing the convenience of the chosen model. The main novelty lies in the public-private governance model that it proposes. Its responsibility falls to a public entity, HAZI. The new law rewards agility, intervention, and usefulness over other criteria such as participation, cogovernance or directionality starting from the base. Local agents and investigators consider that the rural development law of the Basque Country represents a setback with respect to the previous legal framework, by revealing the distrust of rural agents who are imposed the function of promoting policies established from top to bottom.