The Slovak pilot

Slovakia: turning a rural vision into national governance

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Slovakia is the only pilot that works at national scale. The country has 5.4 million inhabitants and 2,890 municipalities, 138 of them towns. Highlands and mountains cover 60 % of its territory, and the policy brief notes that 40 % of the population lives in its predominantly rural territory.

A rural craft workshop in Slovakia. Photo: PoliRuralPlus pilot materials (RP2), poliruralplus.eu

A vision that needs an institution

The Vision for More Attractive Rural Areas in Slovakia 2040 was written in a mission-oriented foresight process in the predecessor project PoliRural, in parallel with the EU’s long-term vision for rural areas. The challenge now is institutional. Ministries, funding streams and advisory bodies work in silos. D5.1 records the most ambitious aim: anchoring the Vision in constitutional law so that it survives changes of government.

What the plan sets out

The RAP pursues three objectives: stakeholder engagement and a shared vision aligned with the EU Rural Pact; digital and smart transformation through a Smart Villages framework linked to Smart Cities; and cross-sector cooperation through a modernised AKIS. The policy brief (RAP 3.0, June 2025) recommends:

• a Cross-Sector Rural Development Council and a national Digital Innovation Hub to steer the Smart Village roll-out;
• a formal AKIS platform linking research institutes, advisers and farmers;
• Smart Village grants in 75 % of municipalities by 2030;
• a refundable 25 % tax credit for certified agri-tech, bio-economy and circular-economy investments;
• scaling up the portal atraktivnyvidiek.sk into an open-data platform for consultation and co-creation.

Where things stand

By 2026 the RAP had gone through five versions, each revised after stakeholder consultations. The pilot reports concrete uptake: the Vision is recognised as a Good Practice under the EU Rural Pact and was built into the preparation of the National Tourism Strategy 2035. The pilot sits in the national working group preparing the National Rural Policy Plan (post-2027), the Governmental Council for NGOs adopted a resolution, and work with the Ministry of Interior has made progress towards a legal definition of rural areas (see defining rural). More than 30 participatory events reached nearly 1,000 stakeholders; the DigiStake project improved atraktivnyvidiek.sk.

The Council and the Digital Innovation Hub are still recommendations, and constitutional anchoring is not among the results the pilot reports. Slovakia shows what a pilot can achieve through policy channels rather than new infrastructure.