Significant discrepancies are sizable between the regions of the Interreg Central Europe (CE)[1]

– that was the message João Pedro Matos Fernandes, Minister of Environment and Climate Action delivered in his message to the ESPON online debate on the transition and transformation of rural areas. The event, titled “Transition and transformation for rural areas” was part of the ESPON week that is organized together with the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the EU and was held in a hybrid form -with some participants online and others in the studio in Lisbon.

Being peripheral in their own countries the EU eastern external border regions face particular development challenges and less entrepreneurship than in other parts of the same country.