Expected Trends in Making the Disadvantaged Regions Close Up

Whether we talk about external, internal or transitional peripheries, in connection with the disadvantaged and accumulated disadvantaged situations, on the whole we can say that it is true for small regions still carrying inherent disadvantage that by ensuing adequately intensive economic, regional and rural development and extending inter-regional connections, the chances for closing up can be provided. In the interest of closing up a more intensive regional development would be necessary, especially as regards opportunities for re-industrialisation, efficient structural changes, the rebirth of the agricultural industry and most importantly the increase in employment.

So, what can be expected in the future? Not until the sign of development an upturn expected so much have become visible we will have to face the currently still depressing reality, i.e., the fact that the regions in the Great Plain still belong to the most disadvantaged regions of the country. The peasant population “promoted to the ranks of small entrepreneurs”

after having got rid of the permanent jobs providing regular incomes in towns or villages (co-operative farms) have got into even worse situations than in the 1960s and 70s when masses of their populations were “taken captive” by “commuting”. Struggling with the lack of capital and sales concerns and in the lack of adequate agricultural subsidies and markets “the compulsive small entrepreneur“ in possession of a small area of land is in a defeat situation right from the beginning in most of the Great Plain. Expectedly, the real break-through will only be given to a few ones. More and more of them might get onto the periphery of the economic and social life within a short period of time. And all this may lead to the social and regional level detachment of extensive areas in the eastern part of the country and may become instigators of accelerating a process that can be reversed of a non-returnable process or one that can be returned at great expenses only, whereas the population of the Great Plain and especially that of the villages re expecting the novel distribution of the advantages entailed by the economic change of the regimes not only between certain social groups and layers of society but between different regions as well (Baranyi, 2000a, 2011).

Is there a chance for survival and closing up? The question and the answer looking for solutions is primarily related to improving unemployment and employment conditions and the opportunities for creating jobs especially in regions with small villages, where the problems of the job market are different from other rural regions despite the fact that these regions are clearly characterised by high unemployment rates. The major differences result from the combined presence of the population getting old, unemployment and depopulation as well as the extremely

low concentration and the geographic scatter of the labour force. it is a problem, however, how to recognise values as values and the lack of the spreading of innovations that can be used. How deep these lacks as well as how the processes can be favourably influenced from the outside remain questions (Baranyi, 2000b, 2009).

In connection with regions of a disadvantaged, peripheral, rural and highly agricultural nature the chances for sustainable development mostly hold promises that on the whole, the accession of Hungary to the European Union is going to decrease the existing regional inequalities, to moderate the crisis processes resulting from the disadvantaged-peripheral situation and may enhance the close-up of peripheral regions. Even today, it seems certain that a combination of the longer-term sustainable development related to external and internal peripheries and downturn will occur, although the downturn will be of a more and more decreasing volume and will remain at the level of the small region. In addition, the combination of modern and traditional elements of agricultural production through nature and environmental protection as well as rural and ecotourism, too, the sustainable development can be realised with success. Today it still remains an open question what proportion the regions of a modern structure and keeping ability and what proportion the rural regions declining and providing a low level of livelihood as well as stuck in development opportunities make up.

It continues to be a question to what extent the advantages expected from the accession to the EU, in other words the subsidies and grants can contribute to changing the centre-periphery system of relations, which are expressly needed to make the peripheries in Hungary close up and enhance the success of the cohesion policy since the peripheral regions will have difficulties in or will not at all be able to get out of the long-lasting recession.

The most difficult issue in the long run is the closing up of the external and internal peripheries, which means that the permanently disadvantaged regions are also to be given chances to join the economic and social blood circulation of the country in an efficient way as soon as possible. Of course, as it was convincingly stated in the revised National Regional Development Concept (OTK), which had been prepared in 2005 and the attached professional analyses, the closing up of the disadvantaged regions requires the realisation of a sizeable and coordinated development political effort that is more concentrated, fits local properties and the opportunities offered by external conditions and permeates each one of the technical policies that can be calculated with.

Thus, the closing up of the peripheral regions is an essential objective, which wishes to decrease the disadvantages of permanently disadvantaged regions by the help of concentrated government and regional subsidies, individual strategies tuned to the properties and opportunities of external and internal peripheral regions and at the same time by providing opportunities for their social renewal (figure 7.6).

Figure 7.6: Disadvantaged regions and peripheries

Source: OTK, 2005.

As it has been stated above the traditionally most disadvantaged peripheries of of the country are mostly the small regions in the north-eastern region and the south-south-western-Transdanubian as well as certain internal peripheries of the country, which are included basically in the category of rural regions since their population densities are much lower and the number of those engaged in agricultural activities is much higher than in other parts of the country.

The evaluation of OTK claims that the most important precondition of closing up is that the regions that require intervention should retain their resources, and above all their human resources (e.g., population, more highly qualified labour force) and should be able to mobilise the new resources that are necessary for their development (e.g., investments, recreational, tourism, environmental, culturally valuable and other infrastructure developments) in the interests of a sustainable and harmonious rural development. As regards the future the urban regions that have lost their industries and are hit with crises (e.g., the regions of Salgótarján and Ózd) the closing up of which have to be given preferences, mostly by using tools of re-industrialisation, in the course of terminating inequalities due to their region-organisational functions. The developments are to strengthen or to establish viable economic and social elements and so the objective is to improve relative competitiveness even while closing up.

OTK indicated the local developmental points of outbreak, which - based on the rich architectural, cultural and natural heritage of the declining regions and villages – are built on the local environmental and cultural values. The preservation of values and their adequate uses on the tourism market may offer opportunities for reviving inactive settlements, reconstructing natural and constructed heritages within the public-works programmes and so opportunities may be created for returning populations in declining settlements to the job market and the utilisation of the values of the reconstructed heritage.