The economic and health crisis triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic leaves the European Union facing the steepest decline in production and employment since the Second World War, on top of economic fundamentals that are already fragile as a result of the disastrous effects of the double fall...

This paper develops a methodology to define functional rural areas in the EU. It seeks feedback on the method and the results. Functional rural areas cover all the territory outside functional urban areas. They are constructed in three steps. First, we define rural centres: they are the largest...