The concept of "smart village" in legal acts and official documents of the European Union

Regulation (EU) 2021/1060 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 June 2021 provides for the need to include initiatives such as “Smart Villages” in territorial development strategies. An explanation is needed for the purposes of constructing and implementing this element of the strategy. The research undertaken for this purpose started with a structural analysis, which showed, among other things, that the terms smart village and smart villages occur in about 100 legal acts and its preparatory documents of the European Union from the period between 2015 and 2021. A general definition of smart village as a concept that aims to develop services through digital technologies and better use of knowledge, for the benefit of inhabitants and businesses, is provided in a 2017 Commission document. Although a later opinion of the European Committee of the Regions, proposed replacing this term with smart rural areas; both phrases appear in the most recent documents. A contextual analysis of the 2020 and 2021 acts and documents shows expanded common elements of the smart village and smart city concepts compared to the original ones. This provides justification to the search for theoretical support in publications on smart cities, which, in addition to the opportunities and benefits, also points to the need to strengthen personal data protection and cybersecurity.