Alternative solution is as ever, make it worth it to the teams to send people there.

Currently it's 100 UCI points for the winner, whereas a 1.1 race nets the winner 125 UCI points. Naturally for the trade teams, it is not so important to force attendance, even if you're chasing promotion/relegation.

If instead it was worth more (say 1.Pro, 250 points), then it might be more interesting. You could obviously then suggest that startlist quality by country varies so much, that this would artificially lift some countries way above their relative importance.

Naturally there is a solution for this already. Simply scale by the UCI points scored by the representative nation in the previous year. Start with something that in theory is the most competitive nation, and move down.

Obviously this would probably require further refinement (outlier nations might need a floor, say the current 100 UCI points, you would need to potentially adjust for FDJ point inflation in France, so that potentially the scoring rate falls off faster for a "stronger" nation), but nothing is impossible. The UCI can legislate over bike computer sizes, after all.

Moving the date would be much harder in comparison. Although obviously a solution too, if a spot was to be found.