Ready for action

Poland is the biggest recipient of EU structural funds for the 2007-2013 budget period, with some €67bn allocated to the central European country over the five-year period. Notwithstanding some concerns about the way Poland’s regions went about selecting the programmes that benefited from the previous round of EU funding (see Ana Dworakowska’s article on p62 for example), and the understanding that there is still room for improvement (see Jan Olbrycht’s comment on p51), EU money appears to have been put to good use in the Polish regions, with infrastructure improvements in particular helping to link the country to the rest of the EU more closely than ever before.

But what do the Polish regions themselves want to see by way of improvements in regional policy development and funding? The Strasbourg-based Assembly of European Regions (AER) last year published a major study on the future of the regions focused on how EU and pan-European policies – as well as local decision-making – could mould the future of the continent. According to Thomas Andersson, chairman of the AER’s reflection group on future cohesion policy, the questions that the AER study sought to answer included “what roles European structural funds and national regional policies play in helping our regions to develop in a sustainable way, whether we have the right tools to meet the new challenges facing EU regions, in particular the challenges of demographic change and migration, and whether the regional level has enough authority to shape the policies that create the political reality for local and regional politicians”.

Regions were asked to describe their current work and to share their views on how they thought that future regional policy should support their work on regional development. Of the 60 regions that took part in the survey, five were from Poland: Lodz, Slaskie, Pomorskie, Wielkopolska, and Zachodnio Pomorskie

While all of the regions had had some difficulties in the 2000-2006 programming period – in terms of getting to grips with the bureaucracy, coping with the steep learning curve or managing projects without sufficient amounts of money – they all agreed that the new structure – in place from the start of the new programming period in 2007 – could help improve the way EU funds were spent, provided the institutions are ready to learn from the mistakes of the previous period. Pomorskie, for example, said that it believed that the new programming and implementation system “is far more simplified and based on clear procedures, criteria and preferences”, and welcomed the changes in the current system that meant that the programming and implementation of structural funds would take place increasingly at the regional, rather than central, government level, which it said would “lead to more regionally oriented approach”.

When asked what lessons could be drawn from the experience of preparing the 2007-2013 programmes and whether they though the new EU cohesion policy was adapted to the new challenges European regions will face in the coming years, such as demographic change or climate change, the Polish regions noted in particular the restrictions imposed by the need to tailor structural fund spending to the wider EU policies such as the Lisbon agenda for jobs and growth. “Although regions have flexibility on where to direct structural funds, the Lisbon strategy objectives must be met,” said Pomorskie one of many regions that felt that fulfilling the Lisbon strategy was the biggest challenge for cohesion policy.

Slaskie, meanwhile, shared the view of many regions that tackling issues such as demographic change could only really be achieved at the national or international level, although certain measures could also be included within regional projects. Regional policy, the region said, should be about cohesion between regions above everything else. The shift towards using cohesion policy to tackle issues that affect the whole EU had meant that there was less assistance for regions with poor infrastructure, such as Wielkopolska, to catch up with the rest of the EU in this field.

One consistent bone of contention in Poland and elsewhere with the drawing up of the National Strategic Reference Frameworks – the spending plans of each EU country – has been the relative lack of involvement of the regions, even though they are more often than not the best placed to say where EU funds could best be spent. The Polish regions had different interpretations of their role in the decision-making process. Pomorskie said it had been heavily involved in preparing the NSRF with the national authorities, and that “all regions were consulted at the stage of preparing draft suggestions”. But Slaskie claimed that regions were “more on a client rather than partner basis” and that most of their suggestions were not taken into account by the national authorities. Slaskie claimed that it “had no part in defining the system of operational programmes”.

One area where change was needed, said Zachodnio-Pomorskie, was greater clarification about where the money can be spent – both in terms of EU rules on state aid and on the definition of public-private partnerships.

Wielkopolska, meanwhile, was the only Polish region to complain about the decision to scrap zoning – which stipulated in which geographic ‘zones’ certain amounts of EU funding had to be spent. “Abandoning the zoning policy will cause unnecessary growth of unhealthy competition between regions and growth of influence of government and national institutions, which will limit the independence of regions,” the region said.

Slaskie, however, noted that while the changes gave greater flexibility to national authorities to decide where to spend their money, this had not filtered down to the regional level, and that “regions should have stronger positions as the main beneficiaries” of the funding. “It would help if the commission recognised the regions as its partners with some rights and decision-making powers,” the region said, although it admitted that it would be hard for Brussels to deal with “so many partners” on a day-to-day basis. Wielkopolska agreed that there was a “threat” from the influence of central authorities over the allocation of funding.

Most of the Polish regions said that they considered the shift away from regional zoning towards more theme-based funding – such as the focus on the Lisbon agenda – would work, but that it was important to ensure that the funding was properly targeted within these themes. Wielkopolska, for example, said that the Lisbon strategy “supports the EU15, where infrastructural needs are smaller than in the new member states”. It wanted more freedom to choose where investments should be targeted in the Polish regions, arguing that while Lisbon goals were important for the new member states, this should not be considered as important as is currently is.

Zachodnio-Pomorskie took an entirely different approach, arguing for greater coordination between the Lisbon and Gothenburg (sustainable development) strategies at the cohesion policy level. “The challenge is to co-ordinate these economic, social and environmental pillars in such way that they complete each other. Strengthening the synergy between the Gothenburg strategy and Lisbon strategy is of fundamental importance for the development of the EU, and the commission and the member states should guarantee that an adequate part of the funds is spent on environmental and social goals that constitute to sustainable development.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, the Polish regions felt that they should be given a bigger role in the future development of EU funding programmes. Pomorskie said the EU level should be involved only in the “general objectives and directions, preparing regulations, and the negotiation stage”, while the national authorities should limit their involvement to “general legal control and programming horizontal issues”, a sentiment shared by Slaskie and Zachodnio-Pomorskie. The regions, meanwhile, should “create regional priorities through, among other things, a public consultation process, as well as prepare operational programmes and assure an effective implementation system, including the selection of projects”, according to Pomorskie.

But the broad outlines of regional policy should also involve far greater input from the regions themselves, according to Zachodnio-Pomorskie, which advocated a policy “for the regions, by the regions”. However, the voivodship believes that regions are already involved sufficiently in the negotiations at the national level to leave negotiations with the commission to the central government, which would fight the corner of its regions. Pomorskie, on the other hand, said that regions should have the right to negotiate directly with the commission over budgetary spending, “with only a general overview from the national level”, a view shared by Wielkopolska.

So Poland’s regions are committed to getting the most out of EU cohesion policy, seeing in a major opportunity for them to play a larger role in the development of the EU as a whole. It is still to early to truly assess whether the new structures in place for 2007-13 will be more efficient than in previous years, or whether the hopes and expectations of Poland’s regions will be met. But it is clear that Poland’s voivodships share the ideals of regions across the EU and are ready, willing and able to play their part in improving the life of millions of European citizens.

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