Lots of Money, Little Concept
Poland and the EU Structural and Cohesion Policy
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
In EU cohesion policy, Poland has focused on drawing down funds and has not grasped how to influence content in Brussels with regard to regional policy. The way these funds are used in Poland is questionable as well. The voivodeships, as recipients of this money, are not being strengthened in administrative terms; instead, the central government is. The Polish authorities have imposed their sectoral model on Brussels’s regional policy, which was actually conceived as a cross-cutting undertaking. Above all, however, the focus on infrastructure development is exactly what does not promote the underdeveloped periphery. A sensible regional policy must make underdeveloped regions competitive by means of investment in research, development, and in local companies. So far, the cohesion policy has been strengthening the periphery’s dependency on subsidies.
(Osteuropa 5-6/2011, pp. 155–164)