EU funds transform Poland

Two years after Poland joined the European Union it is clear that Polish regions have exploded into activity and wasted no time to win EU subsidies in an effort to catch up with the old member states.

Pawel Tynel, an analyst from Ernst & Young, explains.

“Polish regions have been doing pretty well. They have applied for two times more money than they could receive. It shows that the activity of the local authorities is huge. Also enterprises are very active.”

The race for subsidies was tough and local governments used various arguments, including some quite original ones, to make their point. The mass circulation Gazeta Wyborcza reports how a local community argued that construction of a cemetery chapel was a road investment.

When it is built, funeral processions will stop damaging road surfaces. It did not get funds, alas. But another one, which said that the construction of a waste disposal system will create equal prospects for men and women, won the badly needed money.

Generally the focus is on improving local infrastructure, health care, education and sports facilities. The mid-northern Kujawsko-Pomorskie province is building a broad-band regional light fibre network. It is a pilot project in Poland and Europe, says a spokesman at the province head office Miroslaw Radzikowski.

“This project will improve access to broadband information services. It will link health care, culture and administration institutions, making it possible, for example, to hold medical consultations with experts in distant hospitals or to have access to library and museum collections.”

Starting from 2007 until 2013 each Polish province will receive about 1 million euro for development. For some regions, like the central Mazowsze, it will be almost three times more than before. Other provinces will be showered with money – Opolskie will have fifteen times more money to spend. Will they be ready to cope with such funds? Pawel Tynel believes that they will.

“These last 2 years have been an extremely fruitful learning process. Many people on the local level but also on the ministerial level have gained experience, which will be helpful in the next budgetary period. True the level of support if five times more than before which may be an obstacle. There has to be money for the local authorities so that they can invest it and then have it reimbursed.”

Polish regions are improving their condition with the help of EU funds and the fast changes are making the local people show interest in what is happening next to them in a process which leads to strengthening the civic society in Poland.

Source:By Krysia Kolosowska