Regional contract in the implementation of the EU regional policy in Poland (2001–2013)

Abstract

The purposeof the article is to study the regional contract as a tool for implementing the EU's common regional policy at the level of regions of the Republicof Poland and to identify which challenges it has been an effective response to and which problems have notbeen solved through the use of this mechanism.Theresearchmethodologyconsisted of studying the legal framework, mechanisms of development, conclusion and published results of the implementation of regionalcontract. The analysis revealed which challenges to the implementation of regional policy Poland was able to respond to through the implementation of regional contracts and which it failed to respond to properly.The scientific noveltyis to determine the necessary legal support(including local government reform) and to study the advantages of using the mechanisms of the regional contract for the implementation of regional policy in the Republicof Poland and the shortcomings of the systemof their implementation.Conclusions.The mechanism ofregional contracts ensured the adaptation of Polish regions to the procedures for planning and implementing projects financed by EU funds. Participation inthe planning and implementation of projects has contributed to the professional development of regional administration staff and improved their ability to manage the development of their territories. The mechanism of using regional contracts has proved the effectiveness of the local government reform in Poland. The process of concluding agreements has enabled voivodeships to directly allocate funds to projects important for specific regions, including infrastructure development, environmental protection and social programmes. Negotiations between thecentral government and regional authorities have fostered dialogue and taken into account the specifics of each voivodeship. Conflicts of interest, differences in views and approaches to solving specific issueswere clarified and agreed upon at the negotiation stage. And in the process of implementing and executing the agreement, the parties already had common goals and mechanisms for maximising the use of the allocated funds to achieve the agreed objectives. However, the limitations associated with short-term planning, insufficient coordinationand uneven distribution of resources pointed to the need for further improvement of this instrument