Magdalena Mosionek Schweda, Maciej Tokarski
The Absorption of the European Funds Granted to Poland for the Period 2007-2013 – Examples of Projects and Evaluation
Summary:
Poland was granted over ˆ 67.3 billion as the European aid for the years 2007-2013. It comprised almost 20% of the total amount earmarked for the cohesion policy of the European Union for the years 2007-2013. The funds were utilized by Polish enterprises, local governments, non-governmental institutions, farmers and other entities. The main aim of this article is to present the evaluation of use of the EU funds in Poland for the period 2007-2013. The analysis was based upon the statistics data published in Poland by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Development, Eurostat and the European Commission. The analysis of the sources on the subject as well as observations of the business practices allowed forming a thesis that Poland competently utilised the European funds for the years 2007-2013 and thereby benefited considerably. Nonetheless, despite the significant influence of the funds onto the GDP growth dynamics and the increase in the standard of living, in the overall view Polish economy has not gained much in the innovation aspect due to the fact that the financial resources acquired by the Polish companies from the subsidies were largely earmarked to purchase the already existing western technologies, thus, making them dependent upon the know-how of the huge western conglomerates – which must be disapprovingly assessed.
