The Act on the Principles of Development Policy is the basic legal act that regulates the development policy in Poland. The amendment adopted by the Sejm introduces changes that integrate the socio-economic and spatial dimensions in strategic documents. It also introduces regulations enabling the preparation of a strategic framework for applying for EU funds.
The Act creates the legal basis for the coordination of various instruments and sources of financing and for ensuring consistency in planning development activities.
At the national level, the medium-term national development strategy becomes the basic document defining the goals and directions of the social, economic and spatial development of the country. We have given up the preparation of the concept of spatial development of the country and the long-term development strategy of the country - sums up the amendment to the act, Minister of Funds and Regional Policy Małgorzata Jarosińska-Jedynak.
At the regional level, the essence of changes is the introduction of spatial aspects to the voivodeship development strategy - the so-called model of the functional and spatial structure of the voivodeship. The existing spatial development plans for voivodeships will become an element of the strategy. Thus, the strategies will be more strongly embedded in issues related to spatial development. The changes related to the abandonment of voivodship spatial development plans will not enter into force until 2025.
Voivodship development strategies should be prepared or adapted to new requirements within a maximum of 5 years, which will enable the completion of work on the currently ongoing update of the voivodship strategies for the new EU programming period 2021-2027.
At the local level, it is possible to prepare a commune development strategy or a supralocal development strategy in the case of a document common to several communes. In both cases, these documents combine the socio-economic and spatial spheres. So far, many local governments have prepared development strategies, but they have not been embedded in legal regulations. It is proposed that the strategy should not be obligatory - not every commune needs to have such a strategy. The possibility of preparing a joint strategy responds to the need to plan development activities going beyond (or affecting) the administrative boundaries of a territorial unit. Both solutions will enable the preparation of documents constituting a strategic framework for applying for EU funds.
The framework study of the conditions and directions of spatial development of the metropolitan area was removed from the legal system. In the next step, solutions will be introduced resulting from the currently conducted spatial planning reform, relating to the study of the conditions and directions of spatial development in the commune.
The Act also meets the concept of strengthening areas with specific social, economic and spatial conditions, to which it is necessary to direct a bundle of integrated public interventions - the so-called areas of strategic intervention (ASI). The obligation to indicate interventions in ASI at the national, regional and local level and linking the areas of strategic intervention with investment support (financed from various sources) or regulatory support is aimed at better targeting the available instruments to solving problems, especially in those areas where the accumulation of negative phenomena is sufficient large that prevents development.
A new approach to agreeing development activities with territorial self-governments is proposed - program, sector contract and territorial agreement. The program contract is related to the co-financing and conditions for the use of EU funds under regional operational programs managed by voivodships. The sectoral contract will be a mechanism for agreeing on the scope of the territorially oriented sectoral activities undertaken by individual ministers competent in their development programs. Both types of contracts will be concluded between the government and voivodship self-governments. The purpose of the territorial agreement is to agree on interventions significant from the point of view of local communities (a given commune, several communes or a poviat).
The proposed amendments to the act will also enable the preparation of documents necessary for obtaining EU funds for the years 2021-2027, i.e. the Partnership Agreement and programs implementing it.
Among other significant changes, the concept of the country's development is also being introduced, a document identifying global development trends, defining scenarios and challenges for Poland's development in the social, economic and spatial dimension in the long term. The concept will be an auxiliary document, providing information about megatrends, which will be conducive to making decisions about the directions of the country's development in the country's medium-term development strategy.
Public policies were also introduced into the legal system. Documents prepared at the national level, showing how - in the context of the adopted development goals of the country - the goals will be achieved in relation to a given sector, field or territory.
More information at: https://www.gov.pl/web/fundusze-regiony and https://www.irt.wroc.pl/.