Regionalisation in Poland: Background, features and public perception. A first appraisal

Abstract

Up until the fall of the Iron Curtain Poland was institutionally and ideologically a unitary state. The accession process to the European Union enforced the adoption of necessary reforms of the administrative structures, which were undertaken in the 1990s. Since then Poland has developed a three-tier governance structure and enhanced the role of regional authorities by implementing regional development strategies and the managing of EU funds. Applying the theoretical concepts of regionalisation and regionalism, this paper seeks to analyse in the first part the decentralisation reforms in Poland and their major achievements and challenges. The second part of the article, based on the evaluation of national and EU polls, addresses the questions regarding citizen's assessment of local authorities, regional policy, their attitude toward the EU and finally the feeling of attachment to locality/region, country or Europe.