State aid policy for environmental protection in Poland after accession to the European Union: did it meet expectations in the face of challenges?
State aid policy for environmental protection in Poland after accession to the European Union: did it meet expectations in the face of challenges?

Summary/Abstract: In the face of years of negligence in the environmental protection in Poland, the membership in theEuropean Union has caused the adoption not only of a restrictive legal framework and now ambi-tious environmental goals, but also restrictions on permissible support for entrepreneurs. To datethere is a lack of research combining both legal and financial aspects in this field. The aim of thisstudy is to identify the extent, to which Poland’s policy of financial assistance to entrepreneurs hasexercised the legal framework for granting state aid for environmental protection. To this end, weconducted a comparative analysis of EU legislation on state aid and Polish aid schemes for environ-mental protection, as well as statistical analysis of changes in granting aforementioned state aid interms of its intended uses and areas of support in Poland. We found the high degree of cumulationto certain sectors and incidentality of environmental aid in Poland, both in terms of its objectivesenvisaged by the Commission and of support areas. That support did not follow a well-thought-out,coherent and systematic policy of supporting entrepreneurs, but was merely a collection of isolatedinterventions, depending on the availability of fund resources in the EU financial perspectives.

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