The impact of the global economic crisis on the development of regional policy in Poland

Regional policy is a part of the national development policy. As a result of the crisis, the government authorities in many countries, including Poland, have introduced changes in its regional policy by direct additional support for the structurally weak regions. The aim of this paper is to present how the global economic crisis affected the changes in the formulation of the problems, the setting of the new objectives and the implementation of regional policy. In 2008, the government in Poland began to work on developing a new model of regional policy adjusted to the cohesion policy of the EU. The basis for this assumption was the amendment of the Act of 7 November 2008 on the amendment of certain acts in connection with the implementation of the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund. Also analyzed was the impact of EU funds on the economy of Polish regions. Operational Programmes of the European Union are the main source of funding and a fundamental mechanism for the implementation of regional policy in Poland. The degree of sensitivity of the region to the crisis was estimated using the following indicators: GDP per capita, unemployment and employment rates. It was found that the nature of regional policy, which was focused on territorial equality has been changed in order to stimulate economic growth and the intensity of competition on a regional scale. For the purposes of this study used were the report analysis of the Ministry of Regional Development, the Ministry of Economy's reports, EoRPA's reports (European Regional Policy Research Consortium) and data of the Eurostat and Central Statistical Office. The main research method was a descriptive analysis and the analysis of archival materials and statistics.