Spatial concentration of the cohesion policy projects in nationally delimitated intervention areas: The case of the Czech Republic and Poland

Abstract

This paper deals with the topic of monetary support of the European Union cohesion policy to two Central European countries the Czech Republic and Poland. The main area of the interest is the spatial dispersion of said resources among regions of each country as it is related to special intervention areas that were delimited in both of them. The idea behind this delimitation is rather similar in both countries, targeting the economically less advanced areas. The results of virtually the same approach, however, are quite different as they are obtained through different implementation of cohesion policy. Poland is rather more successful in targeting economically weakest regions as the government prepared an architecture of operational programmes that allocates significant amount to the economically weak Eastern Poland ex-ante through regional and multiregional operational programmes. The Czech government, lacking similar approach, is far less efficient in targeting economically weak regions. What both countries have in common is the worrying trend to invest prevalently into basic infrastructure in these regions and implementing projects with larger added value in economically sounder areas. © 2015, Centre of Sociological Research. All Rights Reserved.