Three Decades of Polish Socio-Economic Transformations: Geographical Perspectives (Economic Geography) 3031061071, 9783031061073

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Economic Geography

Paweł Churski Tomasz Kaczmarek   Editors

Three Decades of Polish Socio-Economic Transformations Geographical Perspectives

Economic Geography Series Editors Dieter Kogler , UCD School of Architecture, Planning & Environmental Policy, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin, Ireland Peter Dannenberg , Geographisches Institut, Universität zu Köln, Cologne, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany Advisory Editors Nuri Yavan , Department of Geography, Ankara University, Ankara, Turkey Paivi Oinas, University of Turku, Hämeenlinna, Finland Michael Webber , School of Geography, University of Melbourne, Carlton, VIC, Australia David Rigby, Department of Geography, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA

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Paweł Churski · Tomasz Kaczmarek Editors

Three Decades of Polish Socio-Economic Transformations Geographical Perspectives

Editors Paweł Churski Faculty of Human Geography and Planning Adam Mickiewicz University in Pozna´n Pozna´n, Poland

Tomasz Kaczmarek Faculty of Human Geography and Planning Adam Mickiewicz University in Pozna´n Pozna´n, Poland

ISSN 2520-1417 ISSN 2520-1425 (electronic) Economic Geography ISBN 978-3-031-06107-3 ISBN 978-3-031-06108-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06108-0 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Foreword

Since the demise of communism, Poland has been transformed beyond recognition. A country that was razed to the ground like no other by a devastating Second World War and brought to its economic knees by four decades of misguided central planning has turned itself around completely over the last three decades. Bold action and rapid reforms after the collapse of the Iron Curtain set the seed for what has been a breakneck speed of economic growth. In this period, Polish growth has been not matched by the economic trajectory of any other European countries, with the exceptions of Ireland and some of the Baltic countries. Growth rates in excess of 4% per annum between 1990 and the outburst of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 have firmly set the eyes on Poland as the growth champion among transition economies. Countries with a similar communist past that have become members of the European Union (EU), like Bulgaria, Czechia, Hungary, Romania or Slovenia, have been clearly outpaced by Poland (Fig. 1). Poland’s growth has also dwarfed that of transition countries with similar characteristics that have remained outside the EU. One clear example is that of Ukraine, which despite having a GDP per head that was on a par with that of Poland in 1990, today is four times poorer on a per capita basis (Fig. 1). The Polish economy has also shown remarkable signs of resilience. Whereas country after country in Europe plunged into lengthy economic downturns, the Polish economy continued to steam ahead. Poland brushed away the 2007–2008 Great Recession with ease. It has also weathered the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic much better than most other European countries. Although, at the time of writing, the economic outcome of the pandemic is still uncertain, predictions indicate that Poland will be among a handful of EU countries—including, among others, Ireland, Estonia, Lithuania and Romania—to have the best performance. Hence, against most early forecasts—e.g. Caselli and Tenreyro (2004) argued that convergence in the Polish case could take considerably longer than in the Spanish case—Poland has caught up very rapidly with the most advanced economies of Europe. Between 1990 and 2020, GDP growth in Poland, measured in current United States (US) dollars, has been 4.5 times higher than that of the Eurozone (Fig. 2). And, although still at levels of 77.7% of the EU average in purchasing power parities v

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Fig. 1 Evolution of GDP per capita in Poland and in neighbouring countries, both in the EU and outside it. Source own elaboration using World Bank data

Fig. 2 Polish growth trajectory since 1990, relative to the Eurozone and to some neighbours. Source own elaboration using World Bank data

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in 2020, it has already overtaken southern European countries, such as Greece or Portugal, that not that long ago were far wealthier. It is also closing in on Spain. In this journey, Poland has benefited from the company of friends. Membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) since 1999 represented an important milestone and provided a strong geopolitical umbrella to the country. It also signalled to the world and, in particular, to would-be investors that the country was stable. US political, economic and military support also played an important part in this respect. However, the biggest game changer was membership of the EU in 2004. The whole process of joining the EU and, afterwards, EU membership has contributed to push through many of the difficult and often painful institutional, political and economic reforms that have made Poland what it is today. However, although external support was fundamental for the transformation that Poland has experienced, the bulk of the merit lays squarely on the shoulders of Polish citizens. For a country that has endured significant migration to other parts of Europe since accession, it has used its human resources, physical capital and remittances well as a means to increase productivity and transform and dynamise sectors of an economy that, after the fall of communism, faced ominous prospects. By all means, the economic transformation of the country has been remarkable. Yet, there are clouds gathering in the horizon which may threaten Poland’s future prospects. These clouds have a lot to do with the highly territorially uneven economic development that the country has experienced over the last three decades. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Poland had, in comparison with other transition economies, a relatively more balanced territorial structure than other transition economies (Petrakos 2001). A more polycentric territorial structure, with a web of fairly large cities that could act as development poles, seemed to guarantee a harmonious distribution of economic activity. It was always argued that the West and the metropolitan areas were in a better position to reap the benefits from economic integration into the EU (Petrakos 2001), but the risk of rapid polarisation was perceived to be lower than elsewhere. Yet, the reality of the last three decades has been one of rapid polarisation. In Poland, as in the large majority of Central and Eastern European countries, talent and investment have become increasingly concentrated in the capital region. The economy of Warsaw has grown exponentially, while the rest of the country has shown less economic dynamism. Growth, quality employment and economic activity have concentrated in the big cities, with smaller cities and rural areas lagging behind. The West of the country has fared better than the East. Hence, economic growth has come at the expense of strong polarisation, revitalising urban/rural, big city/small city and East/West cleavages of old. Many of these cleavages are being built on top of old historical and cultural cleavages. They to a large extent reproduce the divide between the more traditional and religious Poland and a more open, secular and cosmopolitan part of the country. They also separate those that, to a certain extent, are still more attached to the land and its activities, from whose livelihoods are more connected to advanced industries and services. And, they also reproduce the historical divisions of the country, with Polish lands that became part of Prussia in the late eighteenth century doing better

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Fig. 3. The Polish electoral divide. Source Project FORSED (www.forsed.amu.edu.pl)—Faculty of Human Geography and Planning, Adam Mickiewicz University Pozna´n, Poland

than those that were allotted to the Austrian Empire and, especially, of those allocated to Russia, with the exception of Warsaw. These economic, social and historical divisions are creating a Poland that is highly polarised and split up. A Poland that—like a growing number of developed nations— is split between areas where opportunities abound and those that have endured demographic and economic decline and service decay. A Poland that is dynamic and open to the world and a Poland that feels that it no longer matters and that its needs and plights have been ignored by an elite that, in the name of progress and European integration, overlooked their needs and potential. These problems have been festering in Poland for quite some time. They are having implications that go well beyond the economic realm. For the best of the twenty-first-century Poles have been voting rather than along the traditional right/left party lines, along divisions that reflect this growing polarisation between places that feel that they “matter” and places that feel that they “don’t matter” (Rodríguez-Pose 2018). This division was already in evidence in the 2003 EU referendum, where the big cities— from Warsaw to Kraków, Łód´z, Pozna´n or Gda´nsk—voted, together with the Polish territories that until 1945 were part of Germany, in big numbers for membership of the EU. The rural areas of central and eastern Poland, that once belonged to the Russian Empire, where much less enthusiastic about joining the EU (Fig. 3). This electoral divide has continued to ravage the country in successive presidential and parliamentary elections (Fig. 3) to this day. It has ushered the advent of power of illiberal parties, a political shift in which Poland has become a pioneer among developed economies, preceding the well-known cases of the USA and the United Kingdom (UK). This divide is also setting Poland on a path to a serious clash with the EU that can have serious economic consequences for the future prosperity of the country. In many ways, a highly and growingly polarised economic and social geography may be driving Poland to a radical change in its economic fortunes and to the risk of serious social clashes, as the line between economic and social discontent and outright conflict is very thin. Brexit is the mirror in which Poland should look itself in.

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Despite differences in levels of development between the two countries, the situation in Poland does not differ that much from that of the UK prior to the Brexit referendum in 2016: a highly polarised and rapidly polarising society, with wealth increasingly concentrated in the capital and a handful of relatively dynamic cities, and with large shares of the population living in territories whose economic dynamism had been hugely undermined in recent decades. The end result is a situation in which no one wins. In Britain, those voting for Brexit in 2016 or for a radicalised Conservative Party in 2019 were well aware that their vote would not improve their situation, but they had had enough of a system that had ignored them for far too long. In Poland, the signs are clearly there that something similar may happen. As already indicated by Gorzelak (1986) more than three decades ago, the overconcentration of economic activity—what he then called “gigantomania”—can have serious economic and social consequences. The demographic and economic decline and lack of opportunities at the root of the growing division and polarisation of Poland are not going to go away by themselves. They require concerted, whole-ofgovernment action to tap into the undeniable talent that can be found across the whole of Poland. Mobilising this potential will not only contribute to relieve the pressure of growing discontent, but will also maximise the economic promise of the whole of Poland. But, to do that, there is a need to diagnose the roots of the problem, understand in greater detail three decades of transformation of the Polish economy and society and how these changes and the global challenges that Poland faces may affect its capacity to deliver greater prosperity and well-being to all its citizens, wherever they live. This is precisely what this collective volume does. It puts geography at the centre of the problem and geography as the potential solution for it. If Poland is to continue making progress in terms of development, it requires far greater attention than hitherto to its geography and to its problems of uneven development and the unequal distribution of opportunities across the country. London, UK

Andrés Rodríguez-Pose

References Caselli F, Tenreyro S (2004) Is Poland the next Spain? In: Clarida R, Frankel J, Giavazzi F (eds, 2004) NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics Gorzelak G (1986) The spatial aspects of the Polish crisis. GeoJournal 12(1):81–88 Petrakos G (2001) Patterns of regional inequality in transition economies. Eur Plan Stud 9(3):359– 383 Rodríguez-Pose A (2018) The revenge of the places that don’t matter (and what to do about it). Camb J Reg Econ Soc 11(1):189–209

Introduction

1989 marked the onset of the political transformation process in Poland and other countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The transition involved a shift from a socialist system to a parliamentary democracy and from a command economy to a market one. Due to the deep economic crisis that culminated in 1988 and the peaceful model of change developed and implemented in Poland, the magnitude and manner of implementing various initiatives was unprecedented and had specific implications. This transformation opened Polish society and the Polish economy to the impact of global social and economic changes, triggering successive transformations, often overlapping in terms of their causes and consequences. The distinctive character of Poland’s transformation of the last three decades is the result of their delayed onset in relation to the Western world and their subsequent parallel course, which contributed to their unprecedented character and unique impact at different territorial levels. This publication aims to present the course and effects, in particular territorial, of Poland’s socio-economic transformation in the years 1990–2020. The analysis covers the key aspects of this transformation, illustrated with references to the concepts and theories of development, domestic and foreign literature, own empirical research and existing or newly developed model approaches to transformation in the territorial dimension. The idea for the book emerged in 2018 at the Faculty of Human Geography and Planning of the Adam Mickiewicz University, Pozna´n, Poland, and quickly gained recognition among the researchers of this university. The authors of the individual sections are both experienced professors who began their academic careers before the transition and a younger generation of geographers, for whom the historical perspective of three decades represented a new research challenge. The group of Pozna´n-based authors was extended by experts and renowned scholars from across Poland (Prof. Leszek Balcerowicz, Prof. Grze˙ gorz Gorzelak and Dr Piotr Zuber) and from abroad (Prof. Peter Nijkamp and Prof. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose). Their contributions helped create the first Polish if not Europe-wide monograph on socio-economic change in a post-socialist country. The work is a comprehensive presentation of the topic. Its value lies in bringing together in one volume many aspects of socio-economic development from a geographical perspective, i.e. not only the course, but also spatial differences in xi

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the phenomena and processes under analysis. The geographical perspective involves national, regional and local approaches, set within an international, European or global context. The book is primarily addressed to foreign readers, who may not always have access to comprehensive and in-depth studies of the Polish transformation. The monograph may serve not only as a source of information but also as a basis for comparative research on development in this part of Central and Eastern Europe. The transition from a non-democratic system to a democracy, from a command economy to a market one, from a homogenised society (homo sovieticus) to a civic one, from a lack of concern for one’s environment to more civilised instruments of environmental protection and management, from a country largely isolated on the international forum to one open to globalisation, is a very demanding field of research for a period of 30 years. The transformation had numerous economic, social and spatial implications. Therefore, apart from its positive impact or straight successes, the authors could not but indicate its negative consequences, such as growing regional disparities in economic development, a demographic downturn and social costs. These costs included a lower living standard in the initial phases of the transformation and economic emigration of Poles. Although overall the three decades of the transformation must be seen as a positive development, there are numerous deficits, problems and challenges resulting from such processes as globalisation, digitisation, development of civil society, symptoms of illiberal democracy, adaptation to climate change or most recently health threats due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The book is composed of five thematic parts. They are preceded by a prologue, a preliminary view of the Polish transformation from a geographical perspective. The first section (Part I: The Context of Polish Post-communist Transformation) identifies the reasons and course of the social, political and economic transformations, focusing on the economic reforms and political changes. The second set of topics (Part II: Transformation of Society, the Economy, and the Environment) demonstrates sectoral shifts in the economy (selected industries, services and agriculture) and the Polish character of the demographic transition as well as changes in the natural environment. Another set of texts (Part III: Transformation of the Country’s Space) highlights the new organisation of public administration, spatial changes taking place in Poland and focuses on spatial planning and landscape management, regional and local development in such areas as the urban and rural system and transport network. The fourth section (Part IV: Poland in Europe and in the World) shows Poland’s place in both the global economy and European regional policy and indicates international trade relations. The last part—Epilogue—deals with the course and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland, an extraordinary phenomenon that affected the whole world in 2020–2022. Understandably, the layout of the monograph and individual authors’ studies do not exhaust the topic of Poland’s transformation, but are a conscious choice based on the research potential of the Faculty of Human Geography and Planning and invited authors. It is the expectation of all the authors of this book that the studies will be favourably received and provide an impetus to a discussion on the development of the country, which was one of the few in history to have undergone a political transformation followed by an economic and social one within a short time.

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The monograph has been made possible thanks to the kind support of many people. We would like to thank them all for their contribution to the preparation of the book. Paweł Churski Tomasz Kaczmarek

Contents

Part I 1

The Context of Polish Post-communist Transformation

Poland: Economic Reforms Under Extraordinary and Normal Politics—An Insider’s View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leszek Balcerowicz

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Regional Patterns of the Transformation and Policy Responses . . . . Grzegorz Gorzelak

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Geographical and Historical Background of the Transformation: Politics and Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Robert Perdał

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Axes of Political Rivalry in a Territorial Pattern: Geography of Electoral Behaviour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Roman Matykowski and Katarzyna Kulczy´nska

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Territorial Division: Administrative Reforms and a Look to the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Tomasz Kaczmarek

Part II Transformation of Society, the Economy and the Environment 6

Dynamic of Economic and Social Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 Jerzy Jan Parysek and Lidia Mierzejewska

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Car Market Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 Tadeusz Stryjakiewicz and Bartłomiej Kołsut

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Changes in Ownership and Production Structure of Agriculture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 Anna Kołodziejczak

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Contents

Tertiarisation of the Economy: Restructuring of the Service Sector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 Joanna Dominiak and Justyna Weltrowska

10 Population Changes During the Demographic Transition . . . . . . . . . 219 Marzena Walaszek and Justyna Wilk Part III Transformation of the Country’s Space 11 Changes in the Spatial Planning System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261 Łukasz Mikuła 12 Transformation of the Urban and Rural System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279 Tomasz Kaczmarek, Anna Kołodziejczak, and Łukasz Mikuła 13 Modernisation of Transport Infrastructure and Changes in Spatial Accessibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305 J˛edrzej Gadzi´nski and Radosław Bul 14 Development of Tourism: Growth and Evolution of the Leisure Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331 Ewa Kacprzak, Urszula Kaczmarek, and Barbara Ma´ckiewicz 15 Environmental Change and Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359 Andrzej Mizgajski and Małgorzata St˛epniewska 16 Landscape and Spatial Management: Changes, Principles and Directions of Measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381 Sylwia Staszewska, Damian Łowicki, and Magdalena Szczepa´nska Part IV Poland in Europe and in the World 17 Poland’s Position in the Global Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407 Anna Tobolska and Magdalena Wdowicka 18 Changes in the Spatial and Commodity Structure of Poland’s Foreign Trade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435 Henryk Ma´ckowiak 19 The Ins and Outs of the Labour Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467 Józef Orczyk and Marcin Wo´zniak 20 EU Regional Policy and Its Implications for the Development of Polish Regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487 ˙ Paweł Churski and Piotr Zuber Part V

Poland’s Development in the Face of Global Challenges

21 Spatial-Economic Prosilience: A Signpost Framework for Poland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 525 Peter Nijkamp

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22 Polish Cities: The Search for Development Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533 Adam Radzimski, Lidia Mierzejewska, and Kamila Sikorska-Podyma 23 Epilogue: COVID-19 Pandemic in Poland: The Course, Effects and Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 553 Paweł Churski and Tomasz Kaczmarek

Part I

The Context of Polish Post-communist Transformation

Chapter 1

Poland: Economic Reforms Under Extraordinary and Normal Politics—An Insider’s View Leszek Balcerowicz

Abstract The chapter starts with the specificity of the socialist institutional system and that of the transition after its collapse. I distinguish two political situations during this transformation: the extraordinary politics and the normal politics. I acted as deputy prime minister responsible for the economy in both of these periods. The first lasted from September 1989 to December 1991 and included radical macroeconomic stabilisation and comprehensive liberalisation of the economy. The second took place between October 1997 and June 2000. Despite less favourable political conditions, we have managed, among other things, to accelerate privatisation of the economy, to introduce comprehensive pension and health reforms, and to substantially reduce excessive employment in coal mines. The chapter stresses the importance of speed and of a cohesive, competent group with a clear leadership as a basic condition for the successful economic reform. Keywords Stabilisation · Reforms · Post-socialist transition · Liberalisation · Hyperinflation · Foreign debt · Public finance · Exchange rate

1.1 Introduction: The Specificity of the Post-socialist Transition Major shifts in history, both good and bad, are usually unexpected. The best ones certainly include the dissolution of the Soviet block and the related collapse of the anti-market socialist dictatorships in its member countries during 1989–1991. These developments gave rise to the institutional changes, usually called the post-socialist (or post-communist) transition. In its first phase, lasting for a couple of years, all the former socialist countries seemed to head in the same directions: L. Balcerowicz (B) Warsaw School of Economics, al. Niepodległo´sci 162, 02-554 Warsaw, Poland e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Churski and T. Kaczmarek (eds.), Three Decades of Polish Socio-economic Transformations, Economic Geography, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06108-0_1

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• Democracy, i.e. free elections and related civic freedoms and the rule of law; • The market economy, which in the real world is always based on private property rights. This initial phase of the post-socialist transition was exceptional, at least in its directions, compared to other major institutional transitions (Balcerowicz 2002). They include (1) classical transition, meaning the extension of democracy in advanced capitalist countries between 1860 and 1920; (2) neoclassical transition, referring to democratisation in basically capitalist countries after WWII (West Germany, Italy, and Japan since the 1940s; Spain and Portugal in the 1970s; some Latin American countries in the 1970s and 1980s; South Korea and Taiwan in the 1980s); (3) market-oriented reform in communist countries (West Germany, and other Western countries after WWII, South Korea and Taiwan in the early 1960s, Chile in the 1970s, Turkey and Mexico in the 1980s, Argentina in the 1990s); and (4) Asian post-communist transition (China since the late 1970s and Vietnam since the late 1980s). There is, of course, much internal variety, especially within the first two categories. We will, however, disregard it here in order to focus on the fundamental differences between rather than within the respective types of transitions. A number of features distinguish the post-communist transition. First, the scope of change was exceptionally large. Political and economic systems were both affected, and changes in these systems in turn interacted with changes in the social and economic structure. All these internal changes in the respective countries came about due to and in the framework of the dissolution of the Soviet empire. In all other cases of radical transition, the focus was either on the political system while the economic system remained basically unchanged (as a classical and neoclassical transitions) or on the economy while the political regime (usually nondemocratic) was unaffected. The unprecedented scope of changes in Eastern and Central Europe meant, among other things, an extreme information overload for top decision makers. Errors and delays were hardly surprising, especially since decision makers had to work with a public administration largely inherited from the old regime. Massive administrative turnover proved possible only in the former East Germany after reunification, an option obviously not open to other post-communist countries. Second, although the changes in the political and economic systems started at about the same time, it is misleading to speak of ‘simultaneous transitions’ in postcommunist Europe. It takes more time to privatise the bulk of a state-dominated economy than to organise free elections and at least some rudiments of political parties. Given the largely simultaneous beginnings of the political and economic transitions, this asymmetry in speed produced a historically new sequence: mass democracy (or at least political pluralism) first and market capitalism later. Third, this sequence implied that market-oriented reforms, which had to be exceptionally comprehensive because of the socialist legacy, needed to be introduced under democratic, or at least pluralistic, political arrangements. All the radical economic reforms elsewhere were introduced under autocratic regimes (Chile in the 1970s, China since the final years of that decade). There were some economic reforms carried out under democracy in the 1980s, including privatisation programmes in

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some developed Western countries and stabilisation and structural adjustments in developing economies. However, they were much less comprehensive than these in the leading Central European countries. A fourth exceptional feature of East-Central European economic and political transitions has been their lack of violence. This was in sharp contrast with the bloodshed in former Yugoslavia. Later years brought about major divergences in the institutional trajectories of the former socialist countries. Central and Eastern Europe has basically stayed on course (with the exceptions of the political reversals in Hungary under Orban and Poland under Kaczy´nski during recent years). In contrast, most countries of the former USSR relapsed into various forms of authoritarian regimes except for the Baltics, Ukraine, Georgia, and Armenia. Economic systems have differed, too, ranging from quasisocialism in Łukashenka’s Belarus, through crony-capitalism in Russia, to more free market-oriented regimes in Central Eastern Europe.

1.2 How I Became a Reformer I was active in the economic transition in Poland both as an academic and a policymaker. In the following, I will focus on my latter role as I believe this is there where I have a comparative advantage: there have been many more academic observers, commentators, and advisors than reformers.1 I was deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance (September 1989 and December 1991 and 1997–2000), the leader of the Freedom Union—the largest free market party in Poland (April 1995 and December 2000); and the governor of the National Bank of Poland (January 2001–January 2007). Until late spring 1989, I was convinced—like the vast majority of Polish people— that the Soviet Union would continue to exist during my lifetime and that Poland’s institutional system would, therefore, have to retain its basic features such as the one party-state and the dominance of the state sector in the economy. Nevertheless, as a young economist in the second part of the 1970s, I believed there was some scope for improving the performance of the economy. At the Central School of Planning and Statistics (CSPS),2 I pulled together an informal group of younger economists from various institutions to work on a blueprint for a more efficient economic system that would respect the geopolitical constraints and thus have at least a minimal chance to be put into practice. We discussed in depth all the important segments of the economic system: the enterprise sector, the financial system, the foreign trade regime, local governments, etc. The model that emerged from our discussions, and which I described in a report published in September 1980, could be described as a market economy based on labour-managed firms. It went further than the Yugoslav system by calling for the elimination of the rights of 1 2

In the following pages I refer to Balcerowicz (2014: 17–37). Today: Warsaw School of Economics (SGH).

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the party to nominate directors or intervene in the management of enterprises (the nomenklatura mechanism). In this respect, it breached the assumption of geopolitical realism. The proposed reforms were publicly presented in September 1980, just after the emergence of the Solidarity movement. The new situation created a huge demand for the ‘social’ (i.e. unofficial) proposals for reforms, and we were the only ones who systematically worked on them for more than two years. As a result, the media started to speak about the ‘Balcerowicz team’, and Solidarity largely accepted our economic proposal. I mention the activity of my first team because without that I would not have been asked in August 1989 to take responsibility for Poland’s economy. The meetings of the group continued in the 1980s after the introduction of Martial Law. But we no longer cared about political realism and discussed fundamental topics such as liberalisation, privatisation, capital markets, and foreign trade regime. Our discussions were a very interesting hobby—we did not see any light at the end of the tunnel. By chance, however, we were doing our ‘homework’ which became practically relevant in the late 1980s. One should be prepared for a window of opportunity by pursuing what appears to be a useless hobby. Besides the group seminars, individual studies also influenced my views on what the proper economic system is and how to transform a socialist economy: • I graduated from the foreign trade faculty of CSPS which was probably the most open economic faculty in the socialist countries. In the textbooks and lectures on international economics, we were taught the virtues of an open economy. • My doctorate, which I defended in 1975, dealt with technical change. The conclusion I drew from the literature was that it is fundamentally important for economic growth and that a centrally planned economy by its very nature is anti-innovative. • In the 1980s, I became very interested in the ‘growth miracles’, especially in South Korea and Taiwan. The popular view was that it was a special kind of state intervention that was behind the phenomenal catching-up of these countries. I, however, concluded that the true reason was an unusual accumulation of growth fundamentals: private ownership, a high rate of savings and investment, low fiscal burdens, and export orientation. • I spent a lot of time studying reforms under socialism, all of which failed. They were usually short-lived and produced negligible, if any, improvements in efficiency. I came to the conclusion that the socialist system has a special constructional logic. To break this logic, the package of reforms had to have a huge ‘critical mass’: it had to eliminate the remnants of central planning, break up domestic monopolies, introduce freedom of entrepreneurship and liberalise prices and foreign trade (Balcerowicz 1995: 51–58). • I studied Ludwig Erhard’s reforms of 1948 in West Germany, where I spent the autumn of 1988. Erhard’s policy consisted in a massive liberalisation of the economy and its radical stabilisation via currency reform. I noticed that reforms after socialism would have to be even more comprehensive. Besides liberalisation and stabilisation, they would have to include deep institutional changes (especially

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privatising the state firms) because under the war economy in Germany capitalism was only ‘suspended’ while socialism entailed the destruction of its institutions. • In the late 1970s and 1980s, I spent a lot of time thinking about the reasons for massive shortages in the economy. Contrary to Kornai’s influential work (1980), I shared the view of Gomułka (1985) that they were caused by the rigidities of the controlled economy and not by the soft budget constraint. Massive liberalisation was, therefore, both necessary and sufficient in order to remove shortages (and to make the economy more efficient). I believed that Kornai’s soft budget constraint was responsible for open inflation and that it contributed to the inefficiency of the economy. Besides, I thought that this factor had deeper roots—especially the detailed political control of the economy via the dominant state ownership. Therefore, to get rid of soft budget constraint one had to eliminate these features. In the spring of 1989, I wrote a paper on the policies for Poland’s economy. They included rapid and massive liberalisation, convertibility of the Polish zloty, tough and quick macrostabilisation,3 the fastest possible stabilisation, etc. While writing this, I had no idea that a few months later I would be in charge of Poland’s stabilisation and transformation programme.

1.3 Radical Stabilisation and Reforms in the Period of Extraordinary Politics (September 1989–December 1991) In the following, I will focus first on my government activity during 1989–1991 and in 1997–2000. In late August 1989, Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki asked me to become his ‘Ludwig Erhard’. I accepted after intense hesitation. There were several reasons for my final decision. First, I felt that, by chance, I had already done an important part of the homework necessary for the job. Second, I knew I could rely on members of the team I had worked with. Without them, I would not have accepted Mazowiecki’s offer. Third, I made clear that I was only interested in a tough stabilisation and radical transformation of the economy, a position the Prime Minister accepted. He also agreed to let me have an important say in choosing the economic ministers and indeed most of them were my own choice, and I did not object to any of the others. I realised I was taking huge risks. I knew that Poland’s economic situation was dramatic. Even though I felt I had an intellectual grasp of the necessary strategy, I was ignorant about many of the important details. I had never managed anything larger than a seminar, and I was untested with respect to dealing with stress, and with decision making under time constraints and risk. I knew from my previous studies 3

Stefan Kawalec, a member of the original Balcerowicz team and my closest economic advisor, wrote a similar paper in 1988 while I was in Germany (Kawalec 1989).

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that for radical reformers the honeymoon period is short and that the success of the reforms depends on the reformers persisting in the face of growing public criticism and protests. I was not planning to become a professional politician, but I was highly motivated to do the job, which I deeply believed was of historical significance for Poland. The short-term goal of the economic programme was to eliminate the catastrophic imbalances and the resulting hyperinflation. The longer-term goal was to catch up with the West. The first goal was to be mostly achieved by rapid and radical tightening of fiscal and monetary policies and the second by a comprehensive transformation, which I divided into massive liberalisation, including currency convertibility, and deeper institutional change (privatisation, setting up the stock exchange, restructuring of the public administration, etc.). Liberalisation was also necessary to eliminate massive shortages. In working out, and in analysing, the policies I used a simple analytical scheme which consisted of four variables: 1. The initial conditions; 2. The external conditions; 3. The desirable end-state (the target system); 4. The policies which if implemented and sustained would lead from (1) and under (2) to (3). In 1989, the Polish economy displayed the structural deficiencies common to all socialist economies: low and declining efficiency and the related backward economic structure. It was also the first country of the Soviet bloc to suffer extreme economic imbalances and near-hyperinflation. This feature was especially striking when one compared Poland with former Czechoslovakia and with Hungary. In addition, Poland, together with Bulgaria and Hungary, but unlike Czechoslovakia and Romania, had to deal with huge foreign debt. These differences meant in practical terms that much of the attention of the economic team in Poland had to be dedicated to the problems other than the institutional transformation. The initial conditions in Poland turned out to be even direr than I had expected. On my third day in the job, I learned that the previous government had spent the substantial hard currency savings of the people deposited in the state banks. I also learned about another part of the public debt—in the form of the payments people made for cars and apartments without obtaining them, under socialism. The external conditions turned out to be difficult to predict. In 1991, they took the form of huge economic shocks as the result of the war in the Persian Gulf and the related increases in the price of oil. I did not find it difficult to determine the desired end-state. For the macro-economy, it was low inflation and a reasonably balanced budget. Regarding the goal of the institutional reforms, it was clear to me that we should target a system capable of ensuring rapid and sustained catch-up with the West. Based on my previous studies, I was quite sure about the general features of such a system: predominantly private, with intense competition, outward oriented, based on general rules, macro-economically stable. One could easily derive from this description the main directions of the necessary reforms, especially massive privatisation and liberalisation of the economy.

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The true intellectual and practical challenges arose around some aspects of the transition policies, i.e. policies capable of bringing the economy from the desperate initial conditions to the target system. I distinguished here the general strategy (i.e. the content and the timing of the whole package of the policies) and the specification of some transition policies. I always regarded the popular juxtaposition of ‘shock therapy versus gradualism’ as pseudoscientific nonsense which has obstructed clear thinking and served as an instrument of anti-reform propaganda. The very expression ‘shock’ therapy frightens ordinary people and, indeed, has been often used for that purpose. For its part, ‘gradualism’ is hopelessly vague. The shock therapy/gradualism dichotomy does not capture the most important problems when faced when choosing the economic strategy after the collapse of socialism. This is why, from the very beginning, I have been using a different conceptual apparatus. First, I distinguished between the two types of policies: macrostabilisation (S) and institutional transformation (T) which, in turn, I divided into liberalisation (L), (i.e. enlarging the scope of economic freedom) and a deeper institutional change (I), such as privatisation of the state-own enterprises (SOEs), setting up an independent central bank or transforming the public administration. Second, I noticed that these policies differ in their maximum possible speed: macrostabilisation and liberalisation can bring much faster results than most of a deeper institutional change. The reform strategies differ in terms of when they are initiated, their scope, and the speed with which they are implemented. Based on these distinctions, I defined a radical strategy as a package of macrostabilisation, liberalisation, and better institutional transformation policies which are launched about some time, are broad in scope, and are implemented as rapidly as possible. Less radical approaches can involve sequential timing of various policies such as initial macrostabilisation, then institutional transformation, or vice versa, or a narrow policy scope, such as partial price liberalisation or slow privatisation. Based on my previous studies of reforms and realising how dramatic the economic situation in Poland was in 1989, together with my team I believed that only a radical strategy could succeed, even though it was risky, as Poland in 1989 was largely in unchartered waters. However, it was clear to me that a risky strategy was to be preferred over a hopeless one, i.e. a non-radical one. It was this reasoned assumption and not emotional radicalism that gave me psychological strength to push and persist with radical reforms. The economic case for a radical approach included experience with previous reforms, which strongly indicated the indivisibility of the effective liberalisation and of the strong links between liberalisation and macrostabilisation, and the overwhelming evidence that hyperinflation requires a rapid and radical stabilisation policy (for more on this: Balcerowicz 1995). Radical price liberalisation is needed to eliminate massive shortages: the elimination of shortages is in turn necessary to ensure a more efficient operation of enterprises. Rapid price decontrol (including substantial adjustments in distorted administrative prices) is also necessary in order to obtain rational relative prices. Price

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liberalisation, however, has to be linked to comprehensive foreign trade liberalisation and demonopolisation of the economy, so that an increased enterprise autonomy is accompanied by an increase in competitive pressure on the newly freed enterprises. Widespread price controls and other forms of detailed state intervention will tempt enterprises to lobby for hidden or open subsidies, which may threaten macroeconomic stability. Thus, liberalisation aids stabilisation, which in turn is conducive to meaningful institutional change. This is the link between stabilisation and liberalisation on the one hand, and a deeper institutional change on the other. Institutional changes including tax reform, social security reform, privatisation, and enterprise restructuring are necessary not only in order to improve efficiency but also to bolster macroeconomic stability. There is, therefore, a link between deep institutional restructuring and long-term sustainability of the macroeconomic balance. Non-economic reasons also argued in favour of a radical approach. I was aware that the political breakthrough in Poland had opened the way for a brief period of what I called ‘extraordinary politics, when it is easier than during normal times to push through difficult reforms’ (for more on this see Balcerowicz 1995: 202–231). Implementing a radical economic strategy was to make the best use of this gift of history. Furthermore, people, often grudgingly, change their behaviour if they see a radical change in the environment they face and consider irreversible. I never believed that one can engineer a massive change in individuals’ mentality, but I was convinced that radical reforms strongly change the incentives to which people were exposed to and thus are capable of inducing a radical change in mass behaviour. Given the dramatic initial conditions and unfavourable external developments that faced countries in East-Central Europe, each reform strategy was bound to generate discontent in some sections of the populace. The intensity of these currents of discontent was directly proportional to the adversity of initial conditions and external developments. For example, the same set of economic policies produced four times more unemployment in Slovakia than in the Czech Republic in 1992, because output, which could be maintained only under socialism, accounted for a much higher share of the Slovak economy. In addition to turning disguised unemployment into open unemployment, radical economic reform also increases discontent by broadening the scope of general economic freedom. Since only some people can directly take advantage of the new opportunities, others may feel resentment, especially if they view the new winners as underserving. Rapid shifts will occur in the relative pay and prestige of various occupations and professional groups as markets replace the planned socialist economy. Miners, heavy-industrial workers, and other groups that see themselves as ‘losers’— even if only in relative terms—are likely to be dissatisfied. Moreover, there is an unavoidable trade-off, between opportunity and security. However, given the same difficult initial and external conditions, a non-radical strategy will also produce discontent, though in different ways. If the initial macroeconomic situation is highly unstable, a non-radical economic programme will find itself immediately bedevilled by high and growing inflation, which produces its own version of severe economic insecurity. Non-radical programmes do this by preferring hidden over open unemployment. The former is less psychologically painful to the

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persons concerned, but it must be financed through fiscal or quasi-fiscal subsidies, which in turn spur inflation. The result is inflation-bred insecurity and disaffection. Moreover, it must be kept in mind that any future attempts at macroeconomic stabilisation will flush hidden unemployment into the open. Non-radical programmes, which feature less liberalisation and correspondingly more state intervention, also give rise to new economic inequalities, with the ‘winners’ being those who can successfully lobby the government. In practice, this might have meant members of the old elite, who are more experienced, better organised, and better connected than others. The inequalities generated by their lobbying are less justified than others. Finally, by challenging entrepreneurial and managerial energies into rent-seeking and corruption rather than the search for greater efficiency, non-radical programmes that avoid large-scale liberalisation destroy the prospects for economic growth. Anyone willing to take the longer view, then, should realise that the discontent and drawbacks associated with a non-radical strategy outweigh the problems brought by sustained and radical efforts at comprehensive liberalisation, stabilisation, and deeper institutional change. Several more specific issues gave rise to debates and uncertainties. I regarded the privatisation of the economy (i.e. an increase in the share of the private sector) as an absolutely necessary, fundamental reform, both economically and politically. And fast ‘transformational’ privatisation, i.e. privatising the inherited SOEs was its essential component. I was convinced from the very beginning that to accelerate this process, we had to go beyond the traditional methods of privatisation applied in the Western countries. Although I favoured rapid privatisation, it was obvious to me that the radical approach we chose, i.e. starting macrostabilisation, liberalisation, and institutional transformation policies at about the same time, implied that the stabilisation and liberalisation had to be introduced in a still predominantly socialist economy, because privatisation unavoidably takes more time than macrostabilisation. We never seriously considered a sequence: first privatisation, then stabilisation. We believed it to be a hopeless option because the resulting chaos of hyperinflation would doom the whole programme. I considered the unification of the exchange rate and the introduction convertibility of the zloty within the current account operations as a crucial element of an enlarged economic freedom. The rate of exchange introduced at the beginning of 1990 would serve as a nominal anchor in the stabilisation policy and thus should be maintained for a certain time. At what level and for how long—these were extremely difficult questions. The Ministry of Foreign Trade pressed us to set it at 12,000 zlotys per dollar and claiming that even at this level, Polish exports to the West would suffer. Together with the National Bank of Poland, I set the level at 9500 zlotys per dollar. Hard currency exports in 1990 increased much more than we had expected, and the initial level of the rate of exchange was kept until May 1991—much longer than I had anticipated. A description of the outcomes of the economic programme implemented in Poland in 1990–1991 is beyond the scope of this essay. In a comparative assessment I wrote in 1993, I did point out that Poland’s ‘transformational recession’ was the mildest among post-communist economies and that the stabilisation outcomes were relatively good (Balcerowicz 1995: 224–231). Radical stabilisation and liberalisation

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encouraged recovery and the transition to a private economy. I believe that these and other findings have withstood the test of time (see, e.g. Åslund 2013; Hartwell 2013; Gomułka 2016). In line with my expectations, the radical programme quickly eliminated the massive shortages and reduced inflation. However, the correctional rise in prices in January 1990 was much higher that forecasted and the statistical decline in GDP during 1990 much steeper. These data fuelled some early criticism of the programme. A little later I realised that the official data exaggerated the decline in GDP as they largely omitted the fast-growing private sector. 1991 turned out to be much more difficult than 1990 because of the interaction of economic and political factors. On the economic front, the benefits that could come quickly materialised in 1990—first of all the elimination of massive shortages and queues. The response of the economy on the supply side was unavoidably slower, even though the private sector continued to expand rapidly. The GDP growth was also considerably slower than assumed in the budget because the external shocks (the rise in oil prices and the collapse of trade with post-communist countries) were more powerful than expected. In addition, serious errors made in pension legislation in 1990 produced a surge in pension spending. Taken together, these factors forced a revision of the budget: 80% of the shortfall in the revenues was compensated by the cuts in spending, and 20% by increases in the budget deficit. On top of that, in the second half of 1991, another electoral campaign, this time leading up to the parliamentary elections, was raging. Of the more than 60 parties participating, most were critical of the economic programme, condemning what they called excessive ‘monetarism’ and the ‘Balcerowicz plan’, and exploiting economic problems. In the new Parliament occupied by 28 parties, 6–8 parties were required to form a government. Looking back on the period from September 1989 to late December 1991, I think the choice of a radical strategy was correct. I am not able to find a single example of a non-radical strategy (delaying reforms or stabilisation, slowing the pace of macrostabilisation and liberalisation policies, etc.) that in similar initial and external circumstances have produced better outcomes; in fact, they were much worse. Particularly important and successful were the liberalisation and massive demonopolisation of the Polish economy, substantial hardening of SOEs’ budget constraint, the unification of the exchange rate, the introduction of convertibility of the Polish zloty and the establishment of an independent central bank. Outside the reform package, I would single out the agreement in the spring of 1991 with our creditors to reduce Poland’s huge foreign debt by 50% in net present value terms in two rounds, in 1991 and 1994. The implemented policies deviated in some important respects from the economic team’s original intensions. By far, the greatest error occurred in the pensions. This error, made in early 1990, had explosive ramifications in 1991 and later years. At the time, Poland was experiencing a retirement boom coupled with the rapid increase in the ratio of average pension to average wage from 43% in 1989 to 63% in 1992 (Balcerowicz 1995: 223). Pensioners in Poland were much more protected than

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workers. However, the popular view, strengthened by populist politicians, was that they were especially hard hit by the ‘shock therapy’. The pace of SOE privatisation was much slower than I wanted. This slow pace was very difficult to avoid due to the political calendar in Poland. The comprehensive bill on privatisation was adopted in February 1990 but accepted in the Parliament only in July 1990 because of competing views on privatisation methods. We were much more successful with other processes in the privatisation of the economy. The small-scale privatisation was rapid. The new private sector was growing quickly, fuelled by the asset privatisation: SOEs facing a much tougher environment—thanks to tough macrostabilisation and liberalisation policies—were selling or leasing some of their machinery equipment or buildings to private firms. I relieved the new private firms from taxes during 1990, supported the micro lending schemes, and persuaded the Polish-American Enterprise Fund to focus on funding schemes for the small and medium enterprises. All in all, I believed that the performance of the Polish economy would have been even better if the SOEs’ privatisation had been faster, which would have required an early introduction of some scheme of mass privatisation. I remained convinced that in the longer run a large state sector would tend to turn to old ways, poisoning both the economy and politics. This has been clearly shown since 2015 by remaining state sectors. I cannot emphasise enough the importance of a cohesive economic team with clear and determined leadership. The team included some members of the original ‘Balcerowicz group’ of the late 1970 and the 1980, the new ministers in charge of economic development, and selected individuals from the Ministry of Finance, whom I happened to know from my studies in CSPS. There were two groups of advisors: one in my deputy prime minister’s office and another consisted of selected academics. The first group focussed on current matters and the second on strategic economic advice. In addition, a special group extremely ably directed by my former student, Jerzy Ko´zmi´nski, dealt with the political environment, with public opinion, and the media. Finally, I enjoyed excellent cooperation with the National Bank of Poland, and there were never any major disagreements between us. Without these personal arrangements, we would have never been able to act as rapidly and persistently. The economic team was able to radically change the direction of economic policy while working with a basically unchanged public administration. Its experience revealed that leading from commanding heights can sometimes alter the behaviour of the whole army. As a Minister of Finance, I was in charge of the huge tax apparatus. I quickly dismissed all the heads of the regional offices and replaced them with new people selected in open competition. This action probably helped us to break up the connections between the tax apparatus and the state enterprises and thus to harden the budget constraint they faced. It may also have helped us avoid widespread corruption in the tax administration. The radical economic programme was introduced over a period when Poland held three elections: local government in the spring of 1990, presidential in the autumn of 1990, and parliamentary elections a year later. The radical political groups were not invited to the talks at the ‘Round Table’ in the spring of 1989 and the best organised

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lobbies (coal miners, railway workers, and farmers). All the criticism was directed from one side: the programme was blamed as being too harsh or just destructive. I focussed on policies and dedicated little time to explaining them to the public. I believed this was the best use I could make of the short period of ‘extraordinary politics’.

1.4 In Between the Governments I left office in late December of 1991 without any intention to re-enter. I was aware, of course, that reforms in Poland were not complete and that their future depended on the constellation of political parties, and I was increasingly convinced that the necessary reforms in Poland were being blocked or slowed down. In 1994, some persons from the Freedom Union—the reformist party, headed by Tadeusz Mazowiecki—urged me to compete for its chairmanship. I believed this party best reflected my views and needed strengthening. But it was still psychologically very difficult for me to enter ‘normal politics’. After long hesitation, a couple of weeks before its congress, I decided to join the Freedom Union. In early April 1995, I was elected, by a wide margin, as the chairman of the party, starting a new phase of my professional life as a leader of the largest opposition party. My goal was to make the Freedom Union a disciplined, modern party so as to give a new push to reforms in Poland. The job was not easy, as the party included three former prime ministers and most of the former dissidents. We lost the presidential elections in late 1995, and there were various ups and downs in the party’s popularity. In early 1997, it declined to below 5%, but in the parliamentary elections in September 1997 we obtained almost 14% of the votes while campaigning under ‘the second Balcerowicz Plan’. I won a parliamentary seat in Silesia, a heavy industrialised region, running on a free market ticket against Marian Krzaklewski, leader of the ‘Solidarity’ trade union. While in opposition, we criticised the post-communist government for slowing down the reforms. However, working together with the post-communist parties (and against ‘Solidarity’) we pushed through a new constitution, adopted by a referendum in May 1996. Based on a proposal from the Freedom Union, it prohibited public debt from exceeding 60% of GDP and offered a reasonably good protection of economic and civil liberties. The constitution proposed by ‘Solidarity’ was much weaker in these and other respects. Even though we had cooperated with the post-communist parties in proposing the new constitution, I had no intention of forming a coalition with them, as it undermined the political chances of the Freedom Union. Marian Krzaklewski had managed to build a huge political conglomerate (Solidarity Electoral Action, or AWS) dominated by the ‘Solidarity’ trade union and comprising around 40 small parties, many of them very critical of the ‘Balcerowicz Plan’. The AWS won the election in September 1997 but it needed the Freedom Union to have a parliamentary majority. When the time came, I was ready to enter this uneasy coalition.

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1.5 Reforms During the Period of Normal (But Peculiar) Politics (October 1997–May 2000) After some difficult negotiations, in October 1997 I again became the Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister in charge of the overall coordination of economic policies by chairing the Economic Subcommittee of the Councils of Ministers. My main goal was to strengthen the long-term economic growth in Poland by speeding up reforms, especially privatisation, as well as pushing deregulation and the reform of the pension, education and justice systems, as well as local government, along with the loss-making sectors, especially the coal mining. Meanwhile, the current account deficit was growing quickly, and I wanted to avoid a macroeconomic crisis. Thus, I was determined to press for the reduction of the budget deficit through lower spending, which was also important for strengthening longer-term growth. In terms of employment, Poland was entering a period of a growing labour force, thanks to the increased flow of graduating high school students. This presented an opportunity to speed up the longer-term economic growth. I wanted to push through the liberalisation of the labour code so that the economy could absorb more workers. The coalition agreement included most of these reforms, albeit often in general terms. More specifically, we agreed that privatisation should be accelerated to strengthen economic growth and to finance the transition of the funded pension system to be introduced within the framework of a comprehensive pension reform. This was my idea as a way of making privatisation more attractive politically. The coalition agreement stressed the need for simpler and lower taxes but was not specific on the tax reform. Governing with AWS was quite an experience. After a relatively smooth first year, tensions and conflicts began to surface, mostly because AWS itself was a heterogeneous coalition. As a result, groups within AWS started to vote against the government’s proposals or to push through Parliament bills which were contrary to the agreed programme. The post-communist parties supported both kinds of measures. This was a very different political situation from the one which I faced during the period of extraordinary politics. Nevertheless, I was determined to push through a disciplined fiscal policy along with the reforms. To do so, I used several mechanisms: • I formed another excellent economic team. I picked up some brilliant deputies in the Ministry of Finance, and again I had two groups of advisors: the strategic team, chaired by Jacek Rostowski and those who advised on current issues, helping to coordinate the policies of various ministries. I also had a group of young assistants, usually my former students. • I put great emphasis on public communication. I organised an effective communication team made up of younger people, and I played an active role in dealing with the media. We constantly monitored protests and tried to be on the offensive. For example, before the protest by medical staff, we published and widely promoted ‘A black book of waste in the health service’. We also anticipated

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the most drastic forms of demonstrations. So, I was not shocked when the businessmen who enjoyed absurdly generous tax breaks for employing disabled people organised their demonstration in wheelchairs in front of the Ministry of Finance. • We prepared strategic documents designed to serve as coordinating and disciplining devices for the coalition policies and convinced the government to accept them. The most important was the long-term strategy for economic growth and public finance, adopted in 1998. Another was the law on the public finance which improved its transparency and introduced two lower ceilings for public debt: 50 and 55% of GDP (If these ceilings were exceeded, specific automatic fiscal measures would have to be taken). I also introduced the practice of publishing a ‘black list’ of enterprises, mostly state-owned, with the largest backlogs of taxes, and making public all the decisions taken by the tax office to defer or to reduce the tax payments. • I tried to mobilise various groups or institutions in support of specific reforms. I organised a Deregulation Commission which I chaired. It consisted of government officials, non-government experts, and journalists. When I discovered that the local communities, which had coal mines on their territory, were very unhappy with them because of unpaid taxes, I formed a coalition with the local officials from these communities to press for faster restructuring of the coal mines. • I developed alliances between the Freedom Union and selected groups and their organisations, especially with the business community, but also with moderate ecologists, reformist teachers, managers of hospitals, reformers in the local government, and certain journalists. In view of the uneasy coalition as well as the external economic shocks in 1998, the macroeconomic and systemic outcomes of policies during November 1997 and May 2000 do not look bad: fiscal deficits were substantially reduced and the public debt to GDP ratio started to decline. • Privatisation accelerated radically, and included most of the banking sector, the large metallurgical sector, telecommunication, much of the remaining SOEs in manufacturing, but excluded mining and railways. • We introduced a fundamental pension reform that radically streamlined the payas-you-go system and introduced a mandatory funded system. The transition to this system began to be financed by privatisation revenues. The link between privatisation and pension reform worked during 1998–2000. • Despite protests on the part of the miners’ union, coal mining was largely restructured and the number of miners was radically reduced, albeit with less efficiency than I had sought. • Similarly, despite the protests of the railway workers’ unions, the railway infrastructure was separated from other operations. • Regarding deregulation, we were more successful with eliminating various ministerial regulations than in scrapping unnecessary or harmful legislation. The comprehensive liberalisation of the labour code, prepared by the Deregulation Commission, did not pass through the political system. As I feared, failure to

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liberalise the labour code had contributed to an increase in unemployment among younger people. Politics in Poland wasted a demographic dividend. Given the political constraints, I doubt we could have achieved better macroeconomic and systemic outcomes. Perhaps, we should have tried to remove various occupational pension privileges and raise the retirement age. But I am sceptical that we could have achieved sufficient support from AWS, not to mention the opposition. Starting in the early 2000s, the Parliamentary coalition with AWS practically stopped functioning because some of its deputies regularly voted with the ‘official’ opposition against their own government. In March 2000, I presented AWS’s leadership with two lists: the ‘negative’ (the bills proposed in the Parliament that AWS should reject) and the ‘positive’ (the measures it should support). The leaders of AWS refused to make any firm commitment. This was the main reason in late May 2000 why—on my suggestion—the Freedom Union left the government. We promised parliamentary support for all initiatives consistent with our programme.

1.6 Concluding Remarks Poland’s experience shows that stabilisation and reforms are possible both in extraordinary and normal politics, if certain conditions are met. During the period of extraordinary politics, speed is of utmost importance. Being able to act quickly requires that the economic plan be prepared before the window of opportunity appears. Speed and preparatory work are important in a period of normal politics too, but not so crucial. In both periods, the analytical problems were relatively easy to solve. The more challenging problems were managerial and political. To be successful, a reformer must have an intellectual grasp of strategy. In addition, he or she must have appropriate personality and skills to deal with the managerial and political aspects of launching and implementing radical reforms. Few people combine the intellectual, managerial, and political qualities necessary to be a successful reformer. Whether such persons emerge in leadership positions is largely a matter of chance. Sometimes, they may appear only to face obstacles which nobody would be able to overcome. Therefore, the success, or failure, of radical reforms results from the complex interactions between personality and situational variables. In both extraordinary and normal politics, success depends on the existence of a cohesive, well-organised, and determined team with clear leadership. In Poland, as in other post-communist countries, reforms were faster and more successful in the enterprise sector, thanks to the privatisation of SOEs, the growth of new private firms, and the introduction of competition. The remaining SOEs in Poland have either incurred financial losses or occupy quasi-monopolistic positions. Reforms of public institutions and systems turned out to be much slower and less effective, especially in health, higher education, law enforcement, and the justice system. Thus, it is the public sector where most problems remain. The pension system was reformed the

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most, but here was where the major reversals occurred, culminating in the de facto destruction of the mandatory funded system during 2011 and 2015. Monetary policy has played on the whole an important disciplinary and stabilising role. This was possible thanks to the independence of the central bank, which was defended and strengthened by deflecting political attacks. Political criticism of the stabilisation and reforms in Poland came almost exclusively from the statist side, which opposed fiscal consolidation, privatisation, and deregulation, especially of the labour market. When in government, the political opponents of stabilisation and market reforms tended to postpone fiscal adjustment and privatisation—especially of the labour market. However, until they did not engage in aggressive fiscal stimulation or in any major reversals of reforms (except for restoring the pension privileges for the uniformed services and miners). Poland’s GDP increased almost threefold between 1990 and 2019. This extraordinary growth resulted largely from the accumulated reforms with respect to the enterprise sector and in the macroeconomic policies (especially monetary) that prevented the emergence of boom-bust episodes.

References Åslund A (2013) How capitalism was built, 2nd edn. Cambridge University Press, New York Balcerowicz L (1995) Socialism, capitalism, transformation. Central University Press, Budapest Balcerowicz L (2002) Understanding postcommunist transitions. In: Diamond L (ed) Democracy under communism Balcerowicz L (2014) Poland. Stabilization and reforms under extraordinary and normal politics. In: Aslund A, Djankov S (eds) The great rebirth. Lessons of victory of capitalism over communism. Peterson Institute for International Economics, Washington, DC Gomułka S (1985) Kornai’s soft budget constraint and the shortage phenomenon: a criticism and restatement. Economics of Planning, No. 1 Gomułka S (2016) Poland’s economic and social transformation 1989–2014 and contemporary challenges. Cent Bank Rev 16(1) Hartwell C (2013) Institutional barriers in transition: examining performance and divergence in transition economies. Palgrave Macmillan, New York Kawalec S (1989) Privatization of the polish economy. Communist Econ 1(3):241–256

Chapter 2

Regional Patterns of the Transformation and Policy Responses Grzegorz Gorzelak

Abstract The chapter describes the regional patterns of the 1989–1992 recession, the recovery that began in 1992 and the process of growth that proceeded uninterrupted until 2019 (albeit with periods of a slow-down), when the COVID-19 pandemic brought a short recession. These processes are compared with regional and spatial doctrines, official policy standpoints, and real implementations (which are not necessarily functionally connected) existing after 1990. Whenever possible, comparisons with other post-socialist countries are made. One needs to remember that the recession of 1989–1992 came after the decade of stagnation that was preceded by the serious crisis of 1978–1982. In both cases, the regional patterns were significant. Keywords Transformation · Regional development · Regional policy

2.1 Introduction: General Frameworks Regional policy—and more generally spatial policy—has its modern roots in the midwar period as a reaction to the Great Depression of 1929–1933. Already in these times, regional/spatial policy also emerged in Poland and has resulted in several original concepts, as well as in successful implementations on urban (and even before that building the new city of Gdynia that equipped Poland with a sea harbour bypassing Gda´nsk), and regional scales (Central Industrial District, Polish COP, see box below1 ). Recalling past doctrines and experiences and their relation to the objective socio-economic situation should help to understand more recent approaches and activities in this sphere, especially those related to the situation before and after the great transition of 1989/1990.

G. Gorzelak (B) Centre for European Regional and Local Studies, University of Warsaw, Krakowskie Przedmie´scie 30, 00-927 Warsaw, Poland e-mail: [email protected] 1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Industrial_Region_(Poland).

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Churski and T. Kaczmarek (eds.), Three Decades of Polish Socio-economic Transformations, Economic Geography, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06108-0_2

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In order to develop heavy and military industries in the second half of the 1930s, public investment (supported by foreign capital) was concentrated in the central southern part of Poland at that time, equally distant from two potential aggressors: Germany and the Soviet Union, in a strategically located area sheltered by two rivers: Vistula and San, with the surface of 60,000 km2 , inhabited by 6 million people. From 1937 to 1939, this project consumed almost 30% of total national investment expenditure and was abruptly halted by WW II. COP plants provided work in the region affected by high unemployment, and the construction of accompanying infrastructure increased the level of civilisation in these areas. COP was a very modern—even for today—regional development programme. It was comprehensive, integrating economic, social, financial, and institutional aspects of regional development. Although there were much poorer regions in the east of pre-war Poland, they were not targeted by state regional policy, since the COP region was chosen to meet the whole-national rationale, and not the needs of particular region(s). It can be observed that long-term regional and spatial polices are formulated and implemented in periods of relative economic stability and prosperity. Turbulent times, moments of economic difficulties push regional/spatial approaches aside, since overcoming economic and social problems takes priority over the regional/spatial issues. In such situations, coherent regional/spatial policies are usually absent, and at best, the territorial dimension is applied to sectoral policies. Generally speaking, regional polices assume two major orientations: achieving territorial equity or increasing overall economic efficiency. This is a well-known efficiency-equity dilemma (Alexiadis 2018; also van Dijk et al. 2019). In fact, usually ‘crystal-clear’ solutions are not applied, and real polices always end up as a certain mix of these two extremes. However, along with the changes in ideologies dominant at a given time, the exact manifestations of regional policies also move between these two poles. The above remarks set the scene for further considerations on regional/spatial polices in Poland at the end of the twentieth and beginning of the next century.

2.2 The Lost Decades of 1971–1989: The Situation on the Eve of the Transition According to Kornai’s estimates, with the exception of the 1950s, the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries have developed slower than other European states (Kornai 2006). These two decades are, however, different in these respects. In Poland, a strategy of technological advancement and accelerated growth was introduced in 1971. However, its assumptions were not met, not only because of the

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mistakes committed by the governments of that time, but also due to more general processes. It has to be recalled that after the oil shock of 1973 (to some extent repeated in 1978), the western economies entered into recession due to the shift towards the new paradigm of development, based on innovations and technological progress. They began to abandon the model based on material resources and started to build a knowledge-based economy. The Soviet bloc overlooked this change and followed the traditional resource-based path of growth (which after over a decade caused its collapse). As a result of the global recession, the socialist countries ended the decade of the 1970s with a deep economic downturn, in some cases noting a decline in GDP by a double-digit rate (as was the case in Poland). In spite of the promises of democratisation, further centralisation took place in Poland in this decade: the reform of the state’s territorial organisation introduced in 1975 suddenly, without any public discussion, replaced 17 regions with 49 ones,2 and abolished the 400-year-old counties (poviats, PL powiaty). It has led to a firmer grip of the central party authorities over regional and local political elites. To some extent, this reform was pre-announced by the National Spatial Plan presented in 1973 that aimed to formulate spatial/regional policy for the next two decades. The plan was based on the doctrine of ‘limited polycentric concentration’ according to which some 40-plus regional centres should develop relatively quickly. However, like previous national spatial plans, this one too did not provide any reflection on the ways, means and instruments of achieving the final spatial goals, and in fact this was another blueprint of a remote picture, and not a ‘plan’ understood as the ‘organisation of future activities’. In addition, it was bypassed by economic decisions: for example, the largest at that time in Europe—Katowice Steelworks was constructed without any indication of such a major investment in this Plan. Poland entered the 1980s with social and political turmoil (the emergence of Solidarity, officially a trade union, in fact a wide social political movement, if not even a ‘fuzzy’ political party, and imposition of martial law on 13 December 1981) and total economic collapse. The ‘economy of shortage’ strengthened over the years and a rationing system for a growing number of commodities was gradually introduced. The main mistake of the ruling authorities at that time was to attempt to overcome the 1979–1982 crisis by restoring the pre-crisis economic structures, i.e. heavy industry, coal mining, basic chemistry, cement production, etc., instead of accelerating technological progress and modernising institutions and economic mechanisms. This led to even greater market imbalances and a deeper economic crisis at the end of the 1980s. In the period of recession of 1979–1982, the less-developed, peripheral, relatively poorly industrialised regions demonstrated greater resilience due to the fact that industry suffered the most, and in the situation of food shortages, agriculture profited. This tendency was reinforced by massive investment directed to the capital towns of newly created administrative regions (voivodeships): often relatively small

2

It has to be remembered that this reform went against the European stream: France, Italy and Spain introduced new larger regions that replace or supplemented small territorial units.

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towns (50–70 thousand inhabitants) were equipped with large administrative buildings (communist party committees, police headquarters, a theatre, sometimes philharmonic hall, etc.). Moreover, these towns enjoyed rapid growth of employment in state administration. These processes strengthened a widely observed pattern according to which during the times of recession the less-developed regions suffer less, but in the phase of (even slow) recovery the more developed, industrialised, and urbanised regions are usually able to grow relatively faster. In spite of preparing the Spatial Plan, neither in the 1970s nor in the 1980s was there any active regional policy whatsoever, and regional development was subordinated to the sectoral processes. Until the mid-1970s, forceful industrialisation was the mostly pronounced feature of the pattern of economic development. It led to over-concentration in several regions (Upper Silesia is an extreme example), to the development of monofunctional industrial districts, several ‘company towns’ with one big industrial plant providing jobs, incomes and services, to crippled urbanisation (underdeveloped services, poor housing, see Szelenyi 1981), and a devastated natural environment. Poland was not much different from other socialist countries, although only in Poland the decade of the 1980s was the period of strong political tensions (which led to the Round Table and peaceful transition of power to the anti-socialist opposition in the mid-1989) and the dramatic collapse of the consumer market.

2.3 The Regional Patterns of the 1989–1992 Recession Hyperinflation, the collapse of several industrial plants, deep changes in the agricultural ownership structure (the demise of inefficient state farms), unprecedented unemployment with growing niches of poverty, and rapid institutional changes shaped the socio-economic reality of Poland at the beginning of the post-socialist transition. It took at least two or three years to return to the track of economic growth: Poland was the first country in the post-Soviet bloc to pull out of the recession (mid-1992), and the rest of the region followed later. The general picture of the first phase of the transformation is presented in detail in the chapter by Professor Leszek Balcerowicz in this volume, so here only the regional patterns will be discussed.3 In general, the post-socialist transformation led to four types of regional reactions to the new situation (see Table 2.1). 1.

3

The leaders were the big cities and their surroundings. In the socialist economy, driven by industry, these had been the strongest nodes of the territorial system of the country. At the beginning of the transformation, they already went through the process of restructuring, mostly relying on deindustrialisation. However, owing to their diversified socio-economic structures and good transport connectivity, they were able to offer the best location conditions for the most dynamic sectors—internationally connected services (financial, managerial, tourist, scientific, etc.) and high-quality commerce, in the majority of cases

More on this in Gorzelak 1994.

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Table 2.1 Regional reactions to the post-socialist transformation Reaction to transformation Position in the socialist economy

Positive

Negative

Strong

Leaders Positive continuity Metropolises and capital cities Diversified economy, skilled labour, good infrastructure, and rich institutions

Losers Negative discontinuity Industrial regions Specialised industry, derelict land, biased qualifications

Weak

Winners Positive discontinuity Tourist and re-industrialised regions Temporarily western regions External demand for their potentials

Laggards Negative continuity Rural, peripheral Poorly accessible, obsolete structures, low qualifications, outmigration

Source Gorzelak (1994)

2.

developed with the involvement of foreign capital. These cities also concentrated rapidly developing higher education establishments and scientific institutions. Suburban rings were growing even faster due to the rapid and, in most cases, uncontrolled suburbanisation of the residential areas of the middle and upper classes. Warsaw and other large cities (Krakow, Pozna´n, Wrocław, Tri-City of Gdansk-Gdynia-Sopot, with their populations of over half a million inhabitants) are the examples of the leaders of the transformation. The losers were the old industrial districts which had played an important role in the socialist economy, attracting migrants from the countryside and offering highly paid jobs. However, their economies were not diversified, living conditions were relatively poor (despite high incomes in the concentrations of heavy industries) due to crippled urbanisation, the qualifications of the labour force were relatively low and too strongly specialised, and the natural environment deteriorated. As a result, the collapse of manufacturing and light industries was deep, in several cases very painful like in many ‘company towns’ dominated by one big industrial plant (see box below). The city and region of Łód´z, concentrating light (textile, clothing) industries with high shares of poorly paid female employment, suffered greatly, and its ‘big city’ dimension was overwhelmed by deterioration of economic and social fabric. The coal-and-steel region of Upper Silesia was sheltered by social and economic policies, since it enjoyed high economic (almost total dependence of energy production on coal) and political power. The regions of western and northern Poland with the established state-owned agricultural farms (they were created on the basis of former large holdings of German owners who had left and/or had been expelled after World War II) suffered greatly. Owing to their economic inefficiency, these farms were

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strongly subsidised during the socialist times and when these subsidies were suddenly withdrawn at the beginning of the transformation, the majority of them collapsed, creating very serious problems on local labour markets. Unemployment soared in some areas to 40–50%, and finding a new job for poorly educated former farm employees was impossible. Also, the Walbrzych region in the south-western part of the country, where hard coal was finally exhausted, represented another concentration of such problems. Łód´z, at that time the second largest city in Poland with a population approaching one million, together with adjacent towns lost several mostly female jobs in the textile industry due to massive imports of clothes from the Far East and Turkey.

Starachowice in eastern Poland is an excellent example of painful industrial restructuring. In the years 1948–1991, the ‘STAR’ Truck Factory operated in the town, specialising in the production of light and medium trucks. Starachowice, from a small urban settlement, became one of the largest cities in the region with 60,000 population, providing employment for most of the working people. At its peak, the factory employed over 20,000 workers, also commuters from adjacent areas. The factory provided most of municipal services: housing, heating, vocational training, sport facilities and clubs, holiday resorts, even shops, and daily services. Opening the country to imports in 1990 dramatically diminished demand for obsolete STAR trucks: transport companies began to purchase secondhand trucks in Western Europe. The production collapsed from approximately 26,000 trucks to mere 1600, and employment to 6000 persons (four people produced 1 truck per year!). As a result, unemployment soared to over 25%, caused by redundancies in the ‘STAR’ Truck Factory. The privatised factory cut its municipal and social responsibilities. The decline of the factory also led to a decline of the town of Starachowice, and recovery was long and painful.

3.

The winners were the regions whose potential had been overlooked in the socialist, industry-driven pattern of development, but which were given a chance in response to emerging domestic and foreign demand in the open, competitive economy. These were tourist regions, the regions bordering Germany and some industrial districts that after having gone through the period of decline were able to attract new investors, in most cases foreign ones—the regions in which re-industrialisation occurred (such as Rzeszów region in east-southern Poland). The border towns, especially on the western Polish border, enjoyed an inflow of external demand in the form of consumers from Germany flooding for cheaper commodities and services. However, this was often based on illegal types of economic activity. It has to be stressed that the suddenly earned incomes were

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not reinvested in economic undertakings and at most helped to finance new municipal investments and boost the material wealth of the inhabitants. After the equalisation of price levels, the border location ceased to be an advantage and has remained an impediment to growth (this is a general rule in most Central and Eastern European countries, see Gorzelak and Sm˛etkowski 2010). The laggards were the eastern regions (located behind the frontier of medieval modernisation, in Poland this was, basically, the Vistula river, see Gorzelak and Jałowiecki 2002) and several border regions (located on the external borders of the EU). Agriculture has always had an important role in their socio-economic structure, but agricultural culture, as well as the agrarian structure, has not supported high productivity. The level of education is lower than elsewhere. They are less developed and lack major urban centres, as well as major modern transport infrastructure. The majority of these regions are losing the population due to outmigration to larger cities and abroad. Most of them are not attractive for foreign capital, and domestic capital is scarce. As some research illustrates, the capabilities for efficient local governance are also lower in such regions (Gorzelak 2020).

2.4 Regional Policies in the Wake of the Transformation 2.4.1 General Overview During the beginning of the transformation period, a comprehensive regional policy was not formulated in any of the CEE countries, Poland included. Their governments, overwhelmed by social and economic problems and by the need of rapid institutional changes, did not consider the regional issues to be particularly important. In Poland—similarly to Hungary and Czechoslovakia—the territorial aspects were only highlighted in some sectoral policies only, especially in reaction to unemployment that had exploded in some regions. The regional policies throughout Central and Eastern Europe—as ineffective as they were—were targeted at less-developed peripheral regions and to regions suffering a serious industrial decline. The reactive doctrine of ‘crisis solving’ was sometimes adopted and what was very rarely applied were pro-active activities, directed towards enhancing the innovative environment in relatively more developed regions, which already displayed some potential for global competition. The neo-liberal doctrine4 adopted by the non-communist government did not provide much room for state intervention or for state-financed programmes and projects besides financing social policies. It was hoped that ‘the Market’ would solve the current problems of the economy and that the regional development of 4

I am far from blaming this approach. Personally, I am convinced that the “shock therapy” was the best possible way of coping with transformation, and any “gradual” trajectories would lead slower recovery with even higher overall social and economic costs.

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the country and development of particular regions should be left to ‘natural market forces’. Proposals for regional state policy were based on defensive assumptions, oriented towards reacting to processes and phenomena that had already emerged (like unemployment). However, due to the acute shortage of resources, these attempts were generally unsuccessful. Moreover, many people were of the opinion that concentrating on regions that had just entered the painful process of restructuring—those, in which negative processes prevailed—would lead to a petrification of old regional structures and would countervail the restructuring as such. Prospective approaches to the processes that could possibly occur were not frequent enough. Thus, the existing assumptions of regional policies were directed towards facilitating the reform of the national economy, but were rooted in the past doctrines of supporting the places facing current difficulties and problems. However, after the first years of the ‘shock therapy’, other options in state regional policies began to emerge. The principle of efficiency became recognised, and the possibility of assisting the strong regions (the ‘locomotives of progress and development’) was also taken into consideration. Such a regional policy could be labelled as ‘positive’ (as opposed to the ‘reactive’ one presented above), i.e. focussing on regions which could become the nuclei of modernisation and progress in a troubled economy under transition. This orientation of regional/spatial policy was soon included in the major document called ‘The concept of the spatial policy of the state’, presented later in this chapter.

2.4.2 Instruments of Territorial Reactions to Restructuring Processes Territorial differences in granting unemployment allowances and periods of eligibility for them was the first and the most general instrument of coping with territorial problems of restructuring. In May 1991, a relatively short list of municipalities endangered by structural unemployment was published, indicating all municipalities from two regions (Wałbrzych and Łód´z), and a further 44 municipalities from additional four regions. Along with growing unemployment, these lists were enlarged, to embrace municipalities from 27 out of 49 administrative regions. These registers indicated localities in which unemployment allowances could be paid for longer periods, the retirement age could be lowered by 5 years, accelerated appreciation could be applied for firms, and public works could be co-financed from state funds. These measures were mostly passive in character and had more social than economic impact. In 1994, the government began to create special economic zones (SEZ)—an instrument known for several years which appeared in CEE as early as in the 1980s (in Bulgaria in 1987). Basically, these zones were established in two types of regions: peripheral with high unemployment and low chances of growth, and in industrial districts undergoing restructuring. Sometimes, a zone was created in order to attract

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an investor who expected tax relief and threatened to invest somewhere else. Also, special economic zones were created in order to gain political support in some regions—before the election in 1997 the outgoing Minister of Ownership Transformations was travelling around the country spreading promises to establish a zone here and there. The zones proliferated, and sometimes, a ‘subzone’ was created several hundreds of kilometres from the original zone. Analyses have also shown that, in general, the zones did not bring clear economic gains as there emerged several adverse effects. Only the zones, which exploited previous industrial traditions, had companies mutually cooperating and had ties with the regional environment outside the zone, became effective, and have proved the rationale of their creation.

The first special economic zone—EURO-PARK MIELEC—was established in 1995, after the collapse of the local industrial monoculture during the transformation of the Polish economy, inheriting from the fallen factories not only huge free production capacities, but also industrial traditions and culture, and above all local human capital. Origins of industry in the area date from the COP times (see the first box). The zone attracted investors from all over the world, mostly to the following industries: aviation, automotive, plastics, furniture, IT, wood processing, food processing, and pharmaceuticals. 449 permissions were granted, over 45 thousand jobs created, and 3.5 billion USD invested. This has been one of the greatest successes of a zone as such, as well as industrial restructuring in Poland. https://europark.arp.pl/en Regional and local development agencies and business support organisations began to spread at the beginning of the transformation. Regionally, it was usually the representative of the state—the head of the regional administration—who contributed to the initial capital of the agency; on the local level, these were local governments (see Sect. 2.4.3). They were created mostly in order to overcome the industrial decline, in many cases in the ‘company towns’. These organisations became instrumental in helping businesses to adapt to the new situation and regulations, acquire new skills and knowledge necessary to operate in a new institutional and legal setting, provide financial support to newly established or restructured firms, establish industrial parks, and train and re-train people seeking new jobs (Gorzelak et al. 1998). Many of these agencies have survived the ‘pioneering’ period and function even today with visible benefits for local and regional development. Some of them manage the special economic zones, which allows them to cooperate with larger investors. Such examples as the Biłgoraj Agency are numerous around the country, and they undoubtedly support local development in multiple ways.

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Biłgoraj Regional Development Agency S.A. (BARR), located in the southeastern part of Poland, was established in 1994 on the initiative of the Economic Society and the Mayor of the City of Biłgoraj in order to provide comprehensive support for the development of the town of Biłgoraj and the region. In the past, within BARR there were also other organisational units, including Credit Guarantee Fund, EU Information Centre, Agro-Info Centre, and Commune Information Centre. BARR conducted numerous projects. The Local Initiative Programme (PIL—Phare) in Biłgoraj ended successfully. The project ‘Zamo´sc´ Centre of Investment Promotion’ received support from Phare—INVESTPROM Programme. BARR benefited also from the EQUAL Community Initiative. It also conducted activation programmes for the unemployed and young people entering the labour market, as well as for women, giving them the opportunity to gain new professional qualifications. https://www.barr.org.pl/

2.4.3 Decentralisation Just after 1990, the restoration of democratic local government was an important part of the political agenda of virtually all countries in Central and Eastern Europe, and no doubt Poland was a forerunner in this respect, where the first in the entire post-Soviet bloc fully democratic local election after World War II was organised as early as 27th May 1990. From the very beginning, the territorial government in Poland has had the widest competencies among the CEE countries, comparable to the Nordic countries, Switzerland and Germany (Ladner et al. 2016). The vast majority of Polish municipalities (there were slightly fewer than 2500, and this number is still valid) have not changed their boundaries, contrary to many other CEE countries where the fragmentation took place and the number of units increased sometimes dramatically (Swianiewicz 2020). However, the very political and economic system they operated in was a completely new one. The former vertical subordination of the lower tiers to the upper ones was abolished. A fully independent self-government was restored, and the control over its decisions could since then be exerted only from the legal point of view. Local governments had their own revenues, composed partly of the fixed shares of the state taxes (PIT and CIT), local taxes, and other sources (like licences, incomes from municipal property, fines, etc.). The process of municipalisation of state-owned assets also began. It was estimated that during the first term of local governments they added some three quarters of the new municipal facilities constructed so far. Investment efforts in water pipe installations, sewage, waste water treatment plants, local roads, etc., were

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tremendous. Since 1996, local governments have been responsible for financing and managing primary schools, but many of them undertook this task earlier. They are also responsible for basic healthcare services. Local governments take also part in several activities in the area of business support and business promotion, and many of them have established active relationships with their citizens (Gorzelak 2019). The next stages of decentralisation reform, already discussed from the very beginning of the transformation—the establishment of larger regions (voivodeships) and the restoration of the middle-tier territorial government, the county (Polish powiat, abolished by the 1975 reform)—were suddenly stopped by the collapse of the government in 1993 which was voted out by the majority of one (!) parliamentary vote. This reform was able to be implemented only after several years, in 1999. Instead of the 49 small ‘regions’ subordinated to the national government, 16 large voivodeships were created and 315 poviats (plus 65 towns with poviat status) were restored. At present, there is a three-tier system of local/regional government in Poland, with two lower tiers of self-government, and the presence of a ‘dual’ power on a regional level: the elected body with its ‘marshal’ and the representative of the state government. One has to admit that according to several opinions—fully shared by the author of this chapter—local government along with private entrepreneurs ought to be praised for being the main factors behind the undoubted success of the Polish transformation. Local governments—and later regional ones—not only stimulated economic growth and improvement in infrastructure, but also were the schools of democracy and encouraged the emergence of community awareness among citizens of villages, towns, and cities. The restoration of local governments allowed intermunicipal agreements and associations to be supported. Several hundred of them emerged, and their activities were directed towards several goals, of which two appeared the most important: building local infrastructure and supporting tourist development. Two such initiatives are worth mentioning.

The Special Purpose Association of Municipalities CZG-12 was created in 1997 in western Poland for recycling and selective waste collection in 12 municipalities which joined the association, with some 150 thousand inhabitants. With the assistance of the Cross-Border Cooperation Programme PolandGermany, a modern plant for recycling was constructed, offering 80 jobs to a local community. From the very beginning, wide educational effort was undertaken, targeted mainly at school pupils, to secure proper waste selection and collection in households. Local waste landfills were closed down. This was the first intermunicipal association for this purpose in the country and still operates successfully today. Even earlier (1991) the Tourist-6 association was established in the southwestern corner of Poland. Its goal was to promote and facilitate tourist services in this attractive area which was undergoing both industrial and

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tourist restructuring (spa resorts have been concentrated in this region since nineteenth century). The tourist information network was established, promotional campaign was launched, and several events were organised. The association was dissolved after several years of functioning—unfortunately, the local leaders came to the conclusion that their municipalities can develop tourist services by themselves, with a loss of potential yet to be fully exploited.

2.4.4 Preparation for the Accession As early as in 1989, as part of an important move towards future EU accession, the European Commission launched the PHARE programme (Poland and Hungary: Assistance for Restructuring their Economies), soon extended to other CEE candidate countries. A component of the regional policy was also present in the PHARE programme, since the distribution of the EU support (supplemented by national funds) was directed at investment in infrastructure, regional development, transport, telecommunications, development of small and medium-sized enterprises, and crossborder cooperation. These priorities consumed approximately 70% of all PHARE outlays. There were also projects supporting local governments and institution building for training local government officials.

With the support of the PHARE programme in the years 1991–1993, the Local Initiatives Programme spread all around the country and was implemented in 9 municipalities, which were selected on a competitive basis. In 8 municipalities, surety funds were set up for local entrepreneurs. These funds consumed approximately two-fifths to two-thirds of the total amount allotted to these municipalities. In only one case, half of the funds were used to renovate the old town, and the rest was assigned to various undertakings related to tourism. In five municipalities, local business support institutions were established (incubator, advisory centre, promotional centre, etc.). In three of them, very successful mutual guarantee funds were created (replacing the original surety funds) and gained a high degree of trust among both local entrepreneurs and large financial institutions.

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The evaluation of the results of this initiative after several years revealed that institution building was the most effective means of securing stable local development. Moreover, it appeared that only when local potentials (i.e. the leader, the elite, businesses, and social mobilisation) were strong enough to make efficient use of the external resources, the final success could be achieved. When accession approached, by the end of the 1990s two new important EU programmes were launched which shaped the regional policies pursued in the CEE counties, Poland included: Instrument for Structural Policies for Pre-Accession (ISPA) and Special Accession Programme for Agriculture and Rural Development (SAPARD). The former aimed at preparing the accession countries for the EU’s Cohesion Policy, and especially the future use of the Cohesion Fund, and the latter was designed to introduce the future member states to the principles of the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP). These instruments are described in more detail in another chapter in this book. It ought to be stressed that the reform of the territorial organisation of the state— the establishment of large voivodeships—paved the way for the full participation of Poland in Cohesion Policy for which the new member states became eligible after accession to the EU. Along with the emergence of these regions, the institution of regional contract was created in Poland as early as in 2000, and since 2007, this institution, assuming the form of the regional operational programme, has shaped the relations within a triangle: the regions—the government—the European Commission.

2.5 Equity or Efficiency? The regional policies conducted in Poland, similarly to other CEE countries at the beginning of the transformation, were not rooted in theoretical foundations and in most cases were based on pragmatic assumptions, often copied from Western European countries. This was in spite of massive theoretical and empirical experience gathered over time in the field of regional studies in Poland and in other countries of the region—these studies were well connected with the global discourse on regional policy at that time (see, e.g. Gorzelak and Kukli´nski 1992). After the very critical research project ‘Diagnosis of the state of the Polish spatial economy’ elaborated in the years 1981–1983 by the Polish Academy of Sciences under the leadership of Antoni Kukli´nski, discussions began regarding the shape of the new spatial plan for Poland. During these discussions, two standpoints were

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clearly formulated, each promoting one of the opposing poles ‘equity’ and ‘efficiency’.5 However, as the country was in stagnation in the 1980s and later entered into a deep recession, no conclusions were drawn at that time, and—as already stated in this chapter—no regional/spatial policy was conducted at that time. This discourse was revived in the mid-1990s when the country embarked on a path of growth. According to the requirements of the law on spatial policy and planning of 1993, ‘The concept of spatial development policy of the state’ was discussed and elaborated in the years 1995–1997 and finally approved in 2001 (it was a rare example when the new government accepted documents prepared by the previous one). In this document, it was explicitly stated that ‘the priority of efficiency before equity is now a necessity of Polish reality and an opportunity to overcome the civilizational delay. There is a need to accept the natural tendency for the market economy to polarise spatial development as the shortest way to achieve efficiency, by concentrating socioeconomic activity in the locations most favourable for capital’. Such a blunt statement in favour of territorial polarisation was unique among the countries of CEE. The concept introduced the category of ‘europoles’, i.e. cities that should be visible on the map of Europe (pressure was very strong even from middle-sized towns to be included in this group), and plans for transportation infrastructure were subordinated to the transit routes crossing Poland, with a priority on east–west connections. Moreover, two types of areas were indicated: the part of Poland which would gain the most from prospected membership in the EU, and the peripheral territories (in the east, west, and in Middle and Western Pomerania) which would need assistance in order to overcome structural stagnation. Additionally, concentrations of industry restructuring were specified (Upper Silesia being the largest of them). This concept has never been implemented in practice (as two other documents of that type that were prepared in 2005 and 2012). However, its approach to solving the efficiency-equity dilemma was retained—at least nominally—until 2015. In 2005, the concept of 2001 was updated by a new document which followed the new regulation adopted in 2003. The ‘efficiency’ principle was retained, and the ‘europoles’ were replaced by 11 metropolitan regions (8 already established and further 3 developing). The biggest change related to the new priorities of transport infrastructure construction is as follows: east–west transit was considered as of tertiary importance, and priority was given to establishing fast and reliable connections between biggest Polish cities and between them and their hinterlands. This document was approved by the outgoing government, but the new one abandoned it. In 2012, a more elaborate Concept was prepared and adopted by the government and Parliament. In general, it repeated the basic assumptions of the former document, and—unfortunately—lay idle, since neither the previous ruling parties, nor the current ones have paid much attention to its content. However, in 2020 this document was considered as non-binding, since the current government seems to neglect all previously prepared policy statements.

5

It has to be admitted that I have always agreed with “efficiency’ as the main principle of Polish spatial and regional policy and promoted it in this and consecutive discussions and deliberations.

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In the meantime, a very intellectually advanced study for the national strategy ‘Poland 2030’ was prepared in 2013 within the office of the prime minister. In chapters devoted to regional polices, a doctrine of ‘polarisation and diffusion’6 was formulated, according to which the strongest nodes of the spatial-functional system of the country (the metropolises) should be strengthened, and the diffusion processes to their hinterlands encouraged and supported (Churski 2014). As with the entire document, these suggestions have also failed to be put into practice, since this study has never acquired the status of an official national strategy. The priority of efficiency over equity and the doctrine of polarisation and diffusion had not been challenged up to the most recent changes in the ideological orientation introduced in 2015 by the current government, which has switched back to the principles of equalisation. As before, the new priorities specifying rural areas and smalland medium-sized towns remain on paper, since in fact no active regional policy is being conducted in Poland.

2.6 Under the Umbrella of Cohesion Policy Since 2004, and in fact since 2007 when 16 regional operational programmes (ROPs) were launched, national regional policy has almost totally been subordinated to Cohesion Policy, both in terms of financing and goals (Faragó and Mezei 2018). Cohesion Policy funds finance up to 60% of spending on public investment. It is striking that the priorities of the regional operational programmes in all new member states have demonstrated strong similarity, in spite of the differences between these countries and their developmental problems (Gorzelak 2020). In Poland, ROPs include all priorities specified within Cohesion Policy. In the institutional sphere, the subordination of regional policy to Cohesion Policy can be observed through relations between departments responsible for preparation of regional strategies and the regional operational programmes. Ideally, the regional strategy should precede the ROP. In practice, in several regional offices the teams responsible for the strategies adapted their documents to the ROPs that had been already agreed with the national government and the European Commission (Gorzelak 2020). It ought to be admitted, however, that in the period 2004–2015 Poland had a relatively important impact on the principles and reforms of Cohesion Policy. The shift from understanding territorial cohesion in equalisation terms to its functional meaning was used to some extent by the Polish standpoint adopted in the Green Paper on territorial cohesion (see Bachtler and Gorzelak 2007). The establishment of a successful institution of Integrated Territorial Investments was, to a great extent, induced by ideas originating from the Polish government. Furthermore, recently Polish experts have contributed to an influential paper on reforming Cohesion Policy 6

This was not the fortunate term. Several times I suggested to use instead a more modest and less antagonising notion of “concentration and diffusion”, but this advice was not taken.

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(Bachtler et al. 2017). Unfortunately, after 2015 these influences ceased to exist, although some impact is exerted by a few Polish members of the European Parliament who deal with regional and urban policies there. As demonstrated elsewhere (Gorzelak and Sm˛etkowski 2020), for over 20 years the measures undertaken in order to diminish regional differences in the CEE countries, Poland included, have not been able to overcome polarisation processes that clearly dominate their territorial structures, caused mainly by accelerated metropolisation. Only in the largest cities, knowledge-intensive and high value-added services (banks, financial organisations, consultancy firms, media companies, managements of multinationals, etc.)—with wide involvement of foreign capital—could develop, and only in metropolitan centres, these new businesses could replace declining industries (major cities of CEE are nowadays almost industry free). As a result, the regional differences grew constantly in the period 2000–2011 (as well as before 2000). However, after the financial crisis, a slight regional convergence in Poland (as well as in other CEE countries) can be observed. Can this be attributed to the effects of Cohesion Policy and its funds? Gorzelak and Sm˛etkowski (2020) present several tentative explanations of this phenomenon: • Poland, like most CEE countries, may follow ‘Williamson’s curve’ of inverted U-letter, according to which territorial differences grow at the beginning of the process of economic growth, and after the point of reaching a ‘mature’ socioeconomic structure and a certain level of wealth, these differences tend to decline; • migrations from less-developed (often rural) regions to cities influence per capita GDP, increasing it in the countryside and decreasing in the cities; • transfers from CAP are directed mostly to peripheral rural regions, increasing their overall level of GDP. One should remember that these transfers equal approximately half of transfers from Cohesion Policy; • finally, Cohesion Policy may exert its equalising effect, especially through the construction of major transport infrastructure crossing less-developed regions, making them more accessible to the sources on investment and innovation (but also increasing propensity for outmigration). At the moment, it is too early to precisely explain the factors responsible for equalising patterns in most CEE countries, particularly in Poland. Therefore, any firm predictions about future tendencies would be premature at the moment, especially due to the unknown future effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the most recent aggression of Russia on Ukraine. Finally, in literature the issue of demand-side and supply-side effects of Cohesion Policy has been discussed (see for example Bradley et al. 2006). Until now, it should be rather presumed that demand-side prevail over supply-side effects, as can be substantiated by the still low propensity of CEE economies—Bulgarian, Romanian and Polish in particular—for innovation-intensive growth (Churski and Dominiak 2014) and by permanently benefitting from relatively low costs of production (Gorzelak 2017). Also, the representatives of local governments in Poland do confirm this hypothesis, indicating that the ‘civilisational’ gains stemming from the

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EU funds (like the higher standard of living and better environment) strongly prevail over purely economic ones (Gorzelak and Przekop-Wi´sniewska 2021).

2.7 Conclusions Throughout the entire period following 1990 (as well as before), the regional policies in Poland were a weak partner for sectoral approaches, although after the establishment of larger regional units in 1999 (voivodeships) the regional dimension of socioeconomic development grew in importance considerably. Having said that, one has to remember that the development policies implemented by the regions themselves have been subordinated to a great degree to the general goals and principles of Cohesion Policy which delivered funds in the form of regional operational programmes. The territorial processes were shaped to a much greater extent by the overall economic phenomena, and the influence of regional policy was relatively weak. It ought to be admitted though that both the transformation prior to the full membership in the EU and the impact of the EU policies and funds dedicated to Poland have changed the Polish socio-economic and environmental landscapes considerably, in economic, social, and civilisational terms. The role of local government in these changes cannot be underestimated. The future of regional development of Poland is difficult to predict. On the one hand, the recession caused by the COVID pandemic has not led to a strengthening of equalisation tendencies, since the metropolitan cores have not been negatively affected by the lockdowns and the shift to tele-work. It is also not clear if the accelerated growth of some of the less-developed territories will be maintained. Moreover, the massive inflow of Ukrainian refugees will affect the regional distribution of people, but it is still unclear to what extent it will be durable. Nevertheless, regional policy—if conducted at all (Gorzelak 2021)—will contribute to these changes in a modest way, as it has been the case in the past.

References Alexiadis S (2018) The dilemma of regional policy increasing ‘efficiency’ or improving ‘equity’? Palgrave Macmillan, New York Bachtler J, Gorzelak G (2007) Reforming EU Cohesion Policy. A reappraisal of the performance of the structural funds. Policy Stud 28(4):309–326 ˙ Bachtler J, Martins JO, Wostner P, Zuber P (2017) Towards Cohesion Policy 4.0: structural transformation and inclusive growth. RSA. https://www.regionalstudies.org/news/towards-cohesionpolicy-4-0-structural-transformation-and-inclusive-growth/ Bradley J, Untiedt G, Mitze T (2006) Analysis of the impact of Cohesion Policy. A note explaining the HERMIN-based simulations. https://tiny.pl/7nqrm Churski P (2014) The polarization-diffusion model in changes to cohesion policy—consequences for direction of growth policy. In: The social and economic growth vs. the emergence of economic growth and stagnation areas. Bogucki Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Pozna´n, pp 13–28

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Churski P, Dominiak J (2014) The impact of innovations on growth and stagnation regions in Poland. Eur Plan Stud 22(6):1143–1164 Faragó L, Mezei C (2018) Managing regional disparities. In: Lux G, Horváth G (eds) The Routledge handbook to regional development in Central and Eastern Europe. Routledge, Oxon-New York Gorzelak G (1994) The regional patterns of Polish transformation. In: Hajdu Z, Horvath G (eds) European challenges and Hungarian responses in regional policy. Centre for Regional Studies, Pecs, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, pp 297–317 Gorzelak G (2017) Cohesion policy and regional development. In: Hardy S, Bachtler J, Berkowitz P, Muravska T (eds) EU Cohesion Policy. Reassessing performance and direction. Routledge, Abingdon-New York, pp 33–54 Gorzelak G (2019) Regional and historic dimensions of local government performance in Poland. Pol Sociol Rev 1:33–50 Gorzelak G (2020) Regional policies in East-Central Europe. In: Fisher M, Nijkampl P (eds) Handbook of regional science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg Gorzelak G (2021) Polish regional and spatial planning, a short account of the 20th plus century. In: Briesen D, Strubelt W (eds) Spatial planning and spatial research in Europe between 1945 and 1975—between traditions and new beginnings. ARL, Hannover (forthcoming) Gorzelak G, Jałowiecki B (2002) European boundaries: unity or division of the continent? Reg Stud 36(4):409–419 Gorzelak G, Kukli´nski A (eds) (1992) Dilemmas of regional policies in Eastern and Central European countries under transition. EUROREG, Warszawa Gorzelak G, Przekop-Wi´sniewska E (2021) European Union funds in Poland: sociological, institutional and economic evaluations. Pol Sociol Rev 4/2021 (forthcoming) Gorzelak G, Sm˛etkowski M (2010) Regional development dynamics in Central and Eastern European countries. In: Gorzelak G, Bachtler J, Sm˛etkowski M (eds) Regional development in Central and Eastern Europe. Development processes and policy challenges. Routledge, Oxon-New York, pp 34–58 Gorzelak G, Sm˛etkowski M (2020) Regional dynamics the CEE countries. In: Gorzelak G (ed) Social and economic development in Central and Eastern Europe: stability and change after 1990. Routledge, New York-London, pp 207–224 Gorzelak G, Kozak M, Roszkowski W (1998) Regional development agencies in Poland. In: Halkier H, Danson M, Damborg Ch (eds) Regional development agencies in Europe. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, London Kornai J (2006) The great transformation of Central Eastern Europe: success and disappointment. In: 14th world congress of I.E.A., Presidential Address, Marrakech Ladner A, Keuffer N, Baldersheim H (2016) Measuring local autonomy in 39 countries (1990– 2014). Reg Fed Stud 26(3):321–357 Swianiewicz P (2020) Local government. Progress in decentralization. In: Gorzelak G (ed) Social and economic development in Central and Eastern Europe: stability and change after 1990. Routledge, New York-London, pp 54–74 Szelenyi I (1981) Urban development and regional management in Eastern Europe. Theory Soc 10(2):169–205 Van Dijk J, Folmer H, Oosterhaven J (2019) Regional policy: rationale, foundations and measurement of its effects. In: Capello R, Nijkamp P (eds) Handbook of regional growth and development theories. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, Northampton, pp 550–575

Chapter 3

Geographical and Historical Background of the Transformation: Politics and Society Robert Perdał

Abstract The aim of this chapter is to briefly present a historical background of the political, social and economic circumstances that have partially determined processes of transformation in Poland. Poland’s geopolitical location and the actual absence of the Polish state at the time of the rise of capitalism in Europe has had a strong impact on Poland’s social and economic development. For over 120 years, the three partitioning states made decisions about the directions in which Polish territories would develop, including the location and evolution of industry and social progress, following their own policies. After Poland regained independence, the three separate state entities with divergent structures and organisations of society and the economy had to stand united, and a coherent policy of socio-economic growth was required. When the endeavour began to succeed, another war broke out and the forces in Europe were reconfigured. Poland, like other countries of Central and Eastern Europe, became a satellite of the USSR, which involved the elaboration of a centrally planned socialist economy subordinated to the economic policy of the USSR. Thus, for the next half century, Poland stopped making decisions on its own development. The interwar period and the communist era strongly reshaped the social and economic growth of the country. The institutions created and developed during the partitions and the socialist era became strongly rooted in society and the economy. They continue to be visible, even though 100 and sometimes even 200 years have passed since many events. Thus, historical legacy is evident in the processes of transformation, the manner of spatial development and the social and economic practices of Poles. Keywords History · Social and economic development · Partitions · People’s Republic of Poland · Poland

R. Perdał (B) Faculty of Human Geography and Planning, Adam Mickiewicz University, B. Krygowskiego 10, 61-680 Pozna´n, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Churski and T. Kaczmarek (eds.), Three Decades of Polish Socio-economic Transformations, Economic Geography, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06108-0_3

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3.1 Introduction In his reflections on the areas of global capitalism, Harvey (2005) attempted to explicate the theory of geographically uneven development. Explaining the relational space-time continuum, which seems to be (and perhaps should be) the most important reference point for geographers, he stressed that ‘an event or a thing at a point in space cannot be understood by appeal to what exists only at that point. It depends upon everything else going on around it (…). A wide variety of disparate influences swirling over space in the past, present and future concentrate and congeal at a certain point (…) to define the nature of that point’ (Harvey 2005: 96). So, on the one hand, the key word is space, because from a geographical point of view, it seems to be what adequately determines the way we understand socio-economic processes and, on the other hand, the role of the historical past is not to be underestimated. Therefore, understanding the present requires knowledge and an understanding of the past. This approach is in line with the tradition of the school of German historicism, which postulates that economic (social) phenomena should be viewed through the lens of a nation and an era, because economic laws and principles are determined by them. All the more so because, as North (1986, 2005) points out, formal norms will be consistent with historically inherited informal norms, since institutions are the legacy of the past. As Williamson (2000) puts it, informal institutions (culture, tradition, customs), created by spontaneous development, impose restrictions on the institutional environment, determined by formal norms (state systems, legal instruments, justice systems). Therefore, institutions created in the historical process may be treated as a kind of knowledge, with a caveat proposed by North (2005: viii): ‘human learning is more than the accumulation of the experiences of an individual over a lifetime. It is also the cumulative experiences of past generations. The cumulative learning of a society embodied in language, human memory and symbol storage systems includes beliefs, myths, ways of doing things that make up the culture of a society. Culture not only determines societal performance at a moment of time but, through the way in which its scaffolding constrains the players, contributes to the process of change through time’. The rather general points stated above come close to the position of historical institutionalism (HI). In turn, the main currents of contemporary economic geography, namely institutional economic geography (IEG) and evolutionary economic geography (EEG), discussed at length by Boschma and Frenken (2006), strongly refer to this trend. Martin (2000: 79) states that ‘the basic problem of institutional economic geography can be defined as seeking an answer to the following question: “to what extent and in what ways are the processes of geographically uneven capitalist economic development shaped and mediated by the institutional structures in and through which those processes take place?”’ The focus is on the role of institutions and their quality as one of the factors in the spatial diversity of development of individual countries or regions (Acemoglu and Robinson 2012). In countries undergoing a systemic transformation, such as Poland, particular attention is paid to institutional

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changes and spatial mechanisms of adjusting economic entities to the new institutional order (Stachowiak and Stryjakiewicz 2008). This leads to the conclusion that the choices made earlier and the sequence of events influence the present status of institutions. In a sense, Polanyi (1944), a Hungarian historian and anthropologist, was a precursor of historical institutionalism. As he states in the Great Transformation, in the period he analysed (1815–1914), the development of a capitalist economy was driven to a lesser extent by the behaviour of individual people striving to maximise their usefulness but above all by the political balance of powers shaped after the Congress of Vienna, the establishment of the gold standard in international trade and the development of the concept of economic liberalism. Economic relations are embedded in economic and non-economic institutions, and a utopian vision in which the market is the best regulator of reality is dangerous. Embeddedness means that economic and social processes are integrated because they are always influenced by institutional conditions that form certain patterns of behaviour and responses to change. The essence of this phenomenon was creatively developed by Granovetter (1985), who claimed that all economic activities are embedded in networks of social relations and that the socio-cultural environment both influences and is influenced by economic interactions. Such an economy consists mainly of a whole set of interconnected institutions that co-exist or cooperate with each other to varying degrees. Their evolution and interaction provide the social and political determinants of economic activity (Hayter 2004). The question of evolution is precisely where HI, IEG and EEG meet. Changes in a socially determined economy depend on its path of development (Martin and Sunley 2006). Therefore, the concept of path dependency seems to be a useful element of interpretation, as evolution is embedded in political, social and economic processes, and this in turn determines the long-term dynamics of economic systems. Generally speaking, what is at stake here is that once chosen, the manner of regulating a particular social situation is increasingly difficult to rectify over time. Once adopted, institutional solutions, no matter how inefficient and unfair, are more likely to continue than to change. Therefore, today’s social, economic or political phenomena are conditioned by events that often took place in the distant past. This is because, over time, the cost of taking action other than what was deemed most appropriate in the past increases. Paradoxically, therefore, it may be that the further away we are from the first fundamental decision, the more constrained by it we are (Pierson 2004). At this point, the concept of path dependency gives a description of one of the mechanisms of the long-term evolution of economic space. This concept broadly assumes that the events of the past affect the later possible outcomes in a sequence of events, and this in turn leads to the assumption that it is difficult to leave the once chosen path (direction, trajectory) of development (Sewell 1996). There are situations where an area (country, region) has entered a given development path and the costs of abandoning it are very high (Levi 1997). This situation is best seen today in regions traditionally reliant on mining and heavy industry. These regions have been locked in quite rigid development paths, which result from dependence on established and existing structures, resources, skills, institutional set-up and power relations.

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This significantly limits their ability to adapt to changing conditions (Grabher 1993). Apart from the creation of a development path and the manner and extent to which it determines subsequent events, it is also important to note that the form of a given social or political phenomenon may be influenced by the order in which the factors influencing it appear. The final effect of a social process is not only determined by what factors shaped it, but also by the order in which these factors appeared. The importance of the sequence of events is underlined by Pierson (2004), who analyses issues such as timing, sequence and conjuncture (partly referring to the phenomenon of positive feedback and the notion of longue durée coined by Braudel and Wallerstein). It should be stressed, however, that each country and region has its own history, which has moulded its present shape and made it unique and that ‘the evolutionary mechanisms of variation, selection and retention active in regional economies are likely to have worked differently during times when regions were less integrated, people were less mobile, communications were more cumbersome, and core technologies and professional hierarchies were different from today’ (Henning 2019: 603). Therefore, any interpretation of the past must be cautious, as it is often done through the lens of knowledge burdened by the accomplishments of the present. In this context, understanding the uniqueness of the Polish transformation starting in the late 1980s and early 1990s and the consequences of this process, evident in the early 2020s, calls for the perspective of historic geography and an examination of the political and socio-economic consequences that both determine and result from it. This is all the more important because, since the beginning of Poland’s statehood, Poland’s geopolitical position, with all its variability of borders and sizes, has been exceptional. In very general terms, this is mainly due to the country’s location at the meeting point between the cultures of Western and Eastern Europe and those of the Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox cultures. To put it more bluntly, mainly from the perspective of the last two centuries, this is due to Poland’s location between Germany and Russia. The aim of this study is to discuss, from a geographical and historical point of view, the political and socio-economic conditions of the transformation process in Poland. The achievement of this goal over several pages seems a tall order indeed, primarily because of the breadth of individual issues and, perhaps above all, the multidimensionality and complexity of the processes and their interconnectedness. Therefore, the study is only a preliminary analysis, drawing attention to selected, major moments in history and their effects. The work, apart from the introduction and the summary, consists of two essential parts. The first part contains the author’s systematisation of the most important historical facts of Poland which determine its geopolitical situation and strongly condition the socio-economic changes. It discusses the political and territorial changes in Poland and its environment, which played an important role in shaping the socio-economic situation of the Polish territories. The findings aim to identify important turning points that determined the process and direction of development of particular aspects of social and economic development. The second part of the work, in turn, contains the author’s taxonomy of the evolution of Poland’s social and economic system in various historical periods. Owing to the relatively greatest durability of the effects of various historical events on the course of the transformation process and the existing socio-economic disparities, the focus is

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on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, i.e. the times of the partitions, the Second Republic of Poland and the People’s Republic of Poland (Polish: PRL). Therefore, for this period of the last two centuries the author decided to identify three basic aspects to be analysed in detail. These are as follows: (1) the organisation of public life, (2) society and (3) the economy. In the first case, the most important issues related to political conditions favouring or hindering the development of various institutions in public life influencing social and economic changes and through feedback stimulated by these changes are presented. In the second case, population and demographic changes are discussed in the context of selected social structures (e.g. nationality, religion, occupation). In the third case, changes in economic policy and shifts in agriculture, industry, communication and trade are analysed. These considerations are aimed at indicating the political and socio-economic conditions of contemporary social and economic development processes. The intention of the author is that this chapter should help the reader to understand more clearly the plethora of historical, political and socio-economic conditions of the issues discussed in the subsequent parts of this book. This is due to the fact that, from the research perspective undertaken on the grounds of socio-economic development, it seems important to claim that the context of the institution is historically and geographically conditioned. As a consequence, the spatial diversity of conditions for the operation of society and the economy is strongly correlated with the spatial diversity of the level of socio-economic development. This, in turn, opens up the possibility of conducting research based on the claim that institutions play an important role in the processes of socio-economic development (Sokołowicz 2015). This chapter, apart from the introduction and summary, consists of two main parts. The first part, presenting the most important historical facts about Poland, and determining its geopolitical position, is based on the work of Davis (2005). The second part, in which Poland’s socio-economic system’s evolution is presented synthetically, is based on data from the works of Jezierski and Leszczy´nska (1999) and Historia Polski in numbers (2003, 2006, 2014). For this reason, there are no footnotes in the text, as they would refer all the time to the publications mentioned above, in which the interested reader will find much more exciting information.

3.2 Historical Geopolitics of Polish Lands The changes of Poland’s borders and the country’s geopolitical location over the course of almost eleven centuries of its statehood are significant. When Mieszko I of the Piast dynasty was baptised in 966, he brought his country into the circle of Christian culture. Poland, along with Bohemia and Hungary, which adopted the western version of Christianity, became a border zone with Russia and the Balkan countries, which had adopted the eastern version of Christianity. The state of Mieszko I from that time corresponded more or less to the contemporary borders of Poland (i.e. mainly the regions of Greater Poland, Kuyavia, Lesser Poland, Silesia, Pomerania and Masovia), with the exception of the north-eastern part occupied by the pagan tribes of Prussians

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Fig. 3.1 Poland’s historical regions against the background of contemporary regional borders (own elaboration)

and Yotvingians (Fig. 3.1). Until the turn of the twelfth century, Poland alternately expanded and lost various territories on its frontiers; in the east to Kievan Rus’, in the south to Hungary and Bohemia, and in the west to the German Empire or the West Slavonic tribes. Between the twelfth and the fourteenth centuries, important transformations took place around Poland. In 1226, Konrad I of Masovia, failing to cope with the invasions of pagan Prussian tribes to Masovia and their Christianisation, brought knights of the Teutonic Order1 to Chełmno Land (the area of today’s Toru´n and Grudzi˛adz). The Teutonic Knights were effective in their Christianisation activities but also very expansive territorially. The Order’s state took over the area of Gda´nsk Pomerania and an area roughly corresponding to the modern Kaliningrad Oblast (in Russia) and Warmi´nsko-Mazurskie Voivodeship (in Poland). Despite minor border changes, secularisation (1525) and the change of name to Prussia (Ducal Prussia), this state remained in this part of Central Europe until 1945. In the west, Poland bordered on the Holy Roman Empire, with the German Kingdom playing the role of a hegemon, although the March of Brandenburg (since 1356 known as the Electorate of Brandenburg), which took over Western Pomerania at the end of the thirteenth century, was also a fief of the Holy Roman Empire bordering on the Polish territory. In the south-west, the Kingdom of Bohemia, which took over Poland’s Silesia (1348), 1

Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem.

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grew in strength. Both Western Pomerania and Silesia returned to Poland as late as 1945. The rest of the southern border was that with the Kingdom of Hungary, with which Poland had good relations. In the east, Poland bordered on the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and its fiefs, and it was in this direction that Poland’s borders expanded. The marriage of Louis I of Hungary’s daughter, Hedwig of Anjou with the Grand Duke of Lithuania, Ladislaus II Jagiełło (1386), began an alliance between the two countries that lasted almost 400 years. Conflicts with the Teutonic Knights in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries brought, e.g. Gda´nsk Pomerania and Warmia (Royal Prussia) under Polish rule. In the fourteenth–seventeenth centuries, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and from 1569 onwards, in a real union with Poland as the Republic of Both Nations (Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth), competed with the Grand Duchy of Moscow to unite the Russian lands. This situation led to constant tensions in the frontier areas, where the situation of Kievan Rus’ and Kiev, which remained in Lithuanian hands, was particularly problematic. The Grand Duchy of Moscow strengthened its position in Eastern Europe by defeating the Tatars and the Golden Horde. The year 1547, when the Duke of Moscow Ivan IV the Terrible assumed the title of Tsar of All-Russia, was the peak moment. In the southeast, Poland fought continuously against the Ottoman Empire (and the Crimean Khanate) in the lands of today’s Romania and Moldova as well as Ukraine. The Kingdom of Hungary, in 1490–1526 also ruled by the House of Jagiellon, was a kind of buffer zone, protecting Poland from the Turks. After the death of Louis the Jagiellonian, king of Bohemia and Hungary (1526), these lands along with Silesia were taken over by the Habsburgs (until 1918). Brandenburg, which bordered on Poland, formed a personal union with Ducal Prussia (1618); Prussia became independent from Poland (1657) and as a consequence the Kingdom of Prussia was created (1701). At the turn of the seventeenth century, the Commonwealth of Both Nations was one of the European powers and achieved its maximum territorial range (990,000 km2 ). This was mainly due to the rule of the last Jagiellons and several subsequent elected kings.2 This was possible, for instance, thanks to a kind of political vacuum and limited opportunities for the expansion of the German Empire in the west and the Russian Empire in the east. The apogee of the power of the Republic of Poland at the beginning of the seventeenth century coincided with the personal union with Sweden, the occupation of Moscow (1610–1612) and the conquest of Smolensk (1618). Since then, Poland was plagued by numerous internal conflicts (Cossack uprisings in Ukraine and the growing role of the nobility in making all decisions concerning the state) and external problems (wars with Sweden and Turkey). Most of them did not bear any signs of success and gradually weakened Poland’s position as a superpower. An important factor in improving Poland’s image was King John 2

In 1572, Sigismund II Augustus, despite being married three times, two of his wives being daughters of King Ferdinand I Habsburg of Germany, died without a male heir to the throne and as of then Polish kings were elected. Foreign monarchs included: Henry de Valois (King of France), Stefan Batory (Prince of Transylvania), representatives of the Swedish Vasa dynasty—Sigismund III (King of Sweden) and his sons Ladislaus IV and John II Casimir, Saxon electors from the House of Wettin: Augustus II the Strong and Augustus III the Saxon. Only four elected kings were Polish—Michał K. Wi´sniowiecki, Jan III Sobieski, Stanisław Leszczy´nski, and Stanisław A. Poniatowski.

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III Sobieski’s victorious battle of Vienna against the Turks (1683). Later, in 1686, Poland formed an alliance with Russia against Turkey, which was connected, among others, with the loss of Smolensk and eastern Ukraine with Kiev to Russia. The late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries were marked by a limitation of royal powers and a significant rise in the role of nobility and magnates. In 1697, the nobility bribed by the Russians (by order of Tsar Peter I) chose Augustus II the Strong, the Elector of Saxony, as Polish king. His policy, as well as that of his successors, was directed mainly at ensuring his own interests (although during the election the nobility hoped that this union would earn an ally against Prussia). During the Saxon era, Polish territory was, among other things, a battlefield during the Great Northern War of 1700–1721 between Saxony, Prussia, Russia and Sweden. In almost all the conflicts of the eighteenth century, Poland maintained its neutrality, which strongly weakened its international standing. Instead of actively participating in shaping European policy, Poland was merely a spectator. That is why the rule of the Saxons was a period of anarchy, political inertia, economic stagnation and complete disintegration of the Polish army. At the same time, Poland’s neighbours: the Russian Empire (since 1721, after winning the Northern War and taking over Livonia from Sweden), the Kingdom of Prussia (since 1701) and Austria (which regained control over Hungary in 1718) grew into the military and political superpowers of Europe. In the eighteenth century, besides Russia in the north and east, Prussia in the north and north-west, and Austria in the south-west and south, Poland bordered one more country. Namely, in the south it shared a border with the weakening Ottoman Empire (including Moldova, where Russia gained more and more influence). The geopolitical situation was therefore becoming increasingly unfavourable. At that time, Saxony (in a personal union with Poland) fought three wars with Austria and Prussia for control over Silesia (1740–1763), as a result of which a significant part of Silesia (except Cieszyn Silesia and Opava Silesia) together with the Kłodzko Land lost its autonomy and came under the rule of the Kingdom of Prussia. In 1764, Poland elected its last king, Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski, a lover of Empress Catherine II. This election took place with the (military) support of Russia and in agreement with the King of Prussia Frederick II the Great. This was to guarantee submissiveness to Russia and to limit reforms in Poland, vital for Russia and Prussia. Admittedly, the rule of Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski brought about a few important reforms (e.g. the government was established, the Commission for National Education was set up, uniform taxes were laid down, and customs duties were restored), but it proved too late to save Poland. In 1768, the Polish Sejm, with bribed nobility and under Russian bayonets, decided that Empress Catherine II would guarantee order in Poland. Thus, Poland became a protectorate of Russia. During the Russian-Turkish war (1768–1774), Russia strongly weakened Turkey, subjugating, among others, southern Ukraine and Crimea and strongly expanding its influence in Moldova. At that time, a decision was made to partition Poland, heavily influenced by Frederick II the Great and Empress Catherine II. In 1772, Austria, Prussia and Russia notified Poland of the partition. Austria occupied southern Poland with Lviv but without Krakow. Prussia occupied Warmia and Royal Prussia without Gda´nsk and Toru´n, and so Eastern (Ducal) Prussia gained a connection over land with

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the rest of the Kingdom of Prussia. Russia occupied Polish Livonia and the peripheral north-eastern ends of Poland (with Dyneburg, Polotsk and Vitebsk). Attempts to save the country by means of various reforms, including the resolutions of the Four-Year Sejm, which ended, among others, with the adoption (3 May 1791) of Europe’s first constitution, as well as the conclusion of an alliance with King Frederick William II of Prussia against Austria and Russia (1790), contributed greatly to another partition. In 1792, Russian troops entered Poland as a result of a conspiracy of Polish magnates with Empress Catherine II (the Targowica Confederation) to overthrow the new system and the reforms of the Four-Year Sejm. The confederation troops occupied the whole country and King Stanislaus A. Poniatowski himself joined the confederation. This situation provoked Prussia, which demanded the incorporation of Greater Poland into the Kingdom of Prussia, which led to the Second Partition of Poland. In 1793, the partition treaty was signed between Catherine II and Frederick William II (tied up by its war with France, Austria did not participate in it). Prussia occupied Greater Poland, part of Masovia and the Land of Łód´z, while Russia took over a large part of eastern Poland. A national uprising led by Ko´sciuszko (1794) ended in defeat and contributed to the Third Partition of Poland. In 1795, the final partition was carried out on the initiative of Austria. Austria occupied Lesser Poland with Krakow and part of Podlasie and Masovia; Prussia occupied part of Masovia with Warsaw and part of Podlasie and Lithuania, Russia—the eastern remnants of Poland. The Polish king abdicated in favour of Russia and fled to St Petersburg. That moment, Poland as a state ceased to exist. As a result of the partitions, Austria took over 18% of Poland’s territory and 30% of its population; Prussia—20% and 22%, respectively; Russia—62% and 48%. In 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte crowned himself Emperor of France. Franz II Habsburg reacted by proclaiming the Austrian Empire. Napoleon’s military action against, for example, Austria, Prussia and Russia awakened the Poles’ hopes for the rebirth of an independent Polish state. The defeat of Prussia by the French and the defeat of Russia led to the signing of peace treaties in Tilsit (1807). On their basis, the Duchy of Warsaw (officially independent, in fact a protectorate of France) was established, created mainly from the lands of the 2nd and 3rd Prussian partition (in 1809 extended by part of the lands of the Austrian partition—Siedlce, Radom, Zamo´sc´ , Krakow). However, Napoleon’s unsuccessful expedition to Russia (1812) led to the occupation of the Duchy of Warsaw by the Russians (1813). The Congress of Vienna held in the years 1814–1815 was to work out a new order in Europe. Its decisions were unfavourable for Poland, not represented there. The Kingdom of Poland was created, connected by a personal union with Russia from most of the lands of the Duchy of Warsaw (without eastern Greater Poland) (Fig. 3.2). From the remaining lands of the Duchy, i.e. West Greater Poland and Kuyavia, the Grand Duchy of Prussia was created. The Free City of Krakow (Rzeczpospolita Krakowska) was created out of the southern part of the Duchy of Warsaw and Krakow; it was formally a protectorate of the three partitioners. From that moment on, Russia occupied 82% of pre-partition Poland, Austria 11% and Prussia 7%. The Kingdom of Poland enjoyed relative autonomy (there was, e.g. the Sejm, the Constitution, the army, the education system and the Polish language in the offices).

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Fig. 3.2 Selected shifts of Poland’s borders and internal divisions between 1770 and 2020 (own elaboration)

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This autonomy was lifted in 1832, after the November Uprising was pacified (1830– 1831). Another attempt to regain independence, the January Uprising (1863–1864) also ended in defeat and was followed by reprisals and further restrictions imposed by Russia. In 1867, the institutional autonomy of the Kingdom, which began to be called the Vistula Land, was abolished and Russification activities were intensified. In the Grand Duchy of Pozna´n (Greater Poland), the autonomy was slightly lower than in the Kingdom of Poland. In addition, it was further limited as a penalty for supporting the November Uprising and completely lifted after the Greater Poland Uprisings of 1846 and 1848 (as part of the Spring of Nations). At that time, the Grand Duchy of Pozna´n was formally dissolved and the Province of Pozna´n was established (Fig. 3.2). Additionally, at the end of the nineteenth century, organisations were established to take over the land from Polish hands and suppress any manifestations of Polishness. Against this background, the lands of the Austrian partition, known as the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria (Galicia for short), represented a moderate level of reprisals. In 1861, Galicia became autonomous (e.g. the national Parliament and government were established). This autonomy was extended in 1867 after the establishment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (Galicia was one of the crown territories of the weakening Austrian Empire). Governors were elected from among the local Poles as part of the local autonomy; the Sejm could pass laws on the economy, transport, education and health, political parties and paramilitary organisations could operate, and hence, Galicia became a place of renewal for freedom movements. Throughout the nineteenth century, national liberation movements grew in those nations whose aspirations for independence were completely ignored at the Congress of Vienna. In addition, Austria, Prussia and Russia wanted to isolate France and the revolutionary and nationalist movements coming out of it, which directly threatened the stability of multinational empires (e.g. Austria). The reunification of Italy (1866) and the reunification of Germany (1871) under the leadership of Prussia and the growing imperialism of France and Great Britain changed the balance of power in Europe. A system of two hostile alliances was formed, with Great Britain, France and Russia (Triple Entente) pitted against Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy (Triple Alliance). The spark that became a pretext for a war was the conflict between AustriaHungary and Serbia after the assassination of the successor to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand (1914). In Europe, the main battles took place on the western (France, Belgium, Germany), southern (Italy, Austria-Hungary and the Balkans) and eastern (Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia) fronts. Meanwhile in Russia (1917), there were major revolutionary (communist) movements, which resulted in the takeover of power by the Bolshevik Council of People’s Commissioners led by Vladimir Lenin. In 1918, both Germany and Austro-Hungary, bleeding from the effects of the war, gave hope for freedom to many European nations (including the Poles). In March 1918, in Brest on the Bug River, an economically ruined Soviet Russia signed a peace treaty with Germany and Austria-Hungary, formally ending its participation in the war. As a result, Russia left the Entente and lost the Kingdom of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Western Belarus and Ukraine to Germany. On 11 November 1918, a truce was signed in Compiègne near Paris between Germany and the Entente. At the end of 1918, the Austro-Hungarian Empire

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collapsed, the Emperor of Germany abdicated and Germany became a republic (the so-called Weimar Republic); Soviet Russia was ruined by the war and internal revolution. Thus, there were no major obstacles in the way of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Yugoslavia the regaining independence (additionally, Romania’s territory was extended to include Transylvania and Bukovina, and the established independent Austria was reduced to its present territory). Formally, the First World War ended in June 1919 with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles during the Peace Conference, held in Paris between 1919 and 1920. Poland was created mainly at the expense of Russia and Germany, which opened up new conflicts and became a direct cause of various types of military action. In 1918–1922, a number of events took place in order to establish the country’s borders: the Greater Poland Uprising, the occupation of Cieszyn Silesia by Czechoslovakia, fighting near Lviv and Vilnius, the incorporation of Greater Poland and Pomerania, plebiscites in Warmia and Mazury and Upper Silesia, three Silesian uprisings, the division of Cieszyn Silesia and Upper Silesia, the Polish-Bolshevik war and the Treaty of Riga. Poland (Second Republic) regained a significant part of the lands taken by Prussia in the First and Second Partition (most of Greater Poland and a significant part of former Royal Prussia with a small 147 km access to the sea, as well as part of Upper Silesia with Katowice and Chorzów), all of Galicia and Lodomeria from the Austrian partition and from Russia the Kingdom of Poland and a fragment of lands from the Third Partition (Fig. 3.2). Poland bordered on Germany, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Russia (since 1922 the USSR led by Joseph Stalin), Lithuania, Latvia and the Free City of Gda´nsk, which was under the protectorate of the League of Nations. Despite the increased number of neighbours, the geopolitical situation of Poland was challenging. It was surrounded by Germany to the west and partly to the north and south, and the whole eastern border was with the USSR. The creation of the socalled Polish isthmus separating Germany from East Prussia was a source of conflict throughout the interwar period. Several hundred thousand Germans emigrated from the areas taken away from Prussia (mainly Greater Poland and parts of Gda´nsk Pomerania), which fuelled the resentment of Prussian nobility and bourgeoisie and a spirit of revenge for lost lands and estates. In western Ukraine, on the contrary, a movement was developing which aimed to revive an independent Ukrainian state. In Cieszyn Silesia, the Polish population was discriminated against as a result of the 1920 conflict. The border with Lithuania was closed due to the occupation of Vilnius by Poles (1919). Thus, Poland had friendly neighbourly relations only with small Latvia and Romania (an anti-Russian alliance). After 123 years of non-existence, the challenge was to consolidate the lands which had earlier been ruled by the three partitioners. The 1920s and 1930s was a time of social and economic tension in Europe (and worldwide). The global economic crisis, which strongly affected most European countries, made it possible for the USSR to start accelerated industrialisation (Western companies were willing to build modern factories on credit). At that time in Germany, also affected by the crisis, anti-Semitism and nationalism, as well as the desire to retaliate for the sanctions imposed after the Treaty of Versailles (including restrictions on the size of the army, huge war reparations in fact repaid

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until 2010), were becoming increasingly widespread. In 1933, the NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers’ Party) with Adolf Hitler as Chancellor took power in Germany. These events (and many others) paved the way for another conflict in Europe. Germany (the Third Reich) strongly expanded its army. The Rhineland was remilitarised (1936); the Austrian Anschluss took place (1938), and the borders with Czechoslovakia were revised (1939—the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was created). An attempt to revise the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, concerning the issue of the Free City of Gda´nsk, which was sensitive for Germany, ended with the Third Reich’s invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 and the outbreak of World War II. In the following days, the war was joined by Great Britain and France, and on 17 September, the Red Army entered Poland in accordance with the RibbentropMolotov Pact. In November 1939, the Fourth Partition of Poland between the USSR and the Third Reich took place. However, when the Third Reich attacked the USSR (1941), the situation changed dramatically. In the mid-1944, the Allied countries on the western front liberated France and Belgium, and Italy on the southern front, while on the eastern front, the Red Army liberated the eastern borders of Poland from Nazi occupation (by March 1945, almost the entire territory of contemporary Poland was liberated). In the late evening of 8 May 1945, the Third Reich capitulated unconditionally. The warfare along with the Nazi and Soviet occupation caused enormous population and material losses. However, it was political events that took place outside battlefields that proved of paramount importance for Poland. At the end of 1943, a meeting of the so-called Big Three (Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin) took place in Tehran. Apart from the decisions concerning the way of warfare against the Third Reich, preliminary arrangements were made, among others, for the new borders of Poland—especially its eastern course along the so-called Curzon line and the isolation of the Soviet sphere of influence in Europe. Another meeting of the Big Three took place in February 1945 in Yalta, Crimea. Occupation zones of Germany were set out, and it was confirmed that the USSR would extend its ‘protective umbrella’ over Central and Eastern Europe. Poland lost the Eastern Borderlands (with Lviv and Vilnius) to the USSR (the Tehran arrangements were confirmed), and as ‘compensation’ received some former German lands (the so-called Regained Lands): Silesia (with Wrocław and Katowice), Western Pomerania (with Szczecin), part of East Prussia (with Olsztyn) and the area of the former Free City of Gda´nsk. Thus, Poland gained wide access to the Baltic Sea (about 440 km), but its land size decreased again. Decisions were made about mass displacements of the population, mainly Germans from Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poles from the Eastern Borderlands to the Regained Territories. In terms of political issues, the Big Three decided to form a (communist) government in Warsaw, which was obliged to hold universal and free elections (naturally, they were rigged by the communist regime). At a conference in Potsdam in the summer of 1945, the representatives of the Big Three (in the middle of the conference Churchill was replaced by Clement Attlee and the late Roosevelt by Harry Truman) confirmed the establishment of the temporary western border of Poland on the Oder and Lusatian Neisse and the fact that Poland would receive 15% of the war reparations granted to the USSR.

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The ‘liberators’ of Central and Eastern Europe unfairly seized power and effectively strengthened ‘popular democracy’ not only in Poland but also in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Romania. As Winston Churchill put it, the Iron Curtain fell from Szczecin to Trieste. The political, military and ideological rivalry between the USSR and the Western powers—mainly the USA and Great Britain—was already visible during the Second World War. The so-called Cold War between the capitalist countries of the West and the Eastern Bloc, in which the USSR played the role of a hegemon, began. The Eastern Bloc countries rejected the European Recovery Programme (ERP) put forward by US Secretary of State George Marshall (1947). The so-called Marshall Plan was one of the first impulses for European integration (in 1948 the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation, OEEC, transformed in 1960 into the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD was established). A counter-proposal in this respect was the establishment of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) in 1949, whose task was to coordinate economic cooperation between the Eastern Bloc countries. Great Britain, France, the USA, Canada and several other Western European countries signed the North Atlantic Treaty establishing a new military alliance, NATO (1949). On the initiative of the USSR (1955), the Warsaw Pact (Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance) was created, i.e. a military bloc bringing together the socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe (with the exception of Yugoslavia), with the dominant role of the USSR. In 1949, Great Britain, the USA and France occupying the western part of Germany announced the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany (in 1955, Germany joined NATO). The USSR’s response was to create a separate state in its own occupation zone, i.e. the German Democratic Republic, which adopted a political model similar to the states of popular democracy. From then on, Poland bordered the GDR to the west, Czechoslovakia to the south and the USSR to the east. In 1952, the Polish Parliament passed the Constitution and from that moment until 1990 Poland was known as the People’s Republic of Poland. This period of Poland’s history (as well as that of other socialist countries) was marked mainly by social and economic problems with a political background, which led to a series of workers’ and students’ protests, brutally suppressed by the army and the police. In Poland, they took place as follows: June 1956 in Pozna´n (having its equivalent in the form of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956), March 1968 and student demonstrations throughout Poland (in Czechoslovakia, it was the Prague Spring and the intervention of the Warsaw Pact troops), December 1970 in Gda´nsk and Szczecin, and December 1981 in the Wujek coal mine in Katowice. When Polish Cardinal Karol Wojtyła was elected Pope in 1978 and when he visited Poland for the first time in 1979 as Pope John Paul II, the mood for freedom was fuelled and the process of transformation started. The communist authorities, seeing growing social unrest and strikes, imposed martial law in December 1981. In part, it was a response to fears of losing power in favour of the growing social movement in the form of Solidarno´sc´ (the Solidarity Trade Union, founded in 1980 and headed by Lech Wał˛esa) and the still valid Brezhnev doctrine. In July 1983, the authorities of the People’s Republic of Poland abolished martial law and began slow social and economic reforms.

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At the end of the 1980s, the feeling of freedom revived again in most Eastern Bloc countries. There followed a time of great changes between 1989 and 1991 known as the ‘Autumn of Nations’. It led to the fall of the Iron Curtain and marked a new era in European development. These events include, among others, (1) the so-called Round Table of representatives of the authorities of the People’s Republic of Poland and of the opposition (Solidarity), which led, among others, to the first partially free elections to the Polish Sejm in June 1989 and the election of Lech Wał˛esa as President of Poland in December 1990 (a little later, similarly Hungary had its ‘Triangular Table’ and Bulgaria its own ‘Round Table’), (2) the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, which initiated the process of German reunification, (3) the ‘Velvet Revolution’ in Czechoslovakia in November 1989, which led to the ousting of communists from power, but at the same time initiated a process of division of the country, which became a fact in January 1993, (4) the bloody revolution in Romania and the fall of the Ceaus, escu regime in December 1989 and (5) in August 1991, after the failed Yanayev putsch and declaration of independence of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Ukraine, the break-up of the Soviet Union in December 1991.

3.3 Socio-economic Changes from Feudalism to Socialism 3.3.1 From Birth to Collapse (966–1772–1795) According to estimates, in the tenth century, the state of Mieszko I had a population of around 1.3 million (compared to 5.4 million for the German Empire). The main centres (fortified settlements) performing administrative, military and commercial functions were Gniezno, Pozna´n, Krakow, Wrocław and Kołobrzeg, located mainly between the rivers Oder and Vistula. By the fourteenth century, the population of Poland grew to about 2 million (at that time Germany had about 9 million and Ruthenia about 12 million). Poland was a country with a small population (5–8 people per km2 ), which at that time was a sign of the country’s relatively low economic potential (in France and Italy the population density was approx. 17–28 people per km2 ). Greater Poland was relatively the most densely populated part of the country. In medieval Poland, like in other European countries, trade and crafts developed in and around fortified settlements. However, the maintenance of the court, army and the Church was mainly the responsibility of the subjects, from whom various tributes were collected. Duties were moreover levied in customs chambers (some income was also derived from royal estates, such as the salt mines in Bochnia and Wieliczka). The situation slightly changed at the turn of the fourteenth century with the increase in urbanisation and the location of towns under German law. Colonisation under German law was an organised process of population migration from West to East. The annual migration level of German settlers was about 2000 people (there were also Dutch and Jewish settlers, and in Lesser Poland Vlachs and Armenians). This type of colonisation first began in Silesia (thirteenth century), then diffused into

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Greater Poland and Lesser Poland (fourteenth century) and into Masovia, Podlasie and Ruthenia (fifteenth century). In the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, 300 cities were founded under German law (mainly Magdeburg and Lübeck). These included Wrocław (1242), Pozna´n (1253) and Krakow (1257). The cities of that time were small; Wrocław had 17,000 inhabitants, Krakow 14,000, Pozna´n 4000, Gda´nsk and Toru´n, ca. 2000 each. At that time, a social structure characteristic of European cities was created: the patricians concentrated power (merchants and their families), a community made up of craftsmen who were citizens of the city and the plebs, i.e. servants, journeymen and the social margin, who had no rights. Residents of villages and market settlements and those living outside city walls were subject to the law of the duke and were treated as his property (or belonged to a knighthood or higher clergy). There was a feudal system: the lord and his apparatus of power and subjects (this state lasted almost until the mid-nineteenth century). From the end of the fourteenth century, the knights enjoyed increasing political and economic privileges. In the following centuries, the chivalric estate gave rise to nobility. The progress in agriculture led to an increase in agricultural productivity, bringing a spike in farm incomes. Thanks to surpluses in agriculture, urban crafts and trade developed. At the end of the Middle Ages, the mining of salt, metal ores (mainly copper and iron), gold and silver and sulphur also developed, and as a consequence ´ etokrzyskie Land). This situation was also conducive metallurgy (mainly Silesia, Swi˛ to the development of cities and an urban economy, which was accompanied by the development of trade. Coastal cities had a slightly different character; here, trade (grain, wood, herring) was monopolised by the Hanseatic League (an association of Polish, English, German and Scandinavian cities). Traditional trade routes led from the south through Krakow, Lviv, Lublin, Toru´n to Gda´nsk (with offshoots starting in Wrocław and Pozna´n). This situation was conducive to the rapid development of these cities, but the main winner was Gda´nsk. Within twenty years (1470–1490), there was a significant increase in the export of grain through the port of Gda´nsk (from 5 to 21 thousand tonnes). In the early sixteenth century, Poland covered ca. 260,000 km2 and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ca. 610,000 km2 . In turn, in the mid-seventeenth century the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania reached close to 990,000 km2 after much territorial gain. The regional division into voivodeships, developed already during the Piast dynasty, survived during the reign of the Jagiellonians and elected kings. 34 very diverse voivodeships were created (the Voivodeship of Kiev was ca. 200,000 km2 and that of Malbork only 2000 km2 ). Since the fifteenth century, the royal (state) power was gradually weakened primarily in favour of the nobility, who, thanks to numerous privileges, gained a dominant political position. During the period of free elections, the Sejm (in which the nobility held the majority) had a superior role over the ruler. This was a different situation from the European model, because in France or England, for example, rulers who wanted to strengthen central power relied mainly on the bourgeoisie. The executive power was exercised by the king with the help of ministers: chancellors, marshals, hetmans, etc., who held their offices for life and were remunerated via landed property. Some magnates built huge fortunes in this way (e.g. Hetman Jan Zamoyski received 12 towns and 612 villages with a total area of over 11,000 km2 ). At the

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beginning of the sixteenth century, the population of Poland was about 7.5 million, and by the middle of the seventeenth century, it increased to about 11 million (population density increased from 6.6 to 11.1 person/km2 ). Greater Poland and Masovia were the most densely populated. Poland’s union with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania made it a multinational and multicultural state. The inhabitants spoke Polish, Lithuanian, Ruthenian, Yiddish, German, Tartar and Armenian, and the religions included Latin and Byzantine Catholicism (including Greek Catholicism) and Protestantism (mainly Lutheranism and Calvinism). The bourgeoisie (except for Royal Prussia) was largely Polonised and became more uniform. As to the migration movements at that time, attention should be paid mainly to the influx of Ruthenians into southern Lesser Poland and of the Dutch into Royal Prussia, mainly in the Lower Vistula region; at the end of the seventeenth century, a renewed influx of Germans into Greater Poland was observed. The rapid population growth in Western Europe (mainly England and the Netherlands) in the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries increased the demand for grain, which was imported mainly from Eastern European countries. As a result, the manor farm economy based on manor farms, i.e. large commercial farms where the work of serfs was used, developed strongly in Poland (as well as in Bohemia, Hungary, Austria and Prussia). The farms were owned by the nobility, the clergy and the king and were established close to the end market, which was the easiest to organise thanks to export (most often using rafts to the port in Gda´nsk). Therefore, most of the manors existed in Pomerania and Greater Poland. In the sixteenth century, manor farms in Poland occupied about 20–30% of farmland and their average size was ca. 140 ha. In the sixteenth century, serfs had to work for their lords three days a week, and in the seventeenth century even four or five days. Thanks to the manors, agricultural production, especially of cereals and cattle, increased significantly. Poland became one of the major exporters of agricultural produce. As the prices of exported grain increased, the prices of imported products, which were mainly purchased by the nobility, decreased. Thanks to the favourable terms of trade, Polish manor farms and the royal treasure gained huge revenues. However, when Poland banked on the development of agriculture and the farm economy, Western European countries already began to develop industrial manufactories and trade in colonial goods. Making the development of manor farms dependent on the export of mainly grain through the port of Gda´nsk proved disastrous in the near future. During the wars with Sweden and the blockades of Polish ports in the Baltic Sea, grain trade lost its importance; the farms went bankrupt and Polish nobility and the Polish treasury became impoverished, since agricultural production was one of the staple sources of income. In addition to progress in agricultural production, there was progress in industry and crafts, such as metallurgy (in the Silesia-Lesser Poland region) and mining (silver and lead ores in Olkusz, copper near Kielce), paper-making (Gda´nsk, Pozna´n, Vilnius) and the court industry (royal and noble) in the form of mills, breweries, distilleries and sawmills. Between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the population of Poland grew only slightly, from 11 to 12.5 million. After the first partition, the population fell to 7.7 million and after the second partition to 3.7 million. Initially, a slight increase in the population and then a relatively rapid decline were mainly due to numerous

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territorial changes and migrations, as well as numerous wars and epidemics, which caused high infant and adult mortality (average life expectancy was only 28 years). At the end of the eighteenth century, the largest Polish city was Warsaw (ca. 120,000 inhabitants), followed by Gda´nsk (37,000, although still in 1650 it had almost 80,000 inhabitants), Vilnius (24,000), Krakow (20,000), Pozna´n (15,000), Lublin (12,000) and Toru´n (9000). At that time, new German and Dutch settlements were also developing (Gda´nsk Pomerania, Greater Poland, Northern Masovia). The wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries wreaked enormous damage on agriculture, which, combined with a declining demand for grain and other agricultural products from Poland, led to the collapse of many villages and manors, resulting at the same time in reduced incomes of the royal court and nobility. Agricultural productivity itself remained at the same level as in the sixteenth century. Similar losses were identified in the crafts and led to a recession in the cities. Trade was in a slightly different situation; wholesalers and retail stores offering domestic and colonial products began to develop. In the cities of Greater Poland, textile industry was developing strongly, which started to compete with the emerging higher performance manufactories. Manufactories of various professions (including monopoly products, e.g. tobacco or armaments), owned by the royals and magnates, were developing. At the end of the eighteenth century in Upper Silesia (the Kingdom of Prussia), near the border with Poland, hard coal was mined. In the years 1769–1795, mining increased from 367 to 18,000 tonnes. At that time, compared to Western Europe, Polish industry was underdeveloped. In addition, foreign trade was a problem. When in Western Europe, mainly England, the Netherlands, France or particularly strongly in Prussia (but also in Russia), foreign trade was in the hands of the state (mercantilist protectionism), in Poland there was freedom for landowners. At the time of the Partitions, foreign trade was significantly restricted due to unfavourable trade treaties. The policy of Prussia was very aggressive in this regard. By introducing and increasing various tariffs, it forced, for example, exports of goods from Poland not through the port of Gda´nsk but through the port of Szczecin. After the first partition of Poland, Prussia controlled 95% of Polish exports. This situation was conducive to a great diversification of all social strata, and above all the nobility (the richest magnates and aristocracy and the landowners vs. impoverished gentry), the townspeople (rich merchants and bankers vs. plebs) and the farmers (free and subject peasants). The nobility and most of the townspeople and manors were Poles and Lithuanians of the Catholic faith. Among the townspeople, one third were Protestants, and among the landowners, almost half were Greek Catholics and Orthodox (the majority were Russians and Ukrainians). A separate group was the Jewish population, which from the end of the sixteenth century until the end of the Republic of Poland grew from 150,000 to over 900,000. The Jews lived mainly in cities (mostly in Lesser Poland). Significant privileges of the nobility in terms of vetoing Sejm resolutions and low tax revenues due to the worsening social and economic situation led to a reduction in state income. The weak state, with a residual army, poor administration and a strongly stratified and corruptible nobility, was unable to reform quickly, especially in the face of growing absolutist powers in the neighbouring countries.

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3.3.2 Under the Partitions (1772–1795–1918) Organisation of public life In the Kingdom of Poland, the Emperor of Russia was the King of Poland, with legislative and executive powers, and Parliament played only a consultative role. Foreign policy was subordinated to Russia. After the November Uprising, power was transferred to St Petersburg, and after the January Uprising, the Kingdom was fully integrated into the Russian Empire as Polish central offices were abolished and Polish officials were replaced by Russian ones. In Galicia, the nobility lost their influence on legislation, while local government institutions of the nobility and cities were subordinated to the Austrian bureaucracy. Until the mid-nineteenth century, the Sejm in Galicia met rarely and had very limited powers. The lost wars with Prussia and separatist (and partially effective) Hungarian movements in multinational Austria led to a reduction in restrictions and an increase in Galicia’s autonomy (since 1867). In turn, the Prussian authorities introduced Prussian legislation on the conquered lands. The Grand Duchy of Pozna´n was the only Prussian partition to be guaranteed autonomy by the arrangements of the Congress of Vienna. There was a Provincial Sejm, whose deputies included the nobility, townspeople and landowners. In 1828, city self-government and poviat assemblies were introduced. As part of the reprisals for supporting the November Uprising in the Kingdom of Poland, the Prussian authorities limited autonomy of the territories taken over from Poland; a period of Germanisation against Polish landowners began (this strongly mobilised Poles to become economically active). After further liberation attempts in the midnineteenth century, autonomy was completely abolished and the Grand Duchy of Pozna´n became the Province of Pozna´n. The Austrian authorities chose Lviv as the capital of the seized area of Galicia; it was there that the Sejm of the Estates convened. The area of Galicia was divided into circuli. Initially, there were 24 of them, between 1815 and 1860—19. In 1867, the circuli were abolished and the districts were reorganised. There were 79 of the latter and two federal cities (Lviv and Krakow). In the Prussian partition, a relative stabilisation of territorial divisions took place after 1815 and was maintained with minor changes until the beginning of the twentieth century. In the autonomous Grand Duchy of Pozna´n, two regions of Bydgoszcz and Pozna´n (within the borders of the departments of the Duchy of Warsaw) were created; the province of West Prussia (with Gda´nsk) with the regions of Gda´nsk and Kwidzyn, Warmia was incorporated into East Prussia into the Königsburg regency, while Silesia was divided into the regions of Opole (with Upper Silesia), Wrocław and Legnica. In the Kingdom of Poland, the territorial division from the times of the Duchy of Warsaw was maintained; only the name was changed from the (French) department to voivodeships, which in the 1840s, when the process of Russification began, were replaced by governorates and the Russian administration system was introduced. After 1867, the administrative division was changed, increasing the number of governorates from 5 to 10 and the number of poviats from 39 to 85, organised entirely according to the Russian model (for the first time, communes were also introduced, which corresponded to the parish

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borders). In addition, as part of the aftermath of the January Uprising, out of 452 cities in the Kingdom of Poland, as many as 338 lost their city rights. The processes of Germanisation and Russification took place with varying intensity. In Galicia, German was almost immediately introduced as the language of instruction and gradually became common in public life. However, with the emergence of Galicia’s autonomy, Polish was reintroduced publicly (administration, courts, schools and universities). The Galician Sejm itself decided on expenditure on economic purposes, education, transport and health. Political parties and paramilitary organisations could operate, and central and local offices were largely staffed by Poles. In the Russian partition, Polish was initially the language of instruction and the system of education created by the Commission for National Education was still in place. However, as a result of the November and January Uprisings, the tsarist authorities increasingly sought full Russification. Education was transferred to the Russian ministry, and Russian was introduced in administration, the judiciary and education at every level of teaching (even Polish was taught in Russian), the Russian system of measures and weights and the Russian currency were introduced. In the Prussian partition in the Grand Duchy of Pozna´n, Polish was the official language alongside German. After the reunification of Germany, German became the exclusive language used in administration, courts and railways. In elementary schools, Polish could only be used in the lowest classes and in religious education classes or as an elective subject. In 1886, the Colonisation Commission was established to deprive Poles of the property of their land and workshops, and in 1894, the Union for the Support of German Settlement in the Eastern Borderlands was established, which ruthlessly obliterated any manifestations of Polishness. The German policy consolidated solidarity among Poles of different estates, classes and social strata, which resulted, among other things, in the victorious Greater Poland Uprising. Society Between 1815 and 1911, the population of the Kingdom of Poland rose from 4 to close to 12 million (and population density from 27 to 94 people per 1 km2 ). At that time, the Grand Duchy of Pozna´n increased its population from 0.8 to 2.2 million, and Pomerania and Upper Silesia from about 1 to 2 million and 3 million each (the share of Poles in Upper Silesia was 60%). In Galicia, the population increased from 4 to 8 million people in 1819–1911. Thus, the greatest (threefold) increase in the population was recorded in the Kingdom of Poland. This was mainly due to the high birth rate and decreasing death rate (which was relatively high in Silesia—nearly 50% of landless peasants and worked in mines and steelworks for several hours a day). On the eve of World War I, the birth rate in the Prussian and Russian partitions was 18–19‰, and in the Austrian partition 15‰ (where there was a relatively high infant mortality rate). These rates were higher than in most European countries. It is worth adding that both Galicia and the Prussian partition had relatively high levels of migration. In 1880–1910 alone, nearly 0.9 million people emigrated from Galicia and 1.1 million from the Prussian partition. Until 1867, less than 25% of people in the Russian partition lived in cities and at the turn of the twentieth century this figure was 33%. The largest cities (also

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with the highest population growth in 1858–1910) were Warsaw (an increase from 280,000 to 780,000), Łód´z (from 20,000 to 508,000), Lublin (from 18,000 to 66,000), Radom (from 10,000 to 49,000), Płock, Piotrków and Kalisz (from 13–15,000 to 35– 37,000), Włocławek (from 7000 to 34,000) and Kielce (from 5000 to 30,000). The industrial revolution caused a rapid increase in the number of inhabitants not only in Łód´z, but also in other industrial centres. In 1870–1910, the number of inhabitants of Cz˛estochowa increased from 13,000 to 75,000, of B˛edzin from 6000 to 49,000, and of Sosnowiec from 6000 to 99,000. In the Prussian partition, the level of urbanisation was the highest (at the turn of the twentieth century—39%), but it was very diverse. In Greater Poland, about 34% of the population lived in cities (mainly small ones, up to 10,000 inhabitants), and in Upper Silesia about 50%. The development of industry accelerated the population development of cities. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the number of inhabitants of Pozna´n increased from 36,000 to 160,000, of Gda´nsk from 60,000 to 140,000, while in Upper Silesia none of the main centres gained an advantage over the others and exceeded 100,000 inhabitants. Interestingly, Opole, the capital of the regency in which Upper Silesia was located, was still relatively small and in 1910 had 33,000 inhabitants. In the mid-nineteenth century, only 5% of Galicia’s inhabitants lived in cities. In 1865, the largest cities were Lviv (80,000) and Krakow (50,000), and only five more cities had more than 10,000 inhabitants! By the beginning of the twentieth century, the level of urbanisation in Galicia had risen to 20%, but it was Lviv and Krakow that significantly increased the population to 206 and 152 thousand, respectively. During the less than 100 years of existence of the Kingdom of Poland (despite the industrial revolution), the share of peasants decreased from about 70 to 57% (of whom 20% had no land). In the Prussian partition, the share of rural population was around 50% (only in Upper Silesia was it about 30%) while in Galicia it stood at 80%. The share of people living off industry and crafts was the highest in the Prussian partition (24%) and the lowest in Galicia—only 8%; in the Kingdom it was 17%. As a result of administrative actions, the share of the nobility in society decreased to several per cent. The townspeople acquired full rights and representatives of the liberal professions, administration and judiciary formed the intelligentsia. Banker families, merchants, owners of manufactories and factories, on the contrary, made up the bourgeoisie (largest in number in Warsaw, Łód´z, Krakow and Pozna´n). In the first half of the nineteenth century, a new social stratum emerged: factory workers, mainly former peasants (partly also craftsmen and foreigners). At the beginning of the twentieth century, in the Kingdom and the Prussian partition, they numbered 180,000 each, with about 70,000 in Galicia. The partitioning regimes took different approaches to the serfdom of peasants. As early as 1782, Galicia abolished subjects’ slavery and serfdom on Sundays and holidays (it was limited to three days a week). However, serfdom as such was abolished only after the peasants’ revolts and the 1848 uprising. In Prussia at the beginning of the nineteenth century, a number of political, fiscal and social (including agricultural) reforms were initiated, which in 1807 abolished the serfdom of peasants and by the mid-nineteenth century enfranchised peasants. In turn, in the Kingdom of Poland, it was only during the January Uprising (in March 1864) that Tsar Alexander II, wishing to draw the peasants away from

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the uprising, issued a decree (ukaz) regarding their enfranchisement. Another threat to the peasants was military service. In the Austrian partition, it initially lasted for life and was later shortened to 20 years, while in the Prussian partition it lasted only 3 years. In the Russian partition during the period of relative autonomy (until 1831), military service lasted 10 years and then 25 years. Just as the situation of peasants before the enfranchisement was difficult, so was the situation of workers during the advent of capitalism. A working day in difficult conditions lasted between 11 and 14 h; after the strikes in late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, this was reduced to 10 h. The first trade unions were set up to protect workers’ rights (fewer working hours, increase in wages and improvement of working conditions). They were established in the Prussian and Austrian partitions at the end of the nineteenth century, and in the Russian partition—after the 1905 revolution. Similarly, (socialist) workers’ parties (covering nearly 50% of the employed) emerged. In the Kingdom of Poland, socialist parties operated clandestinely (illegally), while in the Prussiaand Austria-annexed territories they participated in normal parliamentary activity. Poland was a multinational and multicultural country before the partitions and this situation did not change under the partitions. At the turn of the twentieth century, Poles in the Kingdom of Poland constituted 73% of the population, Jews 13%, Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians 7%, Germans 4% and Lithuanians 3%. Outside the Kingdom of Poland, the western governorates of the Russian Empire were home to about 3–5% of Poles. In Galicia, Polish was spoken by 55% of the population (mainly in Western Galicia), Russian—42% (mainly in Eastern Galicia) and German—3%. The share of followers of the Roman Catholic Church was 56%, of the Greek Catholic Church 43% and of Judaism—11% (the Jews used mainly Yiddish, which was not included in the population census). In Cieszyn Silesia, Polish was used by about 55% of the population; 27% of people spoke Czech and 18% used German. In the Prussian partition, the ethnic and national structure was very different from one area to another. In Greater Poland, Polish was spoken by 62% of the population (mainly Roman Catholics), German by 31% (mainly Protestants) and about 1% for Jewish languages. Gda´nsk Pomerania was about 52% Catholic, 46% Evangelical and 1% Jewish. It is estimated that in Pomerania, the Poles constituted 35% of the population, although they constituted no more than a few per cent in Gda´nsk, Malbork and Elbl˛ag. In Upper Silesia, Polish was spoken by 57% of the population (much more in the eastern part). The German-speaking population dominated mainly in cities, while the Polish language prevailed in villages and towns. Economy In the early days of the Kingdom of Poland, a protective policy was pursued, aiming at the overall economic development of the country. Imports and outflow of capital were reduced, and domestic demand was stimulated. The immigration of factory owners to the area around Łód´z was promoted and the state mining and metallurgical industry ´ etokrzyskie Voivodeship) and the D˛abrowa Basin in the Old Polish Basin (now Swi˛ (borderland with Austria and Prussia in Silesia) developed. A restrictive customs policy was introduced in trade, which did not apply to Polish-Russian relations (the share of Polish exports to Russia in 1830–1864 increased from 31 to 42%), and

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mainly affected trade with Prussia. In the Austrian and Prussian partition, such issues depended largely on the policy of the partitioner. Economic liberalism, which was developing in the world (USA, England, France), had a limited presence in Prussia, Austria-Hungary and Russia, and was severely limited on Polish territory. The agriculture of the Kingdom of Poland was at a very low level (very inefficient and underdeveloped). Despite free labour in the form of serfs, the costs of agricultural production were relatively high, which limited exports (Western European countries also applied a protection policy in this respect). High production costs resulted from low agricultural productivity, primitive cultivation methods and tools and a growing resistance on the part of peasants (often undernourished and inefficient). After enfranchisement, peasants were given ownership of the land which they had previously cultivated. The reform covered nearly half of the Kingdom’s arable land. In the Prussian partition, the situation was different in Greater Poland and other areas. Owing to the fact that the enfranchisement took place in stages, first in the largest farms and then in smaller ones, it led to a characteristic agrarian structure with a farreaching stratification of villages. In the mid-nineteenth century, more than half of the arable land in Greater Poland was in the hands of large landowners, an average estate covering 750 ha; dominant among the remaining farms were small ones, of about 20 ha. In the Prussian partition of Poland, the landowners allocated their financial surpluses to investments and farm development, which increased their competitive advantage. In the Austrian partition, the agricultural situation was dire. Inefficient agricultural production and crop failures led peasants to the brink of exhaustion. 530,000 peasant farms were enfranchised; given the large population and the way in which they were enfranchised, this resulted in a great fragmentation of land (most farms were less than 6 ha). During the second half of the nineteenth century, the area of arable land increased, the most in the Prussian partition (up to 3.3 million ha, which constituted 60% of agricultural land), and the least in the Austrian partition (up to 3.8 million ha—49%), in the Kingdom up to 7.1 million (55% of agricultural land). In 1910, peasants held 80% of the agricultural land in Galicia, 69% in the Kingdom and only 50% in the Prussian partition. Farms varied greatly as to their size, a result of the increase in land sales after enfranchisement. Some farms grew (land was purchased) while others were divided (e.g. due to inheritance procedures). The share of large peasant farms (over 20 ha) in Greater Poland was 5 and 40% of the land, while in Galicia it was only 1 and 11%, and in the Kingdom—2 and 13%. In Galicia, where there was a great demand for land, farms were highly fragmented and dispersed. The farms in the Prussian partition were intensive (like western farms), and in the Kingdom and Galicia rather extensive. The income of agriculture was growing due to population growth and demand for agri-food products. Russia and Prussia sought self-sufficiency in food production: Russia through the development of agriculture and rail transport in Ukraine, and Prussia through agricultural trade protectionism, cheap credit and industrial development for agriculture. In the case of the Prussian partition, this benefited Polish agriculture, which received investment; infrastructure was developed, and drainage and mechanisation was carried out. For example, in Greater Poland there was one harvester per 350 ha of land, one per 660 ha in the Kingdom and one per 3450 ha in Galicia. The profitability of agriculture in

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Galicia was low due to the natural and geographical conditions and the competition of Hungarian agriculture, and it was not supported by the state. This resulted in a very diverse volume of agricultural production, which in the case of the Prussian partition increased twofold and threefold between 1880 and 1913, and remained almost unchanged in the remaining annexed territories. In the Prussian partition, the average annual yields of different crops were generally twice as high as in the Austrian and Russian partition. For example, in the years 1909–1913, wheat yields in Galicia and the Kingdom were ca. 12 q/ha; in the Prussian partition, it was nearly 22 q/ha, barley, respectively, around 11 q/ha and 21 q/ha. In addition, per capita, the increase in the production of cereals (1880–1913), coupled with the growing population, resulted in a decrease in production in the Kingdom from 417 to 389 kg per person; in Galicia, it slightly increased from 298 to 335 kg, and in the Prussian partition, it increased from 447 to 844 kg. The situation was similar for cattle and pigs. In the years 1870–1910, the stock increased twofold, but in Greater Poland the stock of pigs per 1000 inhabitants was two and three times higher than in the Austrian and Russian partitions. On the contrary, a cow in Galicia produced an average of 600 L of milk per year, while in Greater Poland they made as much as 3000 L. The protection policy of the Kingdom of Poland was effective in the development of industry, mainly mining, metallurgy and textiles. Existing plants were modernised, and new ones were built (in the vicinity of Kielce—Starachowice and Ostrowiec and in Zagł˛ebie D˛abrowskie—today’s Dobrowa Górnicza and Sosnowiec). The first textile mills were built in Łód´z, Pabianice, Zdu´nska Wola and Zgierz, each town with a population of from 1 to 3 thousand. When Russia introduced high import duties on woollen fabrics (1833) and the industrial revolution took place in Poland, the cotton industry in Łód´z (the Polish Manchester) developed very rapidly. Between 1830 and 1844, domestic production increased sixfold, the number of employees increased by 60% and labour productivity quadrupled. Some of the factory owners and weavers moved to Białystok (located outside the Kingdom of Poland in the Grodno Governorate) and thus bypassed high customs duties, while giving rise to the development of the textile industry in this part of contemporary Poland. Owing to the fact that in Russia the industrial revolution appeared at the earliest in the Kingdom of Poland—about 1850, and in Russia itself about 30 years later, it was conducive to the development and expansion of Polish industry into the Russian market (in Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine 70–90% of wool and cotton products came from the Kingdom). Industrial production increased from 11 million roubles in 1850 to nearly 900 million roubles in 1910. Until World War I, four industrial districts formed in the Kingdom of Poland: Łód´z (textile), D˛abrowa Górnicza (metallurgy, metal and chemical industries), Warsaw (metal and textile industries) and the Old Polish District (metallurgy, mineral and machine industries). It is worth noting that the development of industry was largely related to the inflow of both human and financial capital from abroad. It is estimated that in the years 1901–1902 in the Kingdom of Poland, only 25% of factories (about 700) were in the hands of foreign capital, where 69% of workers (84 thousand) worked and 60% of the production value (181 million roubles) was produced, which proves its greater efficiency. On Polish territory, in the western governorates of the Russian Empire in the Białystok region, the textile industry was

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developing, and in Vilnius, Minsk or Dyneburg industry was insufficient, limited mainly to sugar factories, sawmills, breweries, brickyards and several metal industry plants (in 1910, 15–18% of the population worked in industry). In the Prussian partition, as in the other partitions, a significant development of industry took place in the second half of the nineteenth century. In Greater Poland and Kuyavia, the agri-food processing industry (mills, distilleries, breweries and sugar factories) developed intensively. At the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, sugar factories in Greater Poland were characterised by greater size and efficiency; one sugar factory produced three times as much sugar as a sugar factory in the Kingdom of Poland. Thus, the agricultural machinery industry in Pozna´n, Bydgoszcz, Toru´n and the mineral industry developed (phosphate fertilisers in Pozna´n and Lubo´n, a baking soda factory in M˛atwy near Inowrocław). The main centres of the machinery industry were Gda´nsk and Elbl˛ag, where the Prussian authorities built armament factories and shipyards. The industrial revolution resulted in an increased demand for coal, the staple fuel for machines and metallurgy. In Upper Silesia, where coal mining was being developed, in 1800 there were 18 mines which extracted 37,000 tonnes of coal, and in 1850, there were already 71 mines and their output reaching one million tonnes. At the turn of the twentieth century, a mining and metallurgical complex was created in Upper Silesia (located in fact in the three annexed territories, but mainly in the Prussian part of the country), which was as big as the Donetsk Basin in Ukraine and the Ruhr Basin in Germany. Between 1892 and 1912, hard coal production grew from 16.4 to 41.5 million tonnes, pig iron from 470 to 1050 thousand tonnes, zinc and lead from 107 to 210 thousand tonnes. The industrial development was accompanied by its concentration and so the importance of large enterprises increased. Out of 63 mines, 9 carried out 65% of extraction, out of 14 ironworks—3 provided 46% of the production of pig iron, and out of 23 zincworks—10 produced 96% of zinc. Just like in agriculture and industry, productivity was at its highest in Prussia. In 1865, only the Royal Ironworks in Chorzów produced as much pig iron as the entire Old Polish Basin in the Kingdom of Poland. Galicia’s industry was the most underdeveloped. It mainly involved salt mining and liquor distillation (almost 60% of the spirit of the whole Habsburg monarchy) and was predominantly local industry (which almost collapsed after the emergence of railways). It was not until the mid-nineteenth century that oil extraction from deposits near Gorlice and Krosno in the Podkarpacie region began. In Cieszyn Silesia, the textile industry, mainly wool and metallurgy, developed in the Bielsko region (today’s Bielsko-Biała). The expansion of the railway network in the second half of the nineteenth century had a negative impact on the competitiveness of Galician industrial products. As a result, almost all sugar factories, glassworks and ironworks were closed down, and the distillation industry was severely restricted. The predominant oil mining industry was developing on the basis of foreign capital. Out of 40 companies, 17 belonged to German capital, 14 to English capital, 3 to Hungarian capital, 2 to Belgian capital, 1 to Italian capital and only 3 to Polish capital. Coal mining on the western border of Galicia (near Chrzanów) was of little importance (compared to the D˛abrowa Basin and Upper Silesia). In turn, the metal and machinery industry developed mainly in Krakow, Lviv and Sanok.

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On the eve of the war, the structure of industry in the partitions (according to employment) was different. In the Kingdom, the textile and clothing industry dominated (43%), followed by the metal and machinery industry (15%), food industry (10%) and mining industry (8%). In Galicia and the Prussian partition, the structure of industry was more diversified. In Galicia, mineral and food industries accounted for 19% of industrial output each, mining for 17%, wood for 12% and the metal industry for 11%; in the Prussian partition: metal and food industries (about 24% each), mineral (20%), wood (16%) and textile and clothing (7%). The first railway line within the borders of present-day Poland, built in 1842, was located in Silesia and linked Wrocław and Oława. In Lower and Upper Silesia, the railway network developed the fastest (between 1850 and 1875 about 600 km of tracks were built), which was associated with and driven by the development of industry (feedback). In 1846, the Mysłowice–Berlin line was built (in 1847 Mysłowice– Krakow), and in 1859 Katowice–D˛abrowa–Warsaw. The railway developed equally early in Greater Poland. In the years 1850–1890, railway connections between Pozna´n and Wrocław, Frankfurt, Bydgoszcz, Szczecin, Kluczbork and Strzałkowo (on the border with the Kingdom of Poland) were built. Bydgoszcz, on the contrary, was connected with Gda´nsk, Piła and Toru´n. The railway line connecting Berlin with Königsberg via Gorzów, Krzy˙z, Piła, Chojnice and Tczew was important for Prussia. Apart from the main railway routes in the Prussian partition, a number of connections of local importance were established. In the years 1840–1850, the first railway line was created in the Kingdom of Poland from Warsaw to Vienna through Koluszki, Cz˛estochowa and Maczki (within the limits of today’s Sosnowiec), where there was a border with Austria and Prussia (where the railway line connected with their railway routes). In the 1860s, railway lines from Warsaw to Bydgoszcz, St Petersburg (via Białystok and Vilnius), Brest and Łód´z were built, which reduced transport and general production costs, and this improved their competitiveness and further accelerated the development of the textile industry in Łód´z itself. Since the mid-nineteenth century, access to railways became a crucial factor in the location and development of industry, chiefly mining, metallurgy and the metal industry. The peak of railway construction fell in the 1870s and 1880s when lines from Grajewo (the border with Prussia) via Brest to Kiev, from Mława (the border with Prussia) via Warsaw, Lublin, Kowel to Kiev (then Warsaw gained the fastest connection with Gda´nsk) and railway lines connecting the Old Polish Basin with Zagł˛ebie D˛abrowskie were built. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the construction of a railway line from Warsaw through Łód´z to Kalisz (the border with Prussia) was completed. Thus, between 1870 and 1911, the length of railway lines in the Kingdom of Poland increased from 902 to 3385 km. Most of the border stations were with Prussia (7, most of them had to reload goods and people due to the fact that a significant part of the railway in the Kingdom was wide-track), and with Austria—only one—in Maczki (Sosnowiec). Travel from Warsaw to Pozna´n was possible through Kalisz or Toru´n, and to Lviv through Cz˛estochowa and Krakow. In both cases, there were no simpler and faster connections at that time. In Galicia, the first railway line built in 1847 was the one connecting Krakow with Mysłowice. In 1856, Krakow was linked via a railway line with Vienna and the construction of tracks from Krakow to Lviv

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via Rzeszów and Przemy´sl began. In the 1870s and 1880s, railway lines from Lviv to Czerniowce via Stanisławów and to Tarnopol and Brody (border with Russia) were built. In mountainous Galicia, the construction of railway lines was more difficult than in lowland Greater Poland and the Kingdom of Poland. A major challenge was the connection of Galicia with Austria-Hungary through the Carpathian Mountains and therefore only four lines running from north to south were created. In Galicia, similarly to the Prussian partition, but on a smaller scale, the railway lines ended at the borders of the state (partition) and did not cross them. This mainly applied to the border with the Kingdom of Poland. In 1870–1912, the length of railway lines in Galicia increased from 673 to 4120 km. In Cieszyn Silesia, Bohumin became the main railway junction where the railway routes from Warsaw to Vienna and from Budapest to Berlin crossed. Convenient transport location was conducive to the intensive development of coal mining and metallurgy in the region of Bohumin, Trinec and Ostrava. Generally, the development of railways on Polish territory occurred relatively early, just after the first railway lines were built in the partitioning countries (in 1835 in Germany, in 1837 in Austria and in 1838 in Russia). However, the policy of the partitioning countries differed slightly. In Russia, initially the tsarist authorities were opposed to the development of the railway system, its development being supported mainly due to military considerations. The state strongly interfered in the process of building railway lines, which connected only the main centres in the simplest possible way. In Prussia, on the contrary, railways were treated from the start as a basic means of transport and an extensive network connecting almost all cities was created. Therefore, in 1912 the highest density of railway lines (in km per 1000 km2 ) was in Greater Poland and Gda´nsk Pomerania—97 and 88, respectively. This density was smaller in Galicia—52, while the smallest was in the Kingdom of Poland—28. Apart from the railways, which revolutionised and boosted the development of industry and forms of freight transport, paved roads were built. The earliest construction was in the Prussian partition in the early nineteenth century. As in the case of railway lines, the highest density of paved roads (in km per 1000 km2 ) was in Greater Poland and Gda´nsk Pomerania—248 and 337, respectively, and the lowest in the Kingdom—72 (in Galicia—194). Interestingly, due to the development of electricity, electric trams appeared by the year 1912 in the major towns of Lviv, Gda´nsk, Elbl˛ag, Grudzi˛adz, Bydgoszcz, Pozna´n, Bydgoszcz, Katowice, Bielsko, Krakow, Olsztyn, Warsaw, Tarnów and Inowrocław. In Vilnius and Białystok, in turn, only horse-drawn trams were in operation.

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3.3.3 From One War to Another: A Moment of Freedom (1918–1939) Organisation of public life In November 1918, Józef Piłsudski (head of state) issued decrees introducing an eight-hour working day, obligatory insurance against illness and unemployment, minimum wage levels, protection of tenants and trade union rights. In turn, Prime Minister J˛edrzej Moraczewski announced the electoral law, according to which the following principles were to apply in elections: universality (women could vote), confidentiality, directness, equality and proportionality. The first elections to the Sejm were held in 1919, but mainly in the lands of the former Kingdom of Poland and Galicia, as there was still conflict in the Eastern Borderlands and Greater Poland. Stabilising the borders and the territory as well as the political situation in the ‘young state’ (including the adoption of the Constitution in March 1921) led to elections to the Sejm and Senate in 1922. The National Assembly elected the first president, Gabriel Narutowicz, who was assassinated by a fanatical nationalist after several days in office. The political situation and the socio-economic problems of the country hindered the functioning of any government. In 1918–1939, prime ministers changed 28 times (a few, like Wincenty Witos, held the office several times). The internal situation was therefore far from stable. However, at the beginning of the 1920s, from the point of view of socio-economic development, it was already possible to adopt a number of solutions, such as the introduction of a democratic republic, the abolition of both state privileges of the nobility and aristocratic titles, the introduction of universal compulsory schooling, and the guarantee of equality before the law regardless of financial standing, nationality and religion. Sanitary conditions, health care and medical development improved. Reforms covered finances (the zloty currency was introduced), education, law and the judiciary (a penal code was introduced that was uniform throughout the country, but family law was not unified until the end of the 1930s. For example, in the former Prussian partition, civil weddings were allowed, and in the rest of the country, only church weddings were allowed). Between 1921 and 1922, a territorial division into voivodeships, urban and rural poviats and townships and rural communes were introduced. In 1939, there were 17 voivodeships (including a separate one for Warsaw), 263 poviats (including 23 urban ones) and 611 towns and 3195 rural communes. The voivodeships and poviats were units of government administration (with a small degree of self-government), and communes were local ´ askie Voivodeship and Warsaw had a separate fully government units. Only the Sl˛ self-governing status. Society In 1919, 26.3 million people lived in the Second Republic of Poland. Within 20 years the population increased to 35.5 million. Of course, Warsaw remained the largest city, whose population increased from 937,000 to 1,289,000 between 1921 and 1939, and Łód´z was the second-largest city, where the population increased from 452,000 to 672,000. Equally high dynamics were observed mainly in the voivodeship capitals,

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which became the administrative and economic centres of the new state: Lviv (219 and 318 thousand), Pozna´n (169 and 272 thousand), Vilnius (129 and 209 thousand), Bydgoszcz (88 and 141 thousand), Katowice (50 and 134 thousand) and the industrial centres: Chorzów (75 and 110 thousand), Sosnowiec (86 and 130 thousand) and Gdynia (1–127 thousand). However, the population of the cities represented only 24.6–27.5% (of which only the largest cities recorded the largest increase of over 100,000, from 31 to 39%). The increase in population was linked with a relatively high natural increase of about 12–16‰ (in Western Europe, it was about 1–6‰) and with repatriations of Poles from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania, as well as returns from emigration (about 1.5 million people in total). The Second Republic was a multinational country. It is estimated that in 1931 Poles constituted 65% of the population, Ukrainians 16%, Jews 10%, Belarusians 6%, Germans 2.4%, Russians 0.4%, Lithuanians 0.3% and Czechs 0.1%. The population structure by livelihood in 1931 indicates that agriculture and forestry dominated (61.3%), followed by industry and mining (19.4%), trade and insurance (6.1%), communication and transport (3.6%), education and culture (1.1%), and health care (0.9%). It should be noted that Poland, with a low level of development, was a country with extremely large economic inequalities in the interwar period. This was due to a flawed agrarian structure, large labour resources and small capital. It is estimated that peasants made up 50% of the population, the working class 30%, the small bourgeoisie 12% and the intelligentsia 6%. The economic differentiation was as follows. The proletariat, i.e. small and landless peasants, unskilled workers and cottage workers, made up nearly 55% of the population. The lower middle class, i.e. landowners, skilled workers, small bourgeoisie and lower civil servants, accounted for 33%. White-collar workers and freelancers, farmers and owners of smaller landed estates (the upper middle layer)—11%, and owners of businesses and landed estates and the elite of the state apparatus—less than 1%. With such a structure of the population, which was the legacy of the partitions, it is not surprising that 5% of the inhabitants of the former Prussian partition were illiterate, in Galicia—40%, and in the Kingdom of Poland—57%. It was only thanks to the introduction of compulsory schooling that the situation improved. In the school year 1921/22, nearly 66% of children were subject to compulsory schooling, while in 1928/29 as many as 96.4% (education expenditure accounted for 15% of the state budget). Economy Poland’s (young) economy was at once faced with economic fluctuations, in particular with the recession and the global crisis. In the years 1919–1920, economic policy was subordinated to the ongoing wars over borders. After the wartime destruction, mainly industries important from the military point of view (engineering and metallurgy) were rebuilt. Not only were raw materials and fuels rationed but also food. In the next decade, there was a deep economic recession, which severely limited the possibility of economic development. Nevertheless, for several years a liberal economic policy was pursued (including commercialisation of the public sector). Between 1929 and 1932, prices Western economies dropped 60–70%, and production was reduced by about 50%. At that time, industrial production in Poland fell

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by 64%; more than 1300 factories were closed and the number of the unemployed almost equalled that of working population. In 1929–1933, the unemployment rate (among the professionally active outside agriculture) increased from 3 to 44%. Agriculture was affected by the crisis, too; its indebtedness growing due to a lack of funds to repay loans. Interventionism was introduced in Western countries as an antidote to the crisis. In Poland, initially, attempts were made to maintain a budgetary balance, which, with decreasing incomes, meant limiting expenditure. It was only from 1933 that the government pursued a policy fighting the crisis. Public works were introduced (e.g. construction of railways and roads), the state took over the collapsing large industrial plants in Silesia and Łód´z; tax privileges for investors were created. A price-dumping strategy was applied to exports, and state monopolies on spirits, tobacco and salt were commercialised. Between 1935 and 1939, a liberal economic policy was increasingly replaced by interventionism. Foreign currency rationing was introduced, imports were controlled and above all a programme of industrial development was created (including the construction of the Central Industrial District). Large investments were made in the arms industry due to concerns about growing armament production in Germany and the USSR. The agricultural reforms of the 1920s led to the partitioning of land in state-run estates and in private estates of more than 180 ha. By 1938, a total of 2.6 million ha had been plotted, creating 734,000 new farms. The main buyers were smallholders (64%) and landless farmers (30%). As a result of the reform, in 1938 small peasant farms (up to 5 ha) increased their share to 65%. Large farms of 20–50 ha constituted only 2%. The largest number of smallholder farms was in the southern voivodeships (former Galicia), where their share hovered around 80%, which was the source of sustenance for 54% of the peasant population. This resulted in so-called agrarian unemployment (agrarian overpopulation) of about 4 million people (about 25%). An additional problem was the fragmentation of land into several plots of land located in different places, creating a so-called checkerboard of fields (mainly in former Galicia). This resulted in limited agrotechnical progress and the commenced compaction of about 860,000 farms has not been completed to date. The main crops were rye (33% of arable area), potatoes (17%), oats (13%), barley (7%) and sugar beets (1%). The application of traditional cultivation methods resulted in low yields for Polish agriculture in comparison with European countries. Cereal yields in the interwar period oscillated between 10 and 12 q/ha, potatoes 100–150 q/ha and sugar beets 200–240 q/ha. In the years 1927–1938, the cattle population increased from 8.6 to 10.6 million, pigs from 6.3 to 7.5 million and sheep from 1.9 to 3.4 million, which when calculated per 100 ha of agricultural land gave values of 41, 29 and 13 animals, respectively. Industry had to rebuild what was destroyed and integrate it to meet the needs of the state. The Second Republic of Poland ‘inherited’ an industrial structure dominated by the textile, mining, metal and food industries. This state of affairs lasted until 1938. At that time, the textile and clothing industry employed 22% of the active population, the metal industry 20%, mining and metallurgy 19%, the mineral industry 18% and the food industry 8%. The structure of the share in the production volume is slightly

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different, namely the textile and clothing industry—20%, mining and metallurgy— 19%, the food industry—14%, the chemical industry—13% and the metal industry— 12%. Investments in industry led to the development of e.g. power engineering, coal (e.g. in Łaziska, Chorzów, Stalowa Wola) and water power plants (e.g. in Ro˙znów, Czchów, Myczkowce) and the transmission grid; the automotive industry (Warsaw, Lublin, Radom); the aviation industry (Rzeszów, Lublin, Pozna´n, Biała Podlaska); the telecommunications and radio engineering industry (Warsaw, Katowice, O˙zarów Mazowiecki, Bielsko-Biała). This led to considerable regional disparities. In 1935, the highest number of people employed in industry per 1000 inhabitants (with the ´ askie Voivodeship (82), followed by Warsaw national average of 20) was in the Sl˛ (57), Łód´z (48), Kielce (34), Krakow (22) and Pozna´n (21). These voivodeships were located in the former Kingdom of Poland, the Prussian partition and Western Galicia. However, in the remaining voivodeships, located mainly within the borders of the Russian Empire and Eastern Galicia, the level of employment in industry was lower than 10 people per 1000 inhabitants. It was the smallest in Lubelskie, Polesie and Tarnopolskie voivodeships, at the level of about 3–4 people per 1000 inhabitants. Therefore, in the interwar period, Poland A was defined as Pomorskie, Pozna´n, Warsaw, Łód´z, Silesia and Western poviats of Krakow voivodeship and northern poviats of Kielce voivodeship. They accounted for about 30% of the territory and about 45% of the country’s population, yet for nearly 90% of the country’s industrial output. Poland B was made up of Lubelskie, Lviv, Tarnopolskie, Stanisławskie and other poviats in Krakow and Kielce voivodeships, which accounted for about 30% of the territory and 34% of the population. Poland C consisted of the voivodeships of Volhynia, Polesie, Nowogródek, Vilnius and Białystok, representing 40% of the territory but only 21% of the population. An attempt to bridge the gap between Poland A and B was made with the construction of the Central Industrial District (CID—44 poviats at the junction of the voivodeships of Krakow, Kielce, Lublin and Lviv, which constituted 15% of the country’s territory and 18% of the total population, 83% of whom lived in rural areas). The largest investments that were prepared before the outbreak of the Second World War included: steelworks in Stalowa Wola, an aircraft factory in Mielec, a factory of aircraft engines in Rzeszów, a truck factory in Lublin, rubber, tyre and explosives factories in D˛ebica. Out of 57 defence industry plants, the CID accounted for 35 and the Warsaw Industrial District for 16. Many investments involved foreign companies (French, American and Swiss). It is estimated that state enterprises (or those with a state share) accounted for only 25–30% of the total volume of industrial production. In terms of employment, state-owned enterprises had the largest share in the mining and steel industry (40%), the chemical industry (27%) and the lowest share in the textile and mineral sectors (7% each). As in the case of industry, the legacy of the partitions included, for example, an unevenly developed transport network. In particular, the railway system did not match the geography of the new state. Significant disproportions in this respect existed between the voivodeships of the former Prussian partition and the rest of the country. There were no direct railway links between Warsaw and Pozna´n and Lviv and between Upper Silesia and Pozna´n and Gda´nsk. Between 1921 and 1938, 1770 km of normal track lines were built to complete the missing connections and the

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electrification of the Warsaw junction began. Production of rolling stock began, for instance, in Chrzanów, Pozna´n and Sanok. As for the roads, the basic problem was that they were unfit for vehicular traffic (there were mainly made of crushed gravel or fieldstone). By 1938, new roads with improved pavement were built to connect Warsaw with Katowice and Krakow, but their share was only 6% of roads with hard pavement. The construction of a port in Gdynia helped to develop sea navigation and at the end of the 1920s, LOT Polish Airlines began operations on both domestic and international routes (e.g. to Athens, Beirut, Helsinki, Belgrade, Rome). The foreign trade turnover in the years 1922–1939 was generally positive. Poland traded with the capitalist countries of the West and with the USSR. As the Soviet state introduced a monopoly on foreign trade, this necessitated the development of a different trade model. In 1938, Poland exported to Western Europe mainly coal (57%) and agri-food products (36%), and to a negligible extent industrial consumer goods (5%), machines, appliances and transport equipment (1%). Germany and the UK were the main recipients of Polish goods. As for imports, fuels and raw materials prevailed (64% of imports) along with transport machinery and equipment (21%). The principal imported products were iron ore, cotton and industrial machinery. The main imports were from Germany, the United Kingdom, Austria and the Netherlands. The expansion of the port in Gdynia boosted maritime trade, mainly with Sweden, Great Britain and the USA. The principal exports to the USSR were textile goods and steel products.

3.3.4 A Different World (1939–1989) Organisation of public life Since the beginning of World War II, the Polish government was in exile (e.g. in England), and in Poland, its delegation and armed forces (Home Army) operated in the underground. At the beginning of 1942, the Soviets deployed communist activists by parachute, who then formed the Polish Workers’ Party (PPR) on Polish soil. As a result, a separate communist centre of power developed in 1944, to which the People’s Guard was subordinate, later transformed into the People’s Army. As the Red Army pushed the Germans out of the country, despite negligible public support, the communists took over the administration in the liberated territories. A government was formed in Moscow, which moved to Lublin. The Polish Army was formed under the auspices of the Red Army. The liberated areas were policed by NKVD units; the Civic Militia was later organised from the local population who supported the communist regime (for lucrative positions and land). In July 1945, the Western powers recognised the communist authorities and withdrew their recognition of the Polish government in exile. The Soviet authorities, getting rid of the prewar authorities and elites, quickly built a supportive administration and structures in Poland in every area of socio-economic and political life. All legal and organisational changes resulted from top-down decisions of the Political Bureau and the Central

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Committee of the PPR (and since 1948 the PZPR, i.e. Polish United Workers’ Party). In fact, in the years 1952–1989 the Central Committee of the PZPR and the First Secretary decided on the most important matters in the People’s Republic of Poland. In the first five post-war years, the communist authorities made a significant change in ownership relations in the form of agrarian reform and nationalisation of industry and other branches of the economy, terminated the concordat with the Holy See, leaving only civil weddings in force (the institution of divorce was introduced), abolished pre-war holidays, established by decrees which political parties could operate legally, introduced control of the mass media, culture, science and education, abolished the Senate (reinstated only in 1989), and elections to the Sejm were a farce of democracy due to numerous forgeries. The satellite states were reorganised after the Soviet model; the economy was transformed, and Soviet planning patterns were introduced. The era of the People’s Republic of Poland was marked by periodic changes in the authorities of the Polish United Workers’ Party, forced by years of economic downturn and a worsening social situation which led to strikes and protests against the authorities (1956, 1968, 1970). In 1970, when Edward Gierek became the party’s first secretary, Poland ‘opened up’ to the West and the construction of ‘socialism with a human face’ started. Poland received big loans for the modernisation of its economy, which was to both upgrade heavy industry and increase the living standards of the population. Western goods arrived in shops; people started to go abroad (also to work and trade). The border with the GDR was opened (and could be crossed without a passport). In the countryside, compulsory deliveries were abolished, agricultural pensions were introduced and the state health service was extended to farmers. Plans for the construction of multi-family housing estates were prepared for the cities, and the production of a passenger car affordable for an average Polish family was launched (Fiat 126p). In the second half of the 1970s, the centralised deficit economy once again led to an economic crisis and the reintroduction of the rationing of food products (e.g. sugar). This resulted in another wave of strikes (1976, 1980). After a power shift in the Polish United Workers’ Party (1980–1981), many concessions were made, including the creation of Solidarity, which was not controlled by the Party. In the years 1981–1983, martial law was in force, which hampered mobility and communication. In addition, the press, the activities of social associations and organisations were suspended, and many products were rationed (e.g. meat, flour, butter, rice, groats, soap, detergents, clothes, shoes, petrol). After 1986, the liberalisation of prices brought about a spike in official prices. After the Second World War, a three-tier division of territorial administration into voivodeships, poviats and communes was maintained. In the Regained Territories, new provinces were created: Wrocław, Szczecin and Olsztyn. There were 14 voivodeships and 2 metropolitan cities (Warsaw and Łód´z). In 1946, there were 299 poviats (including 29 municipal ones), 3006 rural communes and 703 towns. A new element organised according to the Soviet model was national councils (at voivodeship, poviat and commune levels), which were an extension of the central communist administration (Polish National Council). The council members were not elected and decided on the staffing of the major positions. As of the 1950s, the

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councils passed regulations and had executive functions (self-government was abolished and the posts of voivodes, starosts, town and commune mayors were replaced by presidiums of national councils of appropriate levels). In the 1950s, some new voivodeships were created: Koszalin, Opole and Zielona Góra, and new metropolitan cities were introduced: Krakow, Pozna´n and Wrocław. In the years 1954–1973, the communes were replaced by much smaller groups. In 1975, the territorial division was changed again. 49 small voivodeships were established and poviats were liquidated. The main aim of this reform was for the Central Committee of the PZPR to strengthen control over the lower tiers of the state apparatus. At the local level, only the division into communes and towns was maintained, whose numbers were between 2100–2400 and 800–830, respectively. Society The total death toll of World War II in Poland was over 5.6 million people (about 17% of the population in 1939). The largest number of victims, nearly 3 million, were Polish Jews. In 1946, the population of Poland stood at 24 million people. The post-war population movements resulted mainly from repatriation, resettlement and internal migration. Attempts were made to bring about a situation in which Poles would live mainly on Polish soil (naturally within the new borders). Between 1945 and 1950, about 3 million Germans were displaced, mainly from rural areas and smaller towns because a significant number of Germans (about 7.5 million) had been evacuated (or had escaped) in 1944. Some large cities such as Wrocław, Gda´nsk and Szczecin were almost entirely abandoned before the arrival of the Russians. 1.5 million people came back to Poland from Germany and the USSR, each (a total of 3.8 million people returned to Poland after the war). In the years 1945–1947, the Regained Lands were inhabited by over 5 million people, only 290,000 (5%) of whom were Germans. In the years 1944–1948, nearly 1.2 million repatriates from the USSR came to the Regained Lands. Repatriation to the USSR (mainly Ukrainians from south-eastern Poland) was about 0.5 million people. As part of the ‘Vistula’ action, about 200,000 Ukrainians and Lemkos from south-eastern Poland were resettled in the Regained Territories. The population changes in post-war Poland were influenced by the high birth rate, which in 1946 was 16‰, in 1950—19‰ and in the years 1950–1990 gradually decreased, mainly due to the lower birth rate from 31 to 14‰ (with a relatively constant death rate—about 9‰). In 1990, it was only 4‰. The increase in the level of health care (including growing immunisation) resulted in a marked decrease in infant deaths (between 1950 and 1990, the infant mortality rate decreased from 111 to 16‰). A slightly less important element influencing the population was foreign migration. In the years 1950–1990, the balance of this type of migration was always negative, and for each decade ranged from 100,000 to 250,000 (a total of about 0.5 million people). National border shifts and post-war migration movements made Poland ethnically homogenous, and in 1950, there were only 2–3% of national minorities. As a result of the progressive development of industry, the level of urbanisation increased. In 1946, the percentage of urban population was 32%, and in 1950, it rose to 37%. The greatest increase in the level of urbanisation was observed in the next

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two decades. In 1960, 48% of Poles lived in cities, and in 1978 as many as 58%. At the beginning of the transformation, the percentage of city dwellers was ca. 62%. In the years 1945–1990, about 350 cities were established (including 162 urban type housing estates). Town rights were granted mainly to large municipal villages, which had held them before (restitution of town rights). However, a large group of towns regained their independence after being incorporated into the neighbouring towns in the 1970s. As early as 1950, more than half of the cities were small, had up to 5000 inhabitants and accounted for 11% of the urban population, and only five cities had more than 200,000 inhabitants, representing 25% of the urban population. In 1990, the percentage of cities with less than 5000 inhabitants fell to just 1/3 (4% of the city’s population), and the number of cities with more than 200,000 inhabitants rose to 20 (37%). Medium-sized towns began to play a dominant role in the urban network, especially since the 1970s, when due to the administrative reform, 32 poviat towns were elevated to the status of voivodeship centres, followed by the development of industry and urban infrastructure, which was conducive to migration. The existing cities developed rapidly. In the years 1939–1950–1990, the population of the largest cities changed as follows (in thousands): Warsaw (1289–822–1656), Łód´z (672–620–848), Krakow (259–344–751), Pozna´n (274–321–590), Bydgoszcz (143–163–382), Lublin (125–117–351), Białystok (107–68–271), Kielce (69–61– 214), Katowice (134–175–367), Gdynia (120–103–251), Cz˛estochowa (138–113– 258), Radom (90–80–228), Toru´n (81–80–200) and Sosnowiec (130–96–259). A number of cities lost during the reign of the Piast dynasty returned to Poland. The largest of them were (population in the years 1939–1950–1990 in thousands) as follows Wrocław (620–309–643), Gda´nsk (250–195–465), Szczecin (382–179– 413), Gliwice (114–120–214), Zabrze (126–172–205), Bytom (101–174–231) and Olsztyn (46–44–163). Between 1931 and 1950, the share of people living off the land dropped from 60 to 47%. This was matched by an increase in workers in industry sectors, from 13 to 21%, construction from 1 to 5%, and transport and trade from 8 to 11%. Between 1950 and 1990, the share of farmers dropped significantly, from 47 to 18%, which was naturally tied with an increase in the share of non-agricultural sources of income (from 48 to 61%) and sustenance from mainly old age and disability pensions (from 4 to 21%). The share of people linked with agriculture dropped regularly; between 1931 and 1950 from 66 to 56%, and in 1988 to 27%. A reverse trend was observed in industry; in the years 1931, 1950 and 1988, the share of industry workers was 11%, 19% and 28%, respectively. The share of people working in trade increased between 1950 and 1988 from 5 to 8%, science, culture and education from 2 to 7%, and health care and social welfare from 1 to 5%. Far more sweeping changes occurred in social structure. Both during and after the war, most privately owned agriculture and industry was confiscated or nationalised. Polish landowners lost their property, and thus, the material base of this social stratum was liquidated. In turn, the material basis of the bourgeoisie was removed as a result of the nationalisation of large and medium-sized industry, banks and commercial enterprises. The new system created the basis for the social advancement of the

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proletariat, which in 1938 made up about 50% of the population (landless and smallholders, unskilled workers, Lumpenproletariat), and after the war, it was on them that the new communist regime relied. Young people from overcrowded villages found room for action in the new system, in deserted cities, in the Regained Territories and in the agendas of state oppression. This group had a relatively low level of culture and political awareness, but it was under a great influence of the Catholic Church and recognised national values. The war and the advent of communism brought about enormous losses in the intelligentsia (about 50%), who were murdered or forced into exile. The small bourgeoisie suffered equally high war losses, mainly due to the Holocaust. As a result of the above changes and the intensive process of industrialisation combined with the introduction of the communist system, a new social stratification was created. The elite of the regime and the rest of society, controlled by the elite and deprived of political rights (workers, peasants and white-collar workers). In the 1960s and 1970s, due to economic development and improved living conditions, a new stratum emerged: the young socialist middle class, mainly of rural origin, ambitious and gifted. These were families with their own homes, fitted with goods such as a car, a television set, a refrigerator, with secondary and higher education and with average higher wages. It was the middle class that largely supported Solidarity and the movements fighting the communist regime. In 1984, the working class is estimated to have made up 48% of the active population; peasants accounted for 27% of the workforce, the intelligentsia for 23% and the small bourgeoisie for 2%. With the development of education and the implementation of compulsory schooling between 1946 and 1950, illiteracy was almost completely eradicated in Poland. In 1978, about 1% of people were illiterate, while in the countryside this figure was about 1.5% (in 1931, it stood at around 27%). Meanwhile, it should be stressed that in countries such as Portugal, Greece and Spain the share of illiterate people in rural areas was 29%, 16% and 10%, respectively. Vocational and secondary education was developing. In 1988, 39% of the population aged 15 and over had primary education, 24% basic vocational education, 25% secondary education and 6% higher education. The development of multi-family housing was an important element facilitating social change after World War II. In the 1950s, housing investments accounted for 20% of state investment outlays. Despite significant changes in this respect, the needs grew equally fast. In the years 1950–1988, the number of dwellings per 1000 inhabitants increased from 234 to 283, and the number of people per one room dropped from 1.75 to 1.02. However, the estimated shortage of dwellings in 1988 stood at nearly 3 million. The biggest changes occurred in terms of how residential accommodation was furbished. Between 1950 and 1988, the percentage of dwellings equipped with water supply rose from 19 to 84%, those with a flush toilet from 11 to 72%, and those with gas from 7 to 49%. Economy The reconstruction of the destroyed economy in the early 1940s was hampered by the activities of the Red Army, which seized virtually everything it considered useful. Whole factories, machinery, equipment and railway tracks were dismantled and taken away in order to restore the production capacity of Soviet plants. At the end of the

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1940s, the dismantling was completed and the organisation of production essential for the needs of the USSR began. In 1946, all mining and production plants in 17 branches of industry were nationalised by law; in the remaining sectors, all enterprises which had more than 50 employees, and by the mid-1950s part of agriculture. The state sector was made up of medium and large industries, banks, domestic and foreign trade, communications, transport, shipping, forestry and about 25% of agriculture. The private sector consisted mainly of agriculture, small industry and crafts and services. In 1947, the share of the state sector in industrial output was 86%, which accounted for 71% of employees. The private sector accounted for ca. 10% of industrial production, employing 23% of the industry’s workforce. There was also a cooperative sector (agricultural and commercial cooperatives, food cooperatives in cities, housing, transport, crafts), but its share in industrial production was small (about 4%). The communist economy was based on economic plans, which defined the scale and standards of production. The first was a three-year plan (1947–1949), which envisaged a rapid reconstruction of wartime destruction in industry in order to industrialise the country, rebuild energy and transport and restore the pre-war level of national consumption. Subsequent plans adopted by the party apparatus corresponded to the planning periods in the USSR (1950–1955, 1956–1960, 1961–1965, etc., until the 1976–1980 plan; there were no plans in 1981–1982, 1983–1985 and 1986–1990). Plans were also created for economic sectors and specific companies, which were parts of national plans. The plans imposed production levels, e.g. in 1955, coal extraction was to be 100 million tonnes (94.5 million was actually extracted), sugar production 1.1 million tonnes (980,000 tonnes were produced), cotton fabrics 608 million m (561 million) and synthetic indexes expressed in fixed prices and concerning basic macroeconomic categories, e.g. in 1955 (1949 = 100) national income—212.3, industrial production—258.3, while the actual execution was 173.5 and 271.7, respectively. The implementation of the plans within a socialist economy ran smoothly only with regard to industrial production; here, the indicators exceeded and in other areas the assumptions were almost never achieved. It was a ‘deficit economy’, which brought periodic, increasingly deepening economic crises in the form of sub-production downturns. Economic development in the years 1948–1988 was uneven and consisted of several investment cycles made up of a phase of investment recovery and investment recession, which involved interference in the implementation of plans. Importantly, the political crises and protests against the authorities in Poland always took place during the recession of investment cycles (1956, 1970, 1980, 1989). As early as 1946, agriculture generated 70% of the national income, but in 1950 it was only 60% and with each decade (with the progress of industrialisation) its share decreased; in 1960, it was 34.5%, 1970—22.7% and in 1990—15%. In the years 1946–1970, agriculture generated more national income than it received in the form of investments, and after 1970 the situation reversed—the outlays were higher than the outcomes. In Poland, agricultural production was based on small and mediumsized farms and state farms, while in Western Europe large-scale farms dominated, supported by the common agricultural policy within the EEC. In industry, Western

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Europe initially developed on the basis of US financial aid, and then on the basis of the common market. In the West, in the 1960s, there was a departure from traditional heavy industry (coal mining, ironworks). Coal was replaced by cheaper Arab oil and gas, and modern chemical, electrical machinery and electronics industries were developed. In Poland and other socialist countries, the opposite was true, i.e. intensive industrialisation based on traditional heavy industry. However, the oil crisis in the early 1970s, which affected the countries of Western Europe, put the process somewhat at a standstill, but also lifted to power those parties which broke with neoKeynesianism and liberalism was back. Many industrial plants, mines, steel mills, etc., were privatised and closed down, and the EEC was extended to include new, less industrialised countries (Portugal, Spain, Greece, Ireland). The countries of Western Europe dealt with the crisis relatively quickly, while the socialist countries plunged into a deep recession. This was particularly true of those socialist economies where mining, metallurgy and mechanical engineering were highly developed. In addition, the centralised economy was full of impediments to technological innovation, and thus obsolete and energy-intensive (almost 2.5 times more than capitalist economies). In post-war agriculture, agricultural reform was almost immediately initiated. Land division proceeded, which in central Poland, due to lack of land, resulted in assignments of 2–5 ha (later the assignments were increased), and in Greater Poland and Pomerania often exceeded 12 ha. The division of manor farms gave rise to 163,000 farms, and 91,000 farms were abandoned by their former German owners. 124,000 farms remained after the population displaced to the USSR and as a result of the ‘Vistula’ action. Not all the farms managed to be filled by the displaced people and thus many were taken over by the state. These farms and large former German estates which were not subdivided made up state farms (Polish: PGR), patterned after the Soviet kolkhozes. In 1950, out of 6,265,000 ha of arable land in former German territories, 7% belonged to original owners, 59% to peasant settlers and 29% to State Agricultural Farms. In 1950, 9% of the Polish farmland was administered by state farms, 89% by peasants (the rest was owned by production cooperatives and state farms). In the years 1960–1988, the share of land in the socialised sector (state and cooperative) increased from 13 to 23% (only in Yugoslavia was this less: 14– 16%). In other socialist countries, it ranged from 88 to 95%. In comparison with the pre-war period, the share of small farms decreased (to 5 ha) and the share of medium-sized ones increased (5–20 ha). Small farms accounted for 57–63% of all farms and purchased 21–28% of land. On the contrary, the share of large farms, over 20 ha, ranged from 1 to 3%, accounting for 6–7% of the land. The 1970s was a period when mandatory supplies were abolished and the availability of new tractors and agricultural machinery, fertilisers and fodder increased. Food and agricultural production and rural infrastructure (road construction, water supply, energy) were developed. Between 1946 and 1949, the yields of all crops increased, mainly due to a decrease in fallow land from 6 to 1 million ha and an increase in arable land. With the increase in crop production, the stock of animals, mainly pigs and horses, grew. Cereal yields increased between 1946 and 1949 by about 110–140%, the cattle population by 180% and the pigs by 230%. Between 1950 and 1990, the yields increased even more, for example, wheat from 13 to 37 q/ha, potatoes from 117

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to 203 q/ha and sugar beets from 187 to 351 q/ha. The steady rise in yields and agricultural production was largely due to increasing investments and mechanisation of agriculture (e.g. between 1950 and 1990 the area of agricultural land per one 1 tractor decreased from 720 to 16 ha). However, in general, the agriculture of the Comecon countries was less efficient than that of the capitalist countries, and in the late 1980s the gap increased significantly. For example, between 1948 and 1988, the average annual wheat yields (q/ha) in Poland increased from 13 to 37 and in Bulgaria from 12 to 39, while in France from 18 to 57 and in Germany from 26 to 64. In 1946, industrial production was ca. 75% of pre-war output. The highest number ´ askie, Łódzkie and Wrocławskie Voivodeships— of employees in industry was in Sl˛ 31%, 14% and 11%, respectively, of total employment in industry. Of course, even before the war, these areas were the most industrialised, and during the war they suffered relatively least, which made it possible to start production quickly. In the three-year plan (1947–1949), nearly half of the investment resources were allocated to the energy, coal and steel industries (reconstruction and modernisation). In the case of the chemical industry, what the Russians and Germans dismantled (e.g. the plants in O´swi˛ecim and Tarnów) or the Allies bombed (e.g. in K˛edzierzynKo´zle) had to be rebuilt. Production in the textile and agri-food industries resumed relatively quickly. Within the new borders (in Silesia), new possibilities merged for lignite mining near Bogatynia and copper ore near Legnica. In the 1950s and 1960s, mining and metallurgical plants were established (e.g. opencast lignite mines in Konin and Bogatynia, Lenin Steelworks in Krakow and an aluminium plant in Konin); an oil refinery was built in Płock, power plants near Konin, chemical plants in Police near Szczecin and Włocławek. New industrial districts were formed: Rybnik Coal District, Tarnobrzeg Sulphur District and Legnica-Głogów Copper District. Almost all investments designed in the CID in the Second Republic of Poland were continued after the war. It was also connected, among other things, with the implementation of the USSR policy in the field of military development, and a number of armament plants were established in the Central Industrial District. In the 1960s, when military needs were not excessive, armament factories were switched to civilian production (washing machines, refrigerators, sewing machines, radios, shoes), but were put on standby to cater for national defence. However, heavy industry continued to develop in such a way that the manufacture of means of production increased faster than the production of means of consumption. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the construction of the Katowice Ironworks started in D˛abrowa Górnicza, along with small car factories in Bielsko-Biała, Tychy and Warsaw. In the 1970s, large industrial plants (about 600 of them) were built even in small towns and credits and new technologies were coming from the West. That time saw the rise of the following factories: mines near Lublin and Bełchatów, a refinery and the Northern Port in Gda´nsk, power plants near Radom and Szczecin, and a sugar factory in Łapy near Białystok. The crisis of the late 1970s, martial law and social movements caused the collapse of industrial production. This led to economic reforms, which called for the closure and liquidation of unprofitable enterprises, including the Gda´nsk Shipyard known as the ‘cradle’ of Solidarity. This triggered a political crisis and led to ‘Round Table’ talks. In the 1950s, traditional industries (coal mining, textile and

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food industries) accounted for over 65% of global production. By 1988, their share had fallen to about 45%, mainly due to a decline in production in the light and food industries. A significant increase, from 6 to 26%, was recorded in the share of the electrical machinery industry. However, it should be stressed that, in addition to a wide range of products such as washing machines, television sets and refrigerators, the electrical machinery industry also accounted for the production of tanks, combat vehicles, military aircraft and arms. The largest investments in transport were made in the railways, mainly because of the transport needs of industry. Between 1946 and 1950, the length of the railway lines in operation increased from 23,000 to 26,000 km, freight transport rose from 73 to 160 million tonnes (mainly coal and coke) and passenger transport from 262 to 613 million people. Between 1950 and 1990, nearly 1000 km of new railway lines were built and nearly 2500 km of second tracks were added to the single-track lines. One of the major railroad investments in the People’s Republic of Poland was the construction of the so-called Central Railroad in the 1970s, which connected Silesia with Warsaw and so-called sulphur and coal railroad from Zagł˛ebie D˛abrowskie to Hrubieszów on the border with the USSR (wide-gauge line). In the 1970s, the length of electrified lines rose from ca. 4000 to 7000 km. Between 1970 and 1990, electrified lines rose from 17 to 48%. In the case of car transport, the biggest problem was road reconstruction. Only 22,000 km of roads featured an improved surface (concrete, cobblestone, asphalt) in 1950. Between 1946 and 1949, the length of lines serviced by buses increased from 8.5 to 27 thousand km, and the number of passengers of mass transport from 7 to 74 m. In the 1970s, one of the most important road investments of the People’s Republic of Poland was the 280 km expressway from Warsaw to Katowice. In 1990, out of about 160,000 km of hard paved roads, as much as 87% had an improved surface, and 76% of the roads were used by regular bus transport. Thanks to the return of several dozen ships to Poland, it was possible to launch sea shipping (both passenger and freight). In 1948 and 1949, the first two ships were built in the Gda´nsk Shipyard. In the years 1960–1970, the capacities of sea transport almost tripled; the ports of Gda´nsk and Gdynia were expanded to accommodate the export and import of goods produced by industry (coal accounted for 30–40% of the cargo). LOT Polish Airlines were re-activated in the years 1945– 1946 and regular flights from Warsaw to Berlin, Prague, Paris, Stockholm, Budapest, Bucharest and Copenhagen began. Civil airports for domestic flights were launched in Gda´nsk, Katowice, Krakow, Łód´z, Pozna´n, Szczecin and Wrocław. Along with the development of their fleet, mainly in the 1970s, LOT Polish Airlines expanded their operations into airports in Africa, Asia and the Americas. The number of international lines increased from 25 to 43, while cargo transport doubled. Until the 1950s, capitalist countries accounted for the bulk of trade; both imports and exports were higher than those of socialist countries. The balance of foreign trade was negative, of which two thirds was accounted for by socialist countries and one third by capitalist countries. A particularly large increase in foreign trade took place in the 1970s in connection with the policy of opening up to the West. This opening up, however, resulted in an increase in imports and a spike in the negative balance of foreign trade. The situation changed only in the 1980s when, as a result of a lack of

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foreign currency, imports fell. In the years 1950–1990, the main trading partner were the GCC countries (about 60% in imports and exports), in particular the USSR. Since the 1960s, Polish exports to the socialist countries were dominated by products of the machinery and electrical machinery industry (40–55%) and coal (20–30%), and to the capitalist countries by products of agricultural origin (40%) and coal (about 20%). In 1950–1990, Polish imports from socialist countries were mainly machinery and equipment (40%) and fuels (25–30%)—mainly oil and gas from the USSR. Mainly modern machinery and equipment, chemical products (plastics, pharmaceuticals) and agricultural products not produced in Poland (wine, rice, lemons, coffee, tea) were imported from capitalist countries. Poland’s share in world imports and exports was between 1.0 and 1.2% in 1960–1980 and around 0.3 and 0.6% in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

3.4 Summary The evolution of political and socio-economic events that have taken place in Poland over the centuries has clearly left its mark on contemporary Poland and Poles. Undoubtedly, Poland’s inclusion in the circle of Western Christian culture in the tenth century contributed to the most enduring group of formal and informal institutions. Although practically by the end of the 1930s, Poland was a multinational country with a variety of religious denominations, the significance of the Catholic religion and of the Roman Catholic Church and the cultivation of the attendant values, despite longstanding attempts to eliminate them, had taken root in Polish society. The relatively high religiousness of Poles stood out and has continued to stand out in Europe. The spatial distribution of Catholics in Poland, to a large extent shaped historically (more recently by post-war migration movements), partially explains a number of social attitudes related, among others, to the number of children in the family and of marriages and divorces, social and political attitudes and views. This is particularly evident in the configuration of the former partition borders and those of the Second Republic of Poland. Nevertheless, generally speaking, the historical legacy of those periods in which Poland lost its sovereignty is most evident today. This primarily means the period of the partitions and socialism. With the former, this was largely due to the coincidence of the partition era and the decisions of the partitioning states in terms of shaping formal institutions and indirectly influencing informal institutions, as well as the industrial revolution and the development of capitalism, which took place in the different circumstances of the three partitioning states and which determined, for example, many current social and functional-spatial structures in Poland. In the latter period, this was due to the formation of new socialist institutions in society and an economy controlled externally that constituted a kind of experiment. The almost complete abolition of private property and all manifestations of democratic public life completely subordinated to the development objectives of the socialist state with an extensive apparatus of oppression and chronic shortages of all goods (with the

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exception of industry) brought both social relations and the entire economy virtually to their knees. Therefore, to improve the political and socio-economic situation on the threshold of transformation, ‘shock therapy’ was one of the considered options for the change of the path of development. It was a major turning point for most aspects of socio-economic development. Therefore, by knowing and understanding the past, it is far easier to interpret the present. The existing social and economic differences, apparent also in the spatial dimension, i.e. processes of geographically uneven development, which are the determinants and partly the subject of political transformation, still contain manifestations of historically shaped spatial and non-spatial relations and institutions of a formal and informal nature. The example of Poland illustrates relatively clearly how difficult it is to change the path of development. The adaptation and mutation of existing social structures (including political and cultural ones) seems to be relatively continuous (although caused by profound change). Although it is a long-term process, due to the relatively high dynamics of change, e.g. in connection with the opening to the external environment, it is modest (in some areas slow) and the consequences of previous historical decisions are still visible. In economic terms, the historical legacy of the transformation period was a much more frequent occurrence of so-called structural stagnation and an inability to evolve. This situation often made the decision-makers adopt more far-reaching solutions, i.e. the destruction of previous development paths, which also often had severe social consequences. The above major historical events and facts related to the socio-economic transformation show how choices made previously (often many decades earlier) and a specific sequence of events influence today’s picture of Poland’s diversity. The partitioning countries (nineteenth century) and the Soviet occupation (1945– 1990) strongly constrained the freedom and sovereignty of Poles. In each of these cases, foreign powers made decisions on how to shape the society (including, among others, intensive Germanisation, Russification, Sovietisation) and the economy (involving, inter alia, the location and development of specific industrial sectors, shaping the agrarian structure). Specific attitudes and ethos were formed during the partitions especially. One of the more striking examples is Greater Poland, which in response to Germanisation developed an ethos of a Catholic Pole, effectively fighting the Prussian invader via organic work. This ethos was enhanced in the process of acculturation with a number of features of other nationalities (as well as cultures and religions). Thus, the inhabitants of the Greater Poland region demonstrate entrepreneurship, economy, diligence, practicality, moderation, regularity, punctuality and a love of order. The inhabitants of Greater Poland, Silesia and Pomerania (especially the urban population) took over from the Prussians in the process of acculturation the German (partly Protestant) bourgeois and capitalist mentality. While migrations and the period of socialism partially obliterated these attitudes, in general it can be assumed that these institutions are still visible. A more tangible aspect, still visible in Poland’s social and economic space, is the diversity of land use (higher density of the railway network in the lands of the former Prussian partition, fragmentation of the land and a ‘chessboard’ of agricultural land in the former Galicia, a high share of private ownership of the land on the lands of the former Kingdom of Poland, higher level of industrialisation of the

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lands of the former Prussian partition). In addition, a clear consequence of the decisions of the partitions and socialism is the location of industry, which is directly related to the concept of path dependency. The structural problems of Polish mining, metallurgy and heavy industry in Upper and Lower Silesia (e.g. Katowice, Bytom, Wałbrzych) and light industry in the vicinity of Łód´z, Białystok and Lower Silesia and the consequences of these regions and cities being locked in a particular development path have to date been a tangible socio-economic problem in these areas. The same applies to the problems of structural unemployment and dependence on the development path of the areas of former state-owned farms in Western Pomerania and Warmia and Mazury. Socio-economic problems are still visible there today. The problem of adaptation to new conditions with fixed and existing resources, the condition and structure of human capital, institutional set-up are extremely challenging even 30 years after the political transformation. It is worth noting that after 1918, the existing regional disparities (occurring de facto in every aspect) were consolidated by the adopted division into regions (voivodeships). The territorial division of Poland introduced after World War I referred to the territorial solutions of the partitioning countries in the second half of the nineteenth century. Thus, on the one hand, the above-mentioned important and significant events influenced the existing differences, and on the other hand, the seemingly minor solutions made in good faith at that time have perpetuated the existing differences. Another example of the acute persistence of historically dependent institutions and paths of development is the fact that despite the economic plans adopted during the time of the People’s Republic of Poland, mainly for five-year periods, it was assumed that the rate of employment growth in industry was to be the highest in the least industrialised voivodeships, but the location of new industrial plants and the expansion of existing ones were concentrated mainly in traditional industrial districts. Therefore, even attempts to ‘manually’ control the economy relied excessively on earlier rules and principles, which confirms the vital role of institutions and sequences of specific events in history. A similar but far-reaching example of the permanence of institutions is the development of the feudal system of serfdom in the fifteenth century in. When the countries of Western Europe modified their development paths by developing manufactories, industry and colonial policy, agriculture prevailed in Poland. On the one hand, it consolidated the domination of agriculture and agricultural production (in conjunction, of course, with favourable natural conditions) for over 400 years, and on the other hand, it consolidated the structure and social relations (a high proportion of peasants, farmers) and attachment to the land. This situation is particularly evident in the lands of the former Russian partition and in former Galicia. There are many more areas of socio-economic life where historical institutional settings have played an important role in the transformation process (beyond the structure and distribution of industry, agriculture and transport). Suffice it to mention, for example, election choices, family models, demographic and consumption patterns, crime rates and the generic and directional structure of foreign trade. However, owing to their magnitude and the constraints of the current text, they have not been addressed or only briefly identified.

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References Acemoglu D, Robinson J (2012) Why nations fail: the origins of power, prosperity and poverty. Profile Books, London Boschma R, Frenken K (2006) Why is economic geography not an evolutionary science? Towards an evolutionary economic geography. J Econ Geogr 6(3):273–302 Davis N (2005) God’s playground: a history of Poland, vols I and II. Columbia University Press, New York Grabher G (1993) The weakness of strong ties: the lock-in of regional development in the Ruhr area. In: Grabher G (ed) The embedded firm. On the socioeconomics of industrial networks. Routledge, London-New York, pp 255–277 Granovetter M (1985) Economic action and social structure: the problem of embeddedness. Am J Sociol 91(3):481–510 Harvey D (2005) Spaces of neoliberalization: towards a theory of uneven geographical development. Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart Hayter R (2004) Economic geography as dissenting institutionalism: the embeddedness, evolution and differentiation of regions. Geogr Ann Ser B Hum Geogr 86(2):95–115 Henning M (2019) Time should tell (more): evolutionary economic geography and the challenge of history. Reg Stud 53(4):602–613 Historia Polski w liczbach (vol I): Pa´nstwo, Społecze´nstwo (2003) History of Poland in numbers, vol 1: state, society. GUS, Warszawa Historia Polski w liczbach (vol II): Gospodarka (2006) History of Poland in numbers, vol 2: economy. GUS, Warszawa Historia Polski w liczbach (vol III): Polska w Europie (2014) History of Poland in numbers, vol 3: Poland in Europe. GUS, Warszawa Jezierski A, Leszczy´nska C (1999) Historia gospodarcza Polski (Economic history of Poland). Key Text, Warszawa Levi M (1997) A model, a method, and a map: rational choice in comparative and historical analysis. In: Lichbach M, Zuckerman A (eds) Comparative analysis politics: rationality, culture and structure. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 19–41 Martin R (2000) Institutional approaches in economic geography. In: Sheppard E, Barnes TJ (eds) A companion to economic geography. Blackwell, Oxford, pp 77–94 Martin R, Sunley P (2006) Path dependence and regional economic evolution. J Econ Geogr 6(4):395–437 North DC (1986) The new institutional economics. J Inst Theor Econ 142(1):230–237 North DC (2005) Understanding the process of economic change. Princeton University Press, Princeton, Oxford Pierson P (2004) Politics in time. History, institutions, and social analysis. Princeton University Press, Princeton, Oxford Polanyi K (1944) The great transformation. The political and economic origins of our time, 3rd edn (2010). Beacon Press, Boston Sewell W (1996) Three temporalities: toward an eventful sociology. In: McDonald T (ed) The historic turn in human sciences. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, pp 245–280 Sokołowicz ME (2015) Rozwój terytorialny w s´wietle dorobku ekonomii instytucjonalnej Przestrze´n—blisko´sc´ —instytucje (Territorial development in the light of the output of institutional economics. Space—closeness—institutions). Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, Łód´z Stachowiak K, Stryjakiewicz T (2008) Institutional approach in economic geography and its relevance to regional studies. Quaest Geogr 27B(1):7–20 Williamson OE (2000) The new institutional economics: taking stock, looking ahead. J Econ Lit 38(3):595–613

Chapter 4

Axes of Political Rivalry in a Territorial Pattern: Geography of Electoral Behaviour Roman Matykowski and Katarzyna Kulczynska ´

Abstract The aim of the study is to characterise the political orientations of the Polish electorate in the Sejm elections in 1991–2019. In order to obtain a comparable regional system while analysing the spatial variability of the election results, all elections were reduced to the 41 constituency system (the division operating since 2001 in elections to the Sejm). In addition to the fairly traditional division of the orientation (into left-wing parties, right-wing Christian parties, etc.), an analysis of the rivalry between the main political groups was made—Law and Justice (PiS) and Civic Platform (PO), or its mutation the Civic Coalition in 2019—in relation to the elections to the Sejm in 2005, 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019, as well as the transgression of popularity among the PiS electorate. An important issue is also the search for regional factors of variability in support of parties and candidates for the President of the Republic of Poland in the territorial pattern of the 41 constituencies. Keywords Electoral behaviour · Factor of territorial differences · Poland

4.1 Introduction At the end of the 1980s, representatives of various social sciences in Poland showed an increased interest in issues concerning voting behaviour, including the spatial context. Even the very first researchers of this subject suggested the emergence of a new political geography of Poland, as most of the studies conducted at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s were quite simple diagnoses, which did not refer to global achievements in this field or make use of the research experience from Polish studies already published. It was only at the turn of the new century that a certain conceptual and subject model of electoral studies in Poland was formed. R. Matykowski · K. Kulczy´nska (B) Faculty of Human Geography and Planning, Adam Mickiewicz University, B. Krygowskiego 10, 61-680 Pozna´n, Poland e-mail: [email protected] R. Matykowski e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Churski and T. Kaczmarek (eds.), Three Decades of Polish Socio-economic Transformations, Economic Geography, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06108-0_4

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The aim of this study is to provide a general overview of the elections in Poland in the years 1991–2020 and to analyse the regional diversity of support for the most important parties in the elections to the lower chamber of the Polish parliament— the Sejm. An important reason for this study is an attempt to identify some factors influencing electoral behaviour in the regional pattern of contemporary Poland and the mechanism of changes in support for the main parties. The territorial organisation of elections in Poland was characterised by instability and changeability, especially in the context of the regional pattern in which the parliamentary seats are allocated and the election results are analysed. The first elections took place with the old administrative division into 49 voivodeships, and only after the introduction of a three-tier division in the elections to the Sejm in 1999 was a new system of 41 constituencies established and adjusted to the new administrative division. This study incorporated the results of local government, parliamentary and presidential elections published by the National Electoral Commission (PKW) in the system of 41 constituencies. When starting the research, four working hypotheses were initially formulated: • On the Polish political scene, two phases can be distinguished: (a) the consolidation of a multi-party system and (b) the crystallisation phase of a new bipolar system with other background parties. • During the crystallisation phase of the bipolar system, a transgression (diffusion) of conservative and prosocial views from south-eastern Poland to central Poland can be observed. • At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the main axis of competition was the political system of Law and Justice (PiS) versus Civic Platform (PO). • Another important factor shaping the spatial variability of support for the two most important parties is the intensity of urbanisation processes. In July and August 1980, strikes broke out at many industrial facilities across Poland. The most important turned out to be the protest at the Gda´nsk Shipyard headed by Lech Wał˛esa. In September 1980, an Independent Self-governing Trade Union named ‘Solidarno´sc´ ’ (Solidarity) was set up in Gda´nsk (with Lech Wał˛esa as its leader), which soon became the strongest social movement in opposition to the Communists in power. It should be mentioned at this point that since 1979 an unofficial, independence-oriented, anti-Communist party calling itself the Confederation of Independent Poland (led by Leszek Moczulski) had been in existence, but its influence was insignificant at the time. As a result of mounting conflicts between the Communist Party and Solidarity, the authorities declared martial law on 13 December 1981, outlawed Solidarity and interned many of its activists. In 1988, the state was swept by a wave of strikes brought about by the rapidly deteriorating economic situation, and Wał˛esa, leader of the banned Solidarity, strengthened his position. In December 1988, Lech Wał˛esa set up the Citizens’ Committee, a team of 119 advisors. Between 6 February and 5 April 1989, the representatives of the ruling coalition (the Polish United Worker’s Party, the United Peasants’ Party and the Democratic Party) and the opposition (the Citizens’ Committee) held a series

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of round-table meetings. They resulted in a set of compromises on the economy and social policy, as well as political reforms and trade-union plurality. The consequences were the re-registration of Solidarity and Rural Solidarity, the adoption of new voting regulations and the creation of a higher house of parliament, the Senate, and the office of President. On 4 and 18 June 1989, the Sejm elections were held, in which the division of seats was arranged by a round-table contract: 65% for the PRON (Patriotic Movement of National Rebirth) signatories and 35% for the opposition. The elections to the Senate were fully democratic, and here, Solidarity candidates won 99% of the seats. On 19 July, Wojciech Jaruzelski was elected President by the National Assembly (the Sejm and Senate together), and on 24 August, the Sejm designated Tadeusz Mazowiecki of Solidarity as the Prime Minister, because the two old satellite parties gave their support to the new political arrangement. The period from the end of 1989 throughout 1990 was a metamorphosis of the old parties: (1) In January 1990, the Communist Polish United Workers’ Party ceased to exist; it provided a basis for the non-Marxist Social Democracy of the Republic of Poland which soon became the core of the Left Democratic Alliance; (2) in November 1989, the United Peasants’ Party (ZSL) changed into the Polish Peasants Party (PSL) ‘Rebirth’; and in May 1990, this party merged with some pro-Solidarity peasant groups. The new formation was headed by Roman Bartoszcze, an activist of Rural Solidarity, but in 1991, he was deposed and former ZSL activists, among them Waldemar Pawlak, seized power.

4.2 The Polish Political Scene: From a Multi-party System to the Consolidation and Relative Stability of the Parliament In 1990, the Solidarity Citizens’ Committee disintegrated, and one of the factors that gave this process impetus was the presidential election scheduled for the end of that year. In effect, the monolithic opposition bloc was split between the National Christian Union (October 1989), the Centre Agreement (May 1990), the Liberal Democratic Congress (1990) and the Democratic Union (November/December 1990). On the basis of the Round-Table Agreement, in the spring of 1989, the office of the President was restored in Poland. The president was to be elected by the National Assembly, i.e. the combined chambers of the parliament: the Sejm and the Senate, for a 6-year term of office. On 19 July 1989, General Wojciech Jaruzelski was elected President, but after a year, on 21 September 1990, the Sejm adopted a resolution on universal, democratic and direct elections for the President of the Republic, assuming that if the candidate did not receive more than 50% of the votes, the second round (run-off) with the two candidates who obtained most votes would take place.

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The run-up to election was a period of very aggressive political campaigning full of electoral promises. Six contenders stood for President in the first round (25 November 1990): Lech Wał˛esa (the Solidarity leader proposed by the Centre Agreement), who polled 39.4% of the votes, Stanisław Tymi´nski (a Pole who lived in Canada and was referred to as ‘a man from nowhere’) with 23.1% of the votes, Tadeusz Mazowiecki (Prime Minister)—18.1%, Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz (a representative of the Left Democratic Alliance)—9.2%, Roman Bartoszcze (leader of the pro-Solidarity wing of the Polish Peasants’ Party)—7.7% and Leszek Moczulski (leader of the Confederation of Independent Poland)—2.5%. The two contenders who had polled the most votes in the first round took part in the run-off; Lech Wał˛esa emerged victorious. After the presidential election, Mazowiecki’s supporters set up a new party—the Democratic Union, and in the Polish Peasants’ Party, the old guard removed Roman Bartoszcze from power. In Poland, the first parliamentary election of this type was held as late as in 1991 with the participation of 111 parties and social organisations (Table 4.1). Such a large number of parties and organisations in the elections resulted from a lack of real recognition of their influence and importance among the electorate, and by the electoral law, the allocation of parliamentary seats was carried out according to the SainteLaguë method and without any electoral threshold. The organisations that garnered the strongest electoral support included the Democratic Union, the Left Democratic Alliance, the Catholic Electoral Action (or the National Christian Union), the Polish Peasants’ party, the Centre Agreement and the Confederation of Independent Poland. These six parties won 57.9% of the votes and 67.2% of the seats in the Sejm. Coalition governments after the 1991 election were unstable, and in May 1993, the government of the post-Solidarity parties lost the Sejm confidence vote, which ended with the President dissolving the parliament. The law concerning the Sejm elections was changed. A threshold of 5% (for one party) and 8% (for a coalition) was introduced, and the allocation of MP seats was based on the d’Hondt method. The electoral threshold did not apply only to ethnic minority associations running in the regional elections. As a result of the election of 19 September 1993, only 6 parties entered the Sejm, led by the victorious paleo-parties, the Left Democratic Alliance (with the Social Democracy of The Republic of Poland and the left-wing trade unions as its core) and the Polish Peasants’ Party. These paleo-parties pattern secured 35.8% of the votes, but as many as 66.1% of the seats in the Sejm. As many as 13 candidates ran in the second direct presidential election in 1995. However, the rivalry basically consisted in a duel between the incumbent President Lech Wał˛esa and the representative of the Social Democracy of the Republic of Poland (Socjaldemokracja RP)—Aleksander Kwa´sniewski. The representative of the left, Aleksander Kwa´sniewski, won both in the first (35.1%) and in the second round (51.7%). The success of the left, which was associated with the previous political system, forced the representatives of many post-Solidarity parties to form a conglomerate called Solidarity Electoral Action (Akcja Wyborcza Solidarno´sc´ ), whose members

60.0

52.1

52

Proportion of 50.4 valid votes cast for 5 most important parties

43.2

37

Voter turnout

Number of electoral districts

35

6 national + 2 regional

111

Number of parties, organisations and associations entering elections

52

47.9

87.2

5 national + 1 regional (German minority)

21

41

46.3

82.4

6 national + 1 regional (German minority)

14

41

40.6

81.8

6 national + 1 regional (German minority)

22

41

53.9

97.2

4 national + 1 regional (German minority)

10

19 September 21 September 23 September 25 September 21 October 1993 1997 2001 2005 2007

Number of 19 national + groupings that 10 regional won seats in Sejm

27 October 1991

Specification

Table 4.1 Territorial organisation and participants in the Sejm elections, 1991–2019

41

48.9

95.7

5 national + 1 regional (German minority)

11

9 October 2011

41

50.9

85.6

5 national + 1 regional (German minority)

17

25 October 2015

41

61.7

98.9

5 national + 1 regional (German minority)

10

13 October 2019

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included the Trade Union ‘Solidarity’ and its chairman Marian Krzaklewski. Twentyone parties and social organisations ran in the 1997 election to the Sejm, but only 6 of them won seats. The Solidarity Electoral Action, established before the election, won (33.8% of the votes), beating the Democratic Left Alliance (Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej), which received 27.1% of the votes. The third place was taken by the post-Solidarity Freedom Union (Unia Wolno´sci), the former Democratic Union (Unia Demokratyczna). The Freedom Union formed a government together with the Solidarity Electoral Action. In constituency No. 30 (based in Opole), representatives of the German minority won 17.0% of the votes and gained 2 seats in the Sejm. The next presidential election in 2000 brought success to the incumbent President and the representative of the left, Aleksander Kwa´sniewski in the first round (53.9%). His main rival was the leader of the Solidarity—Marian Krzaklewski (15.6%), but he lost to an independent candidate Andrzej Olechowski (17.3%), supported by a small post-Solidarity Party, the Conservative People’s Party (Stronnictwo Konserwatywno–Ludowe). Lech Wał˛esa also ran in this presidential election, obtaining 1.0% of the votes (Table 4.2). In 1998–1999, the Solidarity Electoral Action government carried out four important reforms in administration, education, the pension system and health care, which sparked social protests, and in June 2000, the Freedom Union withdrew from the government coalition. At the end of the term of office, internal disputes and conflicts arose in this post-Solidarity conglomerate. Before the 2001 Sejm elections, the political scene was rebuilt. The remains of the Solidarity Electoral Action survived in the form of Electoral Action Solidarity of the Right (Akcja Wyborcza Solidarno´sc´ Prawicy), and new post-Solidarity parties were established: Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwo´sc´ —PiS) led by Jarosław Kaczy´nski and Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska—PO), whose first leaders were Andrzej Olechowski—an independent candidate in the 2000 presidential election, Maciej Pła˙zy´nski—an activist of the Solidarity Electoral Action and Donald Tusk—a former activist of the Freedom Union. Moreover, right-wing circles formed a conservative-Catholic party, the League of Polish Families (Liga Polskich Rodzin). The 2001 elections to the Sejm were held according to the amended electoral rule; the Sainte-Laguë method was applied again, and the so-called national list of candidates for MPs valid from 1991 to 1997 was abolished. The Democratic Left Alliance (Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej) and the Labour Union (Unia Pracy) coalition won the 2001 Sejm elections (41.0% of the votes), ahead of Civic Platform (12.7%), Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland (Samoobrona—10.2%), Law and Justice (9.5%), the Polish People’s Party (Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe—9.0%) and the League of Polish Families (7.9%). In the 2005 election (and all subsequent elections until 2019), the seats in the Sejm were allocated in accordance with the d’Hondt method. At that time, the highest number of the votes was given to Law and Justice (27.0%), which was ahead of Civic Platform (24.1%), Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland (11.4%), the Democratic Left Alliance (11.3%) and the League of Polish Families (8.0%). Two weeks after the parliamentary elections, presidential elections

2010

9 October (1st round)

2005

4 July (2nd round)

20 June (1st round)

23 October (2nd round)

8 October (1st round)

19 November (2nd round)

5 November (1st round)

2000

1995

25 November (1st round)

1990

9 December (2nd round)

Date

Year

54.94

49.74

61.12

64.70

60.63

First round

Turnout (%)

Presidential elections

10

12

12

13

6

Number of candidates

Table 4.2 Results of presidential elections in Poland

78.00

69.43

71.20

68.22

63.06

Proportion of votes received by two most important candidates

41.54 Lech Kaczy´nski 36.46

Bronisław Komorowski

Lech Kaczy´nski 33.10

36.33

17.30

Andrzej Olechowski Donald Tusk

53.90

33.11

35.11

23.10

39.96

% votes

Aleksander Kwa´sniewski

Lech Wał˛esa

Aleksander Kwa´sniewski

Stanislaw Tymi´nski

Lech Wał˛esa

Name

Most important candidates and % votes

Second round

Lech Wał˛esa

Aleksander Kwa´sniewski

Stanisław Tymi´nski

Lech Wał˛esa

Name

Rivals

48.28

51.72

25.75

74.25

% votes

55.31

50.99

53.01

45.96

(continued)

Lech Kaczy´nski 46.99

Bronisław Komorowski

Donald Tusk

Lech Kaczy´nski 54.04

Kwa´sniewski’s victory in first round

68.23

53.40

Turnout (%)

4 Axes of Political Rivalry in a Territorial … 87

2020

10 May (1st round)

2015

12 July (2nd round)

28 June (1st round)

24 May (2nd round)

Date

Year

64.51

48.96

First round

Turnout (%)

Presidential elections

Table 4.2 (continued)

11

11

Number of candidates

73.96

78.53

Proportion of votes received by two most important candidates

Rafał Trzaskowski

Andrzej Duda

Bronisław Komorowski

Andrzej Duda

Name

30.46

43.50

33.77

34.76

% votes

Most important candidates and % votes

Second round

68.18

55.34

Turnout (%)

Rafał Trzaskowski

Andrzej Duda

Bronisław Komorowski

Andrzej Duda

Name

Rivals

48.97

51.03

48.45

51.55

% votes

88 R. Matykowski and K. Kulczy´nska

4 Axes of Political Rivalry in a Territorial …

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were held. In the first ballot, the most popular candidate was Donald Tusk, supported by Civic Platform (36.3%), slightly ahead of Lech Kaczy´nski (33.1%). Among the 12 presidential candidates in the 2005 election, there was also a participant of the 1990 voting—Stanisław Tymi´nski, who this time ranked 9th with 0.2% of the votes. The run-off was won by the candidate supported by Law and Justice—Lech Kaczy´nski (54.0%). After the parliamentary election in 2005, Law and Justice formed a coalition government with Self-Defence and the League of Polish Families. However, this government turned out to be unstable and 2007 witnessed a snap early parliamentary election. This time it was won by Civic Platform (41.5%), ahead of Law and Justice (32.1%), the coalition of the Left and Democrats (Lewica i Demokraci—13.1%), with the Democratic Left Alliance as its main member, and the Polish People’s Party (8.9%). Two parties that counted in the 2001 and 2005 elections received little support in 2007—Self-Defence with 1.5% of the votes and the League of Polish Families with 1.3%—and thus disappeared from the Polish political scene. After the tragic death of President Lech Kaczy´nski, the 2010 presidential election was postponed by several months. As many as 10 candidates ran in the first round, but the first two, supported by the main parties: Civic Platform and Law and Justice, obtained a total of 78.0% of the votes (see Table 4.2). Both rounds were won by the representative of Civic Platform—Bronisław Komorowski (41.6%—in the first round; 53.0%—in the run-off), and Jarosław Kaczy´nski came second (36.5%—in the first round). Andrzej Olechowski, a candidate in the 2000 presidential election, this time ranked 6th, gaining merely 1.4% of the vote. In 2015, both presidential and parliamentary elections took place. The former featured 11 candidates. In the first round, quite unexpectedly, the greatest support was obtained by the candidate supported by Law and Justice—Andrzej Duda (34.8%), who overtook the incumbent President, Bronisław Komorowski (33.8%). The third place was taken by a representative of a somewhat eclectic social movement, rock musician Paweł Kukiz (20.8%). Ultimately, Andrzej Duda won the run-off with 51.6% of the votes. Five months later, the parliamentary election was held, featuring 17 parties and social organisations. Law and Justice won the elections to the Sejm, obtaining 37.6% of the votes and gaining 51.1% of seats in this chamber of parliament. Therefore, this party was able to appoint a one-party government for the first time since the 1991 election. Civic Platform, which was experiencing a crisis, obtained 24.1% of the votes, and the Polish People’s Party 5.1%. Two new parties appeared in the Sejm: Modern (Nowoczesna) (7.6%), which represented a more liberal alternative to Civic Platform, and the social movement Kukiz’15 (8.8%) that centred around supporters of the independent presidential candidate, Paweł Kukiz. The United Left (Zjednoczona Lewica) with the Democratic Left Alliance as its main member obtained the support of 7.6% of voters, but running as a coalition it did not exceed the threshold of 8% and did not win any seats in the Sejm. The 2019 parliamentary election marked another victory of Law and Justice (43.6% of the votes), which again won over a half of the seats in the parliament (51.1%). The weakening

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Civic Platform was transformed through the alliance with Modern and several small political groups into the Civic Coalition (Koalicja Obywatelska) and gained 27.4% of the votes. After losing the elections in 2015, left-wing parties came together under the banner of the Democratic Left Alliance and received 12.6% of the vote. Apart from the representatives of this party, the alliance included activists of new parties— Spring (Wiosna), founded in 2019, and the Left Together (Lewica Razem), founded in 2015 and running without success in the 2015 election. On the other hand, some of the activists of the weakening Kukiz’15 movement (including its leader) made it onto the lists of the Polish People’s Party (8.6%). The new party featured in the 2019 election to the Sejm was the Confederation of Freedom and Independence (Konfederacja Wolno´sc´ i Niepodległo´sc´ ), which brought together nationalist, libertarian, national Catholic and conservative activists from small right-wing parties and obtained 6.8% of the votes. One of the important members of this federation of small parties was the Coalition for the Renewal of the Republic—Liberty and Hope (Koalicja Odnowy Rzeczypospolitej Wolno´sc´ i Nadzieja), which gained 4.8% of the vote in the 2015 election. In 2020, the election for the President of Poland was held. Eleven candidates took part in the first round, but the candidates nominated by the two most important parties received the greatest support, i.e. the incumbent President, supported by Law and Justice—Andrzej Duda (43.5%), and the candidate of the Civic Coalition—Rafał Trzaskowski (30.3%). The third place was taken by an independent representative of a centrist-Christian social movement—Szymon Hołownia. The incumbent President Andrzej Duda won the run-off of the presidential election, gaining 51.03% of the vote (Table 4.2). When summarising the electoral rivalry on the Polish political scene of the twentyfirst century, it can be concluded that since the 2005 election, a bipolar rivalry system developed between Law and Justice and the Civic Coalition (Platform) both in the parliamentary and presidential elections. What can also be observed is the consistent role of a secondary party, yet significant in creating a coalition—the Polish People’s Party, with a centuries-old tradition, and the political left, undergoing various metamorphoses. The first democratic presidential election in Poland took place in November and December 1990, the first parliamentary election in October 1991, but the first democratic elections after the transformation of 1989 were local elections at the commune level in May 1990. The next local election was held in June 1994 (the turnout was only 33.8%). After the administrative reform in 1998, the next local government election in October 1998 involved authorities at the commune, restructured poviat and new voivodeship levels. In the 2002 election, the direct elections of mayors, village mayors and city presidents were introduced, with a second round to be held if the leading candidate did not win over 50% of the votes. In subsequent local government elections, starting from 2002 (44.3%), through 2006 (45.9%), 2010 (47.2%), 2014 (47.4%) to 2018 (54.9%), voter turnout increased slowly but consistently (Fig. 4.1).

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Fig. 4.1 Voter turnout in the years 1990–2020

In the years 1991–2020, there were five national referendums of some political significance, but the most important was probably the constitutional referendum on 25 May 1997 and the referendum on Poland’s accession to the European Union on 7 and 8 June 2003. This one lasted two days for the turnout to exceed the 50% threshold (ultimately reaching 58.8%).

4.3 Territorial Axes of Political Rivalry. Factors Shaping the Spatial Variability of Election Results Elections during the rule of the Communist party in Poland, also known as ‘voting’, were often ritualised, resulting in the uniformity or little spatial variability of their results. This ritualisation was manifested in, for example, the consent of the electoral commissions to a fairly free attitude towards decisions made in relation to the voting system, consisting, among other things, in the common practice of voting on behalf of one’s family members or patients in hospital (cf. Raciborski 1989). It was not until the parliamentary elections in June 1989, with the participation of the opposition (including Solidarity), that an increased interest in election issues was observed, including in the spatial context (Florczyk et al. 1989). In an article published in Tygodnik Solidarno´sc´, Florczyk et al. (1989) announced the ‘return of history’ and the macro-regional division resulting from, among other things, the post-partition borders. This approach to the macro-regional differences also included the concept of historical background (Bartkowski 2003), cultural realms and the civilisational division of the country (Kowalski 2003). In Poland, the concept of historical background was developed by Dobrowolski (1967), who distinguished three main levels: geographical (the natural environment), biological (expressed by

92

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the human factor) and cultural. According to the assumptions of this concept, traces of historical events may be recorded in the regional structures of contemporary Polish society and influence the contemporary electoral pattern of behaviour. Therefore, representatives of various social sciences analysing the variability of election results distinguished the presence of various historical structures in the Polish socio-political space, such as the former Congress Poland (the Russian partition), the former Galicia (the Austrian partition), the former Prussian partition and the Western and Northern Territories (Florczyk et al. 1989; Zarycki 1997). On the other hand, Bartkowski (2003), referring to the concept of the historical background, listed the following historical regions of Poland: Greater Poland and Pomerania, Upper Silesia, Galicia, Congress Poland and the Western and Northern Territories. An even more complex division of Poland was proposed by Kowalski (2003) for whom the division into historical and cultural regions was merely a basis for developing the concept of the influence of civilisation divisions (including the European civilisation in the Latin, Byzantine and Oriental-Turanian versions) on the electoral pattern of behaviour of Poles. It was in the publication discussing the spatial differences in the behaviour of Polish citizens in the election of 4 June 1989 that Florczyk et al. (1989) already underlined the different electoral behaviour in the area of the former Austrian partition—Galicia, seeing ‘very strong support for Solidarity’ in this area, manifested in features such as greater religiosity and stronger social integration of the population of poorer voivodeships and the long tradition of peasant parties (PSL). These historical differences in the macro-structural division were pointed out by Kubiak (1999), Kowalski (2003), Skwierczy´nski (2008) and Krzemi´nski (2009). On the other hand, Zieli´nski (2009) analysed the results of the 2007 election to the Sejm in four large macro-regions: the former Austrian partition, the former Prussian partition, the former Russian partition and the Western and Northern Territories (annexed to Poland in 1945). In these elections, Civic Platform gained above-average support in the Western Territories and the former Prussian Partition, and Law and Justice—in the area of the former Austrian partition (Table 4.3). Bartkowski (2003) emphasised the effect of the border on the electoral behaviour of the inhabitants of neighbouring communes belonging to two different historical regions. The differences in the voting behaviour of the inhabitants of border areas along the currently symbolic post-partition border in eastern Greater Poland (in the years 1815–1914 the border between Germany and Russia) were analysed by Matykowski (2017). It should be noted that in this zone of the symbolic borderland, differences in the voting activity of the inhabitants on both sides of the border decreased significantly (Table 4.4). Skorupska (2019, p. 208), analysing the turnout in the elections to the Sejm in 2001–2015, also stated that ‘more or less since 2007, one can observe a greater variation in the turnout in the city-village pattern than in the pattern of historical regions’.

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Table 4.3 The level of electoral support in the 2007 election to the Sejm by different historical backgrounds (Zieli´nski 2009, pp. 172–173, supplemented) Macro-structural unit (historical background)

Level of support for individual parties (in % of the vote) Civic Platform

Law and Justice

Former Austrian partition

35.76

42.39

9.72

8.87

Former Russian partition

36.80

34.85

13.03

10.71

Former Prussian partition

48.04

28.13

15.09

7.94

Left and Democrats

Polish People’s Party

Western Territories

48.52

25.31

14.51

6.94

Poland

41.51

32.11

13.15

8.91

Table 4.4 Voter turnout in the Sejm elections in the years 1991–2005 on the border of the Prosna river (Matykowski 2017, p. 170) Prosna river borderland

Voter turnout in elections to Sejm 1991

1993

1997

2001

2005

Western (formerly Prussia)

43.33

56.27

45.97

48.45

36.14

Eastern (formerly Russia)

38.20

51.46

42.29

47.12

36.40

Thus, another set of socio-economic factors influencing the behaviour of residents can be observed. Among these factors, Polish researchers of the subject draw attention to the factors contrasting the Polish space in the urban-rural dimension, i.e. those related to the degree and processes of urbanisation, as well as factors differentiating Poland in terms of the extent of development and modernisation, as seen in the dimension of modern regions (or cores) versus old regions (or peripheries) (Zarycki 1997). From the first democratic elections to the Sejm in 1991, the factor shaping the regional volatility of support for individual parties in the parliamentary elections was the degree of urbanisation. This influence was manifested in the interdependence between the level of urbanisation (measured as the percentage of the urban population) and the level of support for some parties across 49 voivodeships at the time. Based on the correlation coefficient between these values, Matykowski et al. (1995) concluded that, for example, the Democratic Union, the Liberal Democratic Congress and the Labour Union, i.e. parties that are no longer active or have been outside the parliament for years, were pro-urban parties in the 1991 and 1993 elections to the Sejm. The only anti-urban party that still exists and maintains its character is the Polish People’s Party, whose support correlated negatively with the level of urbanisation in 1991 (r = −0.660 in 49 voivodeships) and in 2019 (r = −0.669 in 41 constituencies).

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The political scene was reshuffled just after the presidential election in 2000. The 2001 election to the Sejm featured new political groups, including Civic Platform and Law and Justice, which won a total of 22.2% of the vote, but following the subsequent election in 2005, they gained a dominant position. It should be noted that in the 2001 election, both Civic Platform (r = +0.432) and Law and Justice (r = +0.408) had the features of pro-urban parties, but since the 2007 elections, the former became even more pro-urban (r = +0.775), and the latter was to some extent oriented towards the rural electorate (r = −0.574). These contrasting features of the duopoly were even more pronounced in the last election to the Sejm in 2019, as support for Law and Justice, and the Civic Coalition was significantly correlated with the level of urbanisation, with a correlation coefficient of r = −0.744 and r = +0.794, respectively. An interesting issue to analyse is how the electorate in large cities and mediumsized Polish towns influenced the results of elections to the Sejm, based on a paper by Matykowski (2010). Polish cities and towns were arranged according to the ranksize rule, with the size criterion based on the number of people entitled to vote there. Thus, the results of voting abroad were not taken into account, as the majority of voters from abroad are assigned to constituency number 19 in Warsaw and would significantly change the structure of support in the capital of the country. In the 2019 election to the Sejm, Law and Justice received the greatest number of votes (43.59%), but the pro-urban Civic Coalition (Koalicja Obywatelska—KO) claimed an outright win in the largest Polish city—Warsaw (42.96%). In the 10 largest Polish cities—in terms of people entitled to vote (which is consistent with their population size), support for the Civic Coalition amounted to 40.32% of the votes, while the rival Law and Justice party had 30.08% (Table 4.5). Law and Justice defeated the Civic Coalition only in Lublin (ranked 8th). As for the 38 cities with over 100,000 inhabitants (in 2019), and at the same time the largest cities in terms of the number of people entitled to vote (over 77,000 people), Law and Justice defeated the Civic Coalition in half of them, but the cumulative (i.e. total) support for the latter party was higher (37.71%) than for its main political rival (32.45%). It was only after the accumulation of the votes from the 161 largest cities and towns in Poland that the level of support for both main parties was levelled—35.21% of the votes each. It should also be noted that in the rest of the country (96.6% of the area and 56.8% of the population), Law and Justice received much greater support—50.61%.

4.4 An Expansive-Competitive Mechanism of the Spread of Support for the Law and Justice Party After the first election to the Sejm in the twenty-first century, a new political scene in Poland began to take shape. The 2001 election was the last success of the winning coalition consisting of the left-wing Democratic Left Alliance and the Labour Union (44.04% of the votes), and the small Polish Socialist Party received 0.10% of the

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Table 4.5 The results of the 2019 elections to the Sejm in selected cities and the rest of the country Pattern of cities

Cities according to number of eligible voters

Rest of Poland (including voters abroad) Electoral indicators Support for Civic Coalition (%)

Support for Law and Justice (%)

Voter turnout (%)

42.96

28.26

77.10

10 largest cities (last 40.32 of the subset—Katowice)

30.08

25 largest cities (last 38.28 of the subset—Ruda ´ aska) Sl˛

Number of towns and cities where Law and Justice was defeated by Civic Coalition

Electoral indicators Support for Civic Coalition (%)

Support for Law and Justice (%)

0

26.44

44.53

71.71

1

24.39

46.73

31.91

69.84

11

23.46

47.82

50 largest cities (last 37.08 of the subset—Ostrów Wielkopolski)

33.09

68.26

27

22.62

48.78

75 largest cities (last 36.22 of the subset—Zgierz)

34.04

67.43

45

22.19

49.23

100 largest cities (last of the subset—Piaseczno)

35.81

34.62

67.05

66

21.72

49.64

125 largest cities (last of the subset—Kra´snik)

35.53

34.98

66.77

85

21.32

50.02

150 largest cities (last of the subset—Bochnia)

35.28

35.20

66.59

105

20.99

50.42

161 largest cities (last of the subset—K˛etrzyn)

35.21

35.21

66.52

113

20.86

50.61

175 largest cities (last of the subset—Skawina)

35.14

35.30

66.41

121

20.76

50.70

Largest city (Warsaw)

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R. Matykowski and K. Kulczy´nska

Table 4.6 The support for Law and Justice and Civic Platform in the parliamentary elections in the years 2001–2019 Elections Support for Law and Justice to Sejm Number of votes

Votes in relation to all valid votes (%)

Support for Civic Platform (Coalition)

Votes in Number relation to of votes all eligible voters (%)

Total % of support for Law Votes in Votes in relation to relation to and all valid all eligible Justice votes (%) voters (%) and Civic Platform

2001

1,236,787

9.50

4.40

1,651,099 12.68

5.87

22.18

2005

3,185,714 26.99

10.95

2,849,259 24.12

9.79

51.11

2007

5,183,477 32.11

17.30

6,701,010 41.51

22.37

73.62

2011

4,295,016 29.89

14.62

5,629,773 39.18

19.17

69.07

2015

5,711,687 37.58

19.14

3,661,474 24.09

12.27

61.67

2019

8,051,935 43.59

26.91

5,060,355 27.40

16.92

70.99

votes. In the subsequent Sejm elections, left-wing parties received much lower support, in 2005—15.20% (including the Democratic Left Alliance—11.31%), in 2007—13.15% (the Left and Democrats coalition), in 2011—18.26% (including the ephemeral Palikot Movement 10.02%), in 2015—11.17% and in 2019—12.56%. In the 2001 election, which was won by the left, new political parties appeared in the Sejm, such as Civic Platform, Law and Justice, Self-Defence and the League of Polish Families. In that election, Civic Platform and Law and Justice together won the support of 22.2% of voters, but starting from the next election, their cumulative support always exceeded the threshold of 50% of valid votes (Table 4.6). Thus, from 2005, a new political system consisting of two rival parties was formed, with Civic Platform dominating in the years 2007–2015 and Law and Justice in 2005– 2007 and 2015–2020. The rivalry for the electorate of both these parties also spread to the territorial system of 41 constituencies. When analysing the crystallisation of this new bipolar political system (duopoly) and explaining the differences in the level of support for the two parties, one should focus on (1) concepts related to the competition and conflicts within the political system, as well as the previously signalled (2) concepts of socio-political factors related to the endeavour to either modernise regions or root them in tradition. The mechanism of electorate divisions in some European countries formed the basis for further research by Lipset and Rokkan (1967). The model of the political division structure developed by these authors focussed on the main axes of occurring conflicts: territorial and functional. The Lipset and Rokkan concept (1967) of analysing voting preferences and behaviours was based on a historical perspective. Therefore, they treated society as an entity characterised by permanent divisions, also known as cleavages. In their opinion, political parties essentially reflected these divisions by representing their interests in the political arena.

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While in the 2005 elections to the Sejm, the coexistence of the support for Law and Justice and Civic Platform was characterised by a statistically insignificant positive Pearson’s correlation coefficient r = +0.163; in all subsequent elections, the correlation between both regional patterns of support for these parties was negative, which meant that an increase in the support for one party caused a decline in the support for the other one. Hence, the correlation coefficient for the territorial pattern in the 2007 elections to the Sejm was r = −0.777, in 2000 r = −0.800, in 2015 r = −0.914 and in 2019 r = −0.938. The growing negative correlation may indicate that in the years 2007–2019 the degree of competition between both parties for the electorate increased in the territorial context. The 2007 election can also be considered a moment when the stronghold of Law and Justice crystallised in the territorial pattern of the electorate (41 constituencies). This stronghold is defined by two basic measures: (a) the level of support for Law and Justice1 and (b) the contrast of support for the two parties, i.e. the ratio between the number of votes for Law and Justice and the number of votes for Civic Platform (Coalition). The highest, clearly above-average, level of support (average support + standard deviation) was seen in the constituencies of Nowy S˛acz (26.19%), Rzeszów (24.87%) and Tarnów (23.22%), i.e. in the south-east of Poland (part of former Galicia) and the suburban Warsaw district (around Warsaw), Lublin, Chrzanów, Siedlce and Radom (Fig. 4.2). On the other hand, a decided preeminence of Law and Justice over Civic Platform was clearly visible in the constituencies of Nowy S˛acz (contrast ratio = 1.79), Rzeszów (1.74), Siedlce (1.73), Chełm (1.63), Radom (1.52) and Krosno (1.51). In the years 2007–2019, the support for Law and Justice in relation to eligible voters increased from 17.3 to 26.9% nationwide. It should be noted that the expansion of support for this party was also marked by significant regional differences. In the 2019 election, the support (in relation to eligible voters) for Law and Justice was higher in as many as 20 constituencies than in the Nowy S˛acz constituency in 2007 (i.e. 26.2%). The highest increase in support (expressed in percentage points) was recorded in the constituencies of Nowy S˛acz (+13.0 percentage points), Rzeszów (11.0), Siedlce (9.8), Tarnów (9.4), Krosno (9.1), Radom (8.6) and Piotrków Trybunalski (8.1).

4.5 Conclusion In summarising the changes on the Polish political scene in the years 1991–2020, one can distinguish: (a) the phase during which an excessively multi-party system emerged, manifest itself in over 100 lists of committees in the parliamentary elections to the Sejm in 1991, (b) the phase of a struggle in two dimensions: paleo-parties versus parties originating from Solidarity and the left (Social Democracy of the Republic

1

In relation to the number of eligible voters.

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Fig. 4.2 Support for Law and Justice (PiS)

of Poland, descending from the former Polish United Workers’ Party) versus centreright (post-Solidarity) parties and (c) the phase of crystallisation of the modern system of duopoly with the predominant influence of Law and Justice. When analysing the differences of electoral behaviour in the spatial context, it can be concluded that in the twenty-first century it has been influenced by all three categories of factors: historical and socio-economic ones and political rivalry. The latter leads to the division (cleavage—according to Rokkan and Lipset) of the electorate into ‘the supporters of a good change’ (those supporting Law and Justice) and ‘second-class citizens’2 , usually supporting other parties (according to the terminology coined by Law and Justice). It should be noted that the predominance of Law and Justice increased in the period 2007–2019, and the representatives of the ‘second class’ retained their supremacy only in a few highly urbanised districts.

2

This is a type of political division often used by the leader of PiS—Jarosław Kaczy´nski.

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99

In addition to the extensively discussed impact of urbanisation processes on the electoral behaviour of Poles, the authors of the present chapter attempted to determine the effect of several structural socio-political features in the territorial pattern, using a correlation coefficient. One of these features was the level of support for peasant and rural parties in the first fully democratic elections to the Sejm in 1991. With such a large number of electoral committees participating in the election at the time, the support for these parties was also a way to demonstrate attachment to local tradition and familiarity. Law and Justice started to support these values, snatching the traditional rural electorate away from the sphere of influence of the Polish People’s Party. While in the context of the territorial pattern, the correlation coefficient between the support for Law and Justice and the measure of local tradition and familiarity in the 2007 elections was r = +0.299; in the last parliamentary elections, in 2019, it increased to r = +0.629, demonstrating an upward trend from election to election. In 2003, a referendum on Poland’s accession to the European Union was held, with 77.45% of voters in favour. It should be noted, however, that in some districts of eastern Poland, which are currently the strongholds of Law and Justice, there were more people opposing the accession, for example, in the constituencies of Siedlce (40.2%), Chełm (38.6%) and Lublin (35.4%). And so, the spatial correlation between the support for the Law and Justice party and the percentage of opponents of Poland’s accession to the European Union in the 2007 elections was r = +0.611, while in the 2019 elections, it increased to r = +0.749 (Fig. 4.3). Information on the percentage of children born out of wedlock is occasionally published in Poland. Such data is available for the year 2014, and this indicator can be used as a measure of moral freedom as well as formal observance of religious principles of the dominant Roman Catholic Church. In this case, the correlation in the territorial pattern between the support for Law and Justice and the percentage of children born out of wedlock was negative, and the correlation coefficient in the 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019 elections exceeded the threshold of 0.8 and was statistically significant at the level of ∝ = 0.01. Finally, it should also be noted that if the described trends in the changes in the electorate persist (with ever more strengthened cleavage and the expansion of PiS in rural areas and medium-sized towns) and the announced changes to the electoral law are introduced (increasing the number of constituencies with a smaller number of parliamentary seats to be divided among them), this party will increase its advantage over the opposition parties in the 2023 election.

100

R. Matykowski and K. Kulczy´nska

Fig. 4.3 The origin and electoral expansion of Law and Justice (PiS)

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References Bartkowski J (2003) Tradycja i polityka. Wpływ tradycji kulturowych polskich regionów na współczesne zachowania społeczne i polityczne (Tradition and politics. The influence of traditions of Polish cultural regions on contemporary social and political behaviour). Wydawnictwo ˙ Akademickie Zak, Warszawa Dobrowolski K (1967) Studia z pogranicza historii i socjologii (Studies on the borderline between history and sociology). Prace Komisji Socjologicznej PAN—Oddział w Krakowie 10:6–51 ˙ Florczyk A, Najdowski T, Zukowski T (1989) Nowa geografia polityczna Polski (New political geography of Poland). Tygodnik Solidarno´sc´ 6(43) Kowalski M (2003) Polaryzacja zachowa´n wyborczych w Polsce jako rezultat cywilizacyjnego rozdarcia kraju (Polarisation of the electoral behaviour in Poland as the result of civilisational division of the country). In: Kowalski M (ed) Przestrze´n wyborcza Polski (Poland’s electoral space). IGiPZ PAN, Warszawa, pp 11–48 Krzemi´nski P (2009) Zachowania wyborcze w wyborach parlamentarnych i prezydenckich w Polsce w latach 2005–2007—wzory przestrzennych zró˙znicowa´n (Electoral behaviour in parliamentary and presidential elections in Poland in 2005–2007: patterns of spatial differences). Przegl˛ad Geograficzny 81(2):259–281 Kubiak H (1999) Warto´sc´ poznawcza genius loci jako kategorii wyja´sniaj˛acej zachowania wyborcze mieszka´nców południowej Małopolski (The cognitive value of genius loci as a category explaining the electoral behaviour of southern Małopolska residents). In: Sztompka P (ed) Imponderabilia wielkiej zmiany. Mentalno´sc´ , warto´sci i wi˛ezi społeczne czasów transformacji (The imponderability of a great change. Mentality, values and social ties of the transformation period). PWN, Warszawa–Kraków, pp 395–418 Lipset SM, Rokkan S (eds) (1967) Party systems and voter alignments. Cross-national perspectives. Free Press, New York Matykowski R (2010) The electorate in Poland’s large and medium-sized cities and towns and its influence on the results of the 2007 parliamentary elections. Bulletin of Geography, SocioEconomic Series 13:103–111 Matykowski R (2017) Zbiorowo´sci społeczno-przestrzenne i ich zwi˛azki z terytorium: formy i czynniki regionalizmu w Polsce (Socio-spatial communities and their relations with a territory: forms and factors of regionalism in Poland). Bogucki Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Pozna´n Matykowski R, Tobolska A, Konecka B (1995) Urbanizacja jako czynnik zachowa´n wyborczych i zachowania wyborcze jako przejaw urbanizacji (Urbanisation as a factor of electoral behaviour and electoral behaviour as the manifestation of urbanisation). Konwersatorium Wiedzy o Mie´scie VIII:83–92 Raciborski J (1989) Rytuał, plebiscyt czy wybory? Socjologiczna analiza wyborów do rad narodowych w 1988 roku (A ritual, plebiscite or election? Sociological analysis of elections to national councils in 1988). Instytut Socjologii, Uniwersytet Warszawski, Warszawa Skorupska M (2019) Frekwencja w wyborach do Sejmu w Polsce w latach 2001–2015—perspektywa geograficzna (The turnout in the Sejm elections in Poland in 2001–2015—a geographical perspective). Społecze´nstwo i Polityka 3(60):201–220 Skwierczy´nski G (2008) Wpływ tradycji zaborowej na zachowania wyborcze mieszka´nców Galicji w wyborach 2005 roku (Impact of the partitions on the electoral behaviour of Galicia inhabitants in the 2005 election). In: Raciborski J (ed) Studia nad wyborami. Polska 2005–2006 (Studies on elections. Poland 2005–2006). Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar, Warszawa, pp 141–164 Zarycki T (1997) Nowa przestrze´n społeczno-polityczna Polski (New socio-political space of Poland). Studia Regionalne i Lokalne 23(56) Zieli´nski M (2009) Zachowania wyborcze polskiego społecze´nstwa w elekcji parlamentarnej 2007 roku w uj˛eciu geograficznym (Electoral behaviour of Polish society in the 2007 parliamentary election from a geographical perspective). Chorzowskie Studia Polityczne Wydziału Zamiejscowego w Chorzowie Wy˙zszej Szkoły Bankowej w Poznaniu 2:159–197

Chapter 5

Territorial Division: Administrative Reforms and a Look to the Future Tomasz Kaczmarek

Abstract The chapter outlines the genesis and course of changes in the territorial division of Poland over the last 30 years. It analyses administrative structures on three tiers: gmina (commune), powiat (county) and województwo (voivodeship, region). Reference is made to the territorial divisions of other EU countries, especially those which, like Poland, have a three-tier structure of territorial administration. The basic proposition of the study is that the territorial organisation of public administration should change, matching the development of political, economic, social, and spatial processes. The highly dynamic processes taking place over the last 30 years make us reflect upon further transformations of Poland’s territorial organisation. The chapter closes with conclusions and recommendations related to the directions of change in administrative structures, such as the creation of new voivodeships, as well as mergers of urban and rural poviats and gminas. Keywords Poland · Administrative reform · Territorial division · Voivodeship · Poviat · Gmina

5.1 Introduction The development of modern public administration requires an improvement in its structures, including territorial ones. According to Casese (2002), administrative reform consists of multiple activities of political or administrative authorities undertaken with a view to adapting public administration to economic or social change. The concept of administrative reform embraces a plethora of aspects (e.g. Schwarz 1990; Dante and Kjellberg 1998; Davey 2002; Kaczmarek 2005; Kuhlmann and Wollmann 2019). Radical changes can occur in the administrative system (systemic and local government reforms), the tasks and competences of administrative units T. Kaczmarek (B) Faculty of Human Geography and Planning, Adam Mickiewicz University, B. Krygowskiego 10, 61-680 Pozna´n, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Churski and T. Kaczmarek (eds.), Three Decades of Polish Socio-economic Transformations, Economic Geography, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06108-0_5

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(competence and functional reforms), the number of tiers of territorial administration (structural reforms), and finally the territorial basis of administration (territorial reforms). Further considerations will address the final aspect. Territorial reforms are often concurrent and systemic in character, a case in point being the administrative and territorial reform in Poland, carried out in two stages in the wake of the political and socio-economic system transformation after 1989. This text focuses on the characteristics of the evolution of Poland’s territorial and administrative structure over the last 30 years and presents its key questions, which are also important from the point of view of potential future adjustments. Poland’s administrative division has been subject to many analyses and assessments in the relevant literature, both at the time of its occurrence (e.g. Chojnicki and Czy˙z 2000; Ocena nowego podziału… 2001; Miszczuk 2003) and throughout its operation (Swianiewicz 2015; Kaczmarek 2016; Kachniarz 2017). Most of the above texts confirm the directive formulated in Article 15(1) of the Polish Constitution: “The territorial system of the Republic of Poland shall ensure the decentralisation of public authority”. At the same time, one of the conclusions that can be formulated on the basis of the assessments to date is that the present territorial division of Poland does not fully meet the needs and challenges of the country’s development. The fundamental proposition of this text is that the territorial organisation of public administration should evolve to match the development of political, economic and social processes and especially important spatial ones. Their dynamism following the political transformation in 1989 and Poland’s accession to the European Union in 2004 leads us to reflect on further transformations of the country’s territorial organisation. The chapter outlines and evaluates the main features of the fundamental territorial division of Poland in terms of its three tiers: województwo (a regional unit, voivodeship), powiat (poviat, county) and gmina (commune). The evaluation criteria include the number and size of the administrative units, the layout of their borders and selected relations of the territorial structure to social and economic processes in Poland over the last 30 years. The point of reference for the discussion is the historical circumstances as well as territorial divisions in other EU countries, especially those which, like Poland, have a three-tier structure. The chapter ends with conclusions and recommendations related to the directions of transformation of local and regional administrative structures.

5.2 The International Context and the Legacy of History Territorial reforms have been taking place in many European countries, regardless of their system, level of democratisation or decentralisation. Explaining their sources, course, divergencies, and shared aspects is the task of the geography of administration. The last 50 years have brought many changes to the European continent in terms of territorial divisions. At the local (commune) level, these have essentially been consolidation reforms which integrated small and inefficient communes into

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larger units, especially in the 1960s and 1970s (e.g. in the Scandinavian countries and in Germany, Kaczmarek 2005). At regional level, in the spirit of New Regionalism (in some cases also referred to as Aggressive Regionalism, Rivière 2014), the construction, consolidation and enhancement of the first tier of territorial administration has been gaining momentum since the 1980s. In countries like Spain, Italy and Belgium (as of 2015 also France) regional structures, enjoying a significant degree of selfgovernment or autonomy, have become the main link of territorial administration between central and local authorities. Following the municipal and regional reforms in decentralised countries, a discussion has developed on the legitimacy of the intermediate tier of local government administration (e.g. province or district). As BonnetPineau and Vandermotten (2016) claim, these units are slowly being “doomed to disappear in order to make room for regions and metropolises”. Metropolitan reforms, initially quite slow, have accelerated in the last 20 years. Metropolitan government units were established in Germany (Hannover Region), Italy (città metropolitana in lieu of the surrounding provinces) or France (e.g. Metropole de Lyon, which takes over the scope and competences of the department). The main objective of the above reforms was to modernise the territorial structures by adapting them to the changing political and socio-economic conditions. In the post-communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe, administrative reforms mainly involved the establishment of local government institutions, most often at a local level as well as, in larger countries, at a regional level. These administrative reforms were accompanied by changes in territorial structures aimed at decentralising and empowering local and regional communities (more Kaczmarek 2005). Of special importance in the analysis of the territorial reforms in the countries of Central Europe is the historical context, especially in relation to the period of socialism. This applies likewise to Poland and the reforms carried out in this country after 1989. According to Foucher (1993), the formation of the Polish statehood was accompanied by numerous discrepancies between the national space and its territorial form, which often changed and even dismembered between neighbouring states. At the end of the eighteenth century, Poland lost its sovereignty to Russia, Prussia and Austria (after the so-called Third Partition of Poland in 1795). It regained its independence only after the First World War. One of the reasons why the Polish state collapsed in 1795 was, for example, the fact that the ruling classes did not manage to design a modern model of public administration (see Iwi´nska and Zybała 2017). At the time of the creation of modern nation states, the foundations of modern public administration and territorial self-government in Europe in the 19th and early twentieth centuries, Poland was partitioned between three foreign powers, which limited the participation of Polish society in the creation of local and regional administration to a bare minimum. The legal personality of self-government, its competences and scope of duty, the electoral system and authorities, financial autonomy and territorial division varied according to the three powers. A native territorial self-government emerged in Poland only after the country regained independence, and was in operation between 1919 and 1939. The March Constitution of 1921 introduced the principle of broad self-government divided into three tiers but was eventually only implemented for

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communes. Due to the divergent administrative structures of the three partitioning states, local self-government in the Second Polish Republic was introduced gradually. Its unification was completed by the so-called Integration Act of 1933. After the Second World War, during the period of decentralisation reforms in the countries of Western Europe, Poland abolished local government when it adopted the new socialist system. Local government was replaced in 1950–1989 by a system of national councils at each administrative level, from the central tier down to the local one. Especially in the 1950s and 1960s, it was patterned on the Soviet administration model, an element of the strongly centralised and hierarchical state administration (Izdebski 2009). During the period of the People’s Republic of Poland, territorial reforms were an inherent element of the state policy aimed at centralising political and social life and implementing the assumptions of a planned economy. In the years 1958–1973, multi-village communes were replaced by clusters (gromada), i.e. small administrative units corresponding to the collective system of agriculture. In 1975, Poland departed from the administrative division into 17 large, historically developed voivodeships. These were replaced by 49 voivodeships which were supposed to reflect the economic transformation of the country and the industrial districts that were being formed at that time, as well as activate medium-sized towns, i.e. the new capitals of small voivodeships. Poviats, sub-regional units with a tradition lasting almost 600 years, were abolished at that time. They were replaced by areas of special administration, determined arbitrarily by relevant ministry departments. One of the main objectives of the political transformation in Poland became the decentralisation of power and administration, realised in the form of restoring local self-government albeit with a modified territorial layout. In 1990, after nearly 40 years, the institution of local self-government was recreated at a municipal level. The governance reform of local units provided an impetus for further decentralisation, carried out in 1998 for subregional units (poviats) and regional units (voivodeships). These two stages of local government reforms altered the administrative division of the country, which started, after the period of administration unification in the socialist era, to constitute a real framework for the economic and social life of the inhabitants and for their civic activities: • Creating a spatial framework for the exercise of public authority, • Defining the principles of splitting competences and funds between central and territorial authorities at different levels, • Defining the territorial scope of civic participation in public affairs, • Creating a spatial framework for social integration and organising economic life. Importantly, the territorial administration after 1990 involved not only a political, but also a social aspect. According to Sack (1986), it is territoriality that is the fundamental expression of social authority.

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5.3 Territorial Division into Gminas. From Fragmentation to Stabilisation As a consequence of the local government reform of 8 March 1990, 2121 communes in Poland were granted local government status and their authorities elected. Since 2002, in gminas, local communities have elected not only commune councillors by universal suffrage but also individual leaders, i.e. the mayors of rural communes, urban–rural, urban communes as well as cities and towns. The division into rural, urban–rural and urban communes, established as a result of the reform, is formal in nature and does not relate to another local authority organisation. It is a consequence of the uniformity of the systemic solutions in terms of the legal status of the gmina self-government unit. Only larger cities in Poland (currently 66 medium-sized and large cities) perform the duties of both gmina and poviat tiers (cities with poviat competences). The territorial structure of Poland at the lowest level in its present form reflects the territorial reform of 1973, when the Soviet model of small local units (gromadas) were once again replaced by gminas, composed of a number of villages. The consolidation of communes in 1973 made them socio-economic micro-regions, with a central rural or urban centre and a local settlement system, consisting of several villages on average. The then communal division has survived in its basic form until today. From the point of view of territorial shift of local structures during the systemic transformation, the increase in the number of communes was the most important. It was the result of the process of fragmentation of communes as a result of the democratisation of public life after 1990. This process seemed inevitable. As Swianiewicz (2002) notes, due to the authoritarian nature of territorial changes in the countries of real socialism, it should not come as a surprise that immediately after 1990, some of them were under strong grassroots pressure to become independent, with villages forced to join larger units. Restitution of local self-government, free elections to local authorities, revival of local patriotism, and the initial lack of a state vision as for the transformation of territorial administration at higher levels were the main circumstances that drove the significant territorial reorganisation of local structures. The lack of serious statutory restrictions on the subdivision of communes in the first half of the 1990s brought about a vigorous increase in the number of communes (Table 5.1). Between 1990 and 2000, their number increased from 2121 to 2489, i.e. by 17%. Some of the reasons for the process of subdividing communes were: • A lack of statutory provisions defining criteria for subdividing gminas led to spontaneous and uncontrolled division. • The creation of new local units as a manifestation of grassroots social movements and the democratisation of life in new political conditions. • Restitution of communes erased from the administrative map due to the integration reforms of the socialist era. • Political divisions of local units, resulting from differences in views on municipal development in municipal councils and corresponding territories.

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Table 5.1 Number and size of communes (gminas, gromadas) in Poland 1946–2020 Years

No. of gminas

Average size of gmina (in km2 ) 104

7.8

36

3.1

132

13.8

1946

3.006

1955

8.789 (gromadas)

1973

2.365

Average population (in thousands)

1980

2.070

151

17.2

1989

2.121

147

18.2

1994

2.465

127

15.7

2000

2.489

125

15.6

2014

2.479

125

15.5

2020

2.477

125

15.2

Source Own compilation on the basis of data from Statistics Poland

The subdivision of gminas in particular involved urbanised areas and related to the divisions of towns and communes artificially joined before 1989. Hence, the restoration of self-governing communes mainly concerned suburban communes, previously within city limits. This was most apparent in Upper Silesia, where in the 1970s and 1980s adjacent rural communities were incorporated into cities. In the liquidated suburban communes, administrative aspirations that had lain dormant over the years were awakened after 1989 with the revival of local self-government. In many of them social actions were initiated to restore communes, mainly inspired and led by local public opinion leaders. The establishment of new gminas was curbed after 1998, with the restoration of poviats, the second tier of local government. The Council of Ministers then introduced more stringent criteria for the creation of communes, taking into account demographic, infrastructural and economic factors. The provisions of the Act on Municipal Self-Government which (Article 4(3)) provides for maximum territorial cohesion and the capacity for performing public tasks were interpreted more strictly. Applications for the reactivation of gminas were increasingly turned down by the evaluating body. The Ministry of the Interior and Administration was of the opinion that the pursuit to divide communes flew in the face of the state policy, which sought to maintain large and strong units, as they have more extensive budgetary capacity, a greater potential for the absorption of EU funds and manage public funds more efficiently. In the Act on Municipal Self-Government currently in force, Article 4d stipulates that the Council of Ministers shall consent to the creation of communes when: • The tax revenue per capita of the commune within the changed borders or the newly created commune would be lower than the lowest tax revenue per capita established for individual communes. • A gmina within the changed borders or a newly created gmina would be smaller than the smallest gmina in Poland in terms of population.

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From the point of view of rationalising public governance, the fact that there are 158 rural communes in Poland with headquarters in a neighbouring urban commune (about 10% of the total number of rural communes) should be considered the most disputable issue. The office of such a commune is very often located in the same city where the city office headed by the mayor operates simultaneously, sometimes even in the same building. The existence of a rural commune, especially a small one, around a separate urban unit is all the more unreasonable as most of the services are concentrated and provided in the city, which is also a hub for the surrounding rural areas. Therefore, a rural commune has more political than economic justification. As noted by Walczak (2012), the simultaneous operation of both of these entities necessitates the maintenance of dual local government administration with limited coordination of activities, strategies and spatial development plans. In the case of larger cities, this also means economic problems in connection with the transfer of investments (housing and production) to rural areas. Any changes, or even discussions concerning them, are often treated by rural communes as an assault on self-government. There are basically three possible ways out of this situation: 1. 2. 3.

Merging an urban gmina and a rural one into an urban-rural commune; Inclusion of a rural commune within the city limits and the creation of a single large urban commune; Inclusion of a part of a rural commune into the city, with both self-government units changing their borders.

The issue of merging communes and consolidating them into stronger and more efficient entities, although socially difficult, has economic support from the state. Voluntarily merged gminas are ensured an increased share in PIT tax revenues (higher by 5 percentage points for five consecutive years). The possibility of obtaining such a bonus is mentioned in Article 41(1) of the Local Government Income Act 2003, according to which: “For a commune resulting from a merger of two or more communes by way of consensual resolutions, the personal income tax revenue participation rate specified in Article 4(2) shall be increased by five points over a period of five years, starting from 1 January of the year following the year in which the decision to merge was taken.” The financial mechanism dedicated to particularly weak economic municipalities since 2003, has not been used so far. In recent years, there has been only one merger of local governments in Poland (under the Regulation of the Council of Ministers of 29 July 2014): the city of Zielona Góra with poviat status and the commune of Zielona Góra into a local government unit of the city of Zielona Góra with poviat status. Importantly, in recent years, merging urban and rural communes was countered by an opposite trend, i.e. the separation of rural areas from cities and the creation of communes with urban–rural status. The change of the status of a commune to an urban–rural one also brings measurable benefits to the commune and its inhabitants. For instance, it provides access to European Union funds intended for rural areas and, particularly relevant for coastal areas, facilitates the creation of agri-tourism farms and access to relevant bank loans. The last example of changes in municipal borders is the incorporation of some suburban areas into city borders. The main premise here

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is the intention to acquire new investment areas, especially for housing development as a result of suburbanisation. The resistance of suburban communes is significant here, although not always effective. The cities of Rzeszów and Opole exemplify significant expansion of territory at the expense of neighbouring communes. The above examples testify to the strong dynamics of how municipalities in Poland are organised territorially. In the last 30 years their number, borders and administrative status have evolved. The experience of European countries shows (e.g. Hoffmann and Jacob 1980; Mouritzen 1989; Consolidation or fragmentation 2002) that a fragmented territorial organisation of municipalities causes many problems: economic (efficiency and economy of scale of the administrative unit), financial (lack of self-sufficiency, own income, ability to finance investments) and political (necessity to cooperate with the neighbouring units). Taking the above premises into account, the territorial-administrative changes are expected to match specific political, economic and social goals. A larger scale of units favours the implementation of local development strategies and limits an unfavourable spillover effect, i.e. the mismatch of places of services consumption with places of residence and payment of taxes in the commune (Keating 1995). The reorganisation of communes in Poland should primarily aim at the effective provision of public services on the basis of the communes’ own economic base, strengthening local democracy and providing residents with greater influence in terms of solving problems in their communities.

5.4 Subregional Structures. A Return to Poviats The Polish administrative reform in its first stage in 1990 was underpinned by the determination of the reforming government forces and the parliamentary majority, who wished to depart rapidly from centralism and create a system of local selfgovernment. The second stage of the reform in 1998, although a result of a political compromise between the government coalition and the parliamentary opposition, was to a large extent a consequence of the activities of the local government lobby which developed in the meantime, i.e. national unions and regional organisations, as well as a social compromise. In principle, however, the concept and objectives of the second stage of the local government and territorial reform were developed within the state apparatus. This was reflected in the appointment of the Government Plenipotentiary and the Office for the Reform of Public Administration as the institution preparing and implementing the reform. The Act of 24 July 1998 on the introduction of a basic three-tier territorial division of the state stipulated that territorial units of public administration would, in addition to gminas (communes), also include poviats (counties) and voivodeships. This meant the creation of a three-tier model of territorial self-government, in which a voivodeship is at the same time a territorial unit for the implementation of government administration work (the voivode as a representative of the Council of Ministers and a representative of State Treasury) and local government administration (an elected voivodeship assembly). A novelty of the reform in the spatial dimension was the

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reduction of the number of voivodeships from 49 to 16 and the creation of poviats (while maintaining the existing boundaries of communes). Of prime significance for the development of the new territorial division of Poland into subregions (poviats) were certain historical and social factors. While the restitution of the poviat (liquidated in 1975) as a unit of administrative division was not widely contested, their proposed number and borders became the subject of disputes and protests among many local communities. As a result, the similar number of land poviats (308) and towns with poviat rights (65) as before 1975 were established in 1999, and this significantly differed from the government proposal (originally 180 land poviats). While the poviat map was already being drawn, numerous social consultations were carried out, albeit without clear rules of participation (behind-thescenes parliamentary debates, regional and local community agreements, mediation of politicians and even church representatives) and without more democratic instruments, such as a referendum or obligatory social consultations. This was undoubtedly a compromise which enabled the quick implementation of the administrative reform. According to one of the main authors of the reform, Prof. Kulesza (1997: 248), “the poviat map has been composed almost of itself”, whereas “smaller poviats bind local identity more strongly and constitute a good area for the cooperation of communes”. Historical considerations and the criterion of strong territorial ties in the case of creating poviats were often considered more important than functional and economic criteria. Thus, a significant number of poviats did not meet the minimum size criteria adopted in the reform assumptions—at least 5 communes in the poviat, 10,000 inhabitants in its capital and 50,000 inhabitants in the entire poviat. Out of 314 land poviats, 53 (17%) have fewer than 50,000 inhabitants, while 22 poviats (7%) have fewer than 5 gminas (as of 2020).The territorial division of the country into poviats is one of the most controversial issues of the administrative structure of contemporary Poland. It concerns in particular the territorial organisation around large cities (functional urban areas, metropolitan areas). Urban agglomerations are organised, as in Germany, according to the poviat model, i.e. a city is a commune with poviat status (e.g. Kraków, Pozna´n, Wrocław, Łód´z). The administrative division around a large city is either a concentric system, i.e. one land poviat surrounding the city (e.g. Pozna´n poviat), or a sectoral system, where the city borders on several poviats (e.g. Warsaw with 7 adjacent poviats, Wrocław, Łód´z, Kraków). Some of these poviats surrounding large cities have their capitals in the central city. The division of poviat tasks between two or more administrative units, the latter being more frequent, within an agglomeration raises many planning and administrative problems. The poor duties of already fragmented poviats are not an integrating factor here. In 2000, the government recognised the need to introduce urgent measures to merge cities with poviat status and poviats with their capitals in those cities, due to significant disparities in the institutional potential of poviat units. Government analyses indicated a significantly higher potential of cities with poviat status and a particularly low potential of poviats deprived of larger urban centres. Especially land poviats without medium-sized and large cities have significantly fewer resources to

112 Table 5.2 Average size of sub-regional units in selected European Union countries

T. Kaczmarek Country

Size (in km2 )

Population (in thousands)

Belgium

3.100

1.013

Spain

10.120

783

France

5.440

580

Italy

2.925

558

Germany

813

186

Poland

838

104

Slovakia

620

68

Source Own elaboration

perform public poviat duties. It was emphasised that land poviats around mediumsized towns lack any significant income of their own, or higher-level services, which are concentrated in the centres. Therefore, the reduction in the number of poviats should be carried out first of all by combining weak urban and rural poviats. So far, there has only been one merger of a city with poviat status with a land poviat (the city of Wałbrzych and its poviat). This experiment survived only 10 years (2003– 2012). As a result of research and financial analyses, it became clear that it was more economically viable to divide the merged poviat once again. One major feature is the weak position of the Polish poviat (in terms of size and population) when compared to second-tier administrative units (e.g. the kreis, provincia, department, county type) in other large European countries (Table 5.2). In countries with a three-tier structure of territorial administration, the intermediate unit is generally larger than in Poland (Table 5.2). A certain regularity can be observed here. Countries, which at one time introduced a departmental division modelled on French solutions (Spain, Italy and Belgium), have a strong intermediate unit in terms of territory and population size. Until regionalisation in some of these countries, these units played a key role within sub-state administration, performing some regional tasks. At present, modification of the poviat reform has been “put on a back burner” in the face of a debate on the establishment of self-government structures for metropolitan areas (discussed further on). In line with the global trend, the largest Polish cities and their functional zones have acquired metropolitan qualities, demanding an appropriate status in the country’s management structures, commensurate with their economic position.

5.5 Reform of Regional Structures. Large Voivodeships In the case of Poland, there are political, economic and social arguments for implementing the regional reform in 1999. In a political sense, it was a continuation of the political changes in Poland of the 1990s, implementing an agenda of decentralising

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power, developing territorial self-government and democratising public life. Another important premise for regionalisation was the prospect of Poland’s membership in the European Union, the adjustment of its territorial structure to the standards prevailing in large and regionalised countries and compliance with the requirements of Euro˙ pean regional funds, based on NUTS 2 type units (see Churski, Zuber in this volume). In economic terms, the territorial reform was instrumental for enhancing the effective management of public funds, improving the functioning of public offices and services, introducing regional policy principles, and increasing the competitiveness of regions on a transnational basis. The social aspect of the reform involved speeding up the process of building civil society, increasing the degree of social control over budgetary resources and the possibility of articulating political programmes between the commune and Parliament (Kaczmarek 2005). Assessment of the division of the country into voivodeships must contend with the most contestable issue i.e., the number of these units. The Act of 24 July 1998 on the introduction of a basic three-tier division of the country’s territory decided to return pre-1975 large regional units to the administrative map of Poland. The borders of the new voivodeships, however, do not very faithfully reflect the former voivodeship division (Fig. 5.1). In contrast to regional reforms in France (the departments became components of the regions) and Spain (the provinces were concentrated in autonomous regions), the Polish self-governing regions did not become a simple

Fig. 5.1 Poland’s regional (voivodeship) and subregional (poviat) division as of 2020. Source Own elaboration

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conglomerate of former small voivodeships from 1975–1998. The layout of voivodeship borders is based on the poviat structure, which in turn was largely based on the aforementioned consideration of administrative preferences of commune inhabitants. In the case of voivodeships with two regional centres, it was decided to divide the local government administration bodies (the voivodeship assembly and the Marshal’s Office) and the government administration bodies (the Voivode and the Voivodeship Office) between the two cities. An open subject to date is the correction of the voivodeship structure. The introduction of 16 voivodeships was not fully accepted by the general public, especially in regions with administrative traditions (e.g. the Koszalin voivodeship 1956–1975 and later the Koszalin and Słupsk voivodeship 1950–1998). Inhabitants of the former Koszalin voivodeship aim to reactivate it and call the Central Pomeranian Voivodeship (see Partacz 2005). The opponents of such a solution are convinced that it would weaken the regional structure of the country, as the Central Pomeranian region has one of the lowest GDPs per capita. However, it can be expected that, as in the case of several other small voivodeships (e.g. Lubuskie, Opolskie), the economic criteria will give way to political and social arguments; then the creation of a 17th local government region will be a matter of time. In addition, a region with large and growing developmental disproportions (Warsaw and the rest of the Mazowieckie Voivodeship) has in recent years witnessed debates on the separation of Warsaw as an independent entity at a regional level (a capital city voivodeship of a status similar, for example, to Prague in the Czech Republic). In 2020, the government began work on separating the Warsaw metropolitan area as a distinct voivodeship (which was done two years earlier in the case of the division of Poland into NUTS 2 statistical regions). In terms of population, the Polish voivodeship is comparable to regions of large EU countries (following Germany and Italy, before Spain and France). Significant disparities between Polish voivodeships in terms of population or area (e.g. the ´ askie voivodeships) small Opolskie, Lubuskie versus the large Mazowieckie or Sl˛ are encountered on a similar scale in other European countries. The average size of regional units for individual countries do not reflect their internal diversity. Germany is an extreme case, where in terms of Länder there are both cities (Stadtland) and large-sized Länder (Flächenland). Thus, the smallest Bremen is 0.4 thousand km2 in size, while Bavaria is ca. 70,000 km2 (ratio 1:150). In Italy, the Aosta Valley region in the north is only 3300 km2 whereas Sicily in the south is 26,000 km2 (1:8). In France, the Alsace region is 8,000 km2 but the Pyrenees region is 45,000 km2 (1:6), in Spain, the Basque Country measures 7000 km2 while the Castile region covers 94,000 km2 (1:13). Against this background, the disparities in the size of Polish voivodeships do not seem so extensive. The smallest region—Opolskie Voivodeship—covers 9500 km2 , and the largest—Mazowieckie Voivodeship—35,600 km2 (1:4). Bearing in mind the size of the region measured in terms of population, one might notice a regularity that in countries with a developed territorial structure (threetier divisions), a region reaches its largest size. It encompasses at least 2 million people on average, with a significant area of over 10,000 km2 . The only exception is found in small Central European countries like Slovakia, for which the three-tier

5 Territorial Division: Administrative Reforms … Table 5.3 Average region size in selected European Union member states

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Country

Size (in thousands of km2 )

Population (in millions)

Germany

22.3

5.1

Belgium

10.3

3.4

Italy

15.1

2.9

Poland

19.5

2.4

Spain

29.4

2.3

France

42.4

5.2

6.1

0.7

Slovakia

Source Own elaboration

division of the territory means a considerable fragmentation of units, both regionally and locally (Table 5.3). Assessment of Poland’s territorial division regionally should consider the pragmatic effects achieved after its introduction. These include: – Ensuring enhanced conditions for the organisation and operation of the state, – Raising the efficient operation of settlement in the country based on regional centres, – Improving the efficiency of state budget allocations, – Creating conditions for developing international cooperation regionally, – Creating opportunities for the development of civil society and increasing the democratisation of public life, – Laying the foundations for a regional policy aligned with the European Union’s structural policy. A further step towards decentralising public administration should be to devolve the duties of government administration to regional self-government. Ultimately, this could eliminate dual administration in voivodeships and make them strictly self-governing units. So far, this proposal has not been on the agenda of any of the political parties in Poland, neither on the part of the government nor the opposition. This implies a lack of political will for such far-reaching empowerment of regional units in Poland.

5.6 Unresolved Issues. Governance of Metropolitan Areas According to Izdebski (2010), a proper solution to the management of large urban centres as special functional areas is one of the toughest problems of modern public administration. Terms such as a metropolis, a metropolitan area and metropolisation are increasingly commonly used to describe contemporary urbanisation processes, also taking place in Poland. Metropolitan issues are related to:

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Growth of the social and economic importance of the largest Polish cities, where metropolitan functions and interfaces related mainly to the globalisation of the economy have begun to develop, Dynamic spatial development exceeding administrative borders due to spontaneous urban sprawl processes (see Mikuła’s text in this volume).

Debates on the introduction of systemic solutions that would sanction the separation of metropolitan areas in the system of self-government administration have been held in Poland for nearly 15 years. Between 2007 and 2020, several draft legislations regulating the status of metropolitan areas have emerged. Some of them resembled changes in administrative systems within certain urban regions in Germany (e.g. Region Hannover) or even Italy (Città Metropolitana). The draft provisions generally aimed at establishing a level of metropolitan self-government. Its authorities were assigned competences and resources of both communes and poviats, as well as some voivodeship jurisdiction (e.g. some regional spatial planning). The internal structure of the metropolitan unit was to be similar in general terms to the formula of a multi-purpose inter-communal union (similar to some urban regions in Germany). As obligatory self-government unions had not been practised in Poland before, the emphasis was on voluntary metropolitan unions. However, the legislative process of the ‘Metropolitan Law’ has been abandoned over the years. This was due to the divergent positions of political parties represented in Parliament, the government’s irresolute actions (see Biała Ksi˛ega Obszarów Metropolitalnych 2013) and the widely divergent visions of reform at different tiers of local self-government. First and foremost, we must point to the reluctance to metropolises of regional self-government (fearing, like in Italy, their loss of influence over metropolitan areas). Despite opinions that large cities, together with their surrounding municipalities, should actually form a separate tier of local government (metropolitan poviat), even the implementation of the law on multi-purpose, optional metropolitan associations has not been a priority for central government for almost 15 years. In 2015, in its last sitting prior to a parliamentary election, the Sejm of the Republic of Poland passed the Act on Metropolitan Associations, which entrusted metropolitan areas with at least 500,000 inhabitants the jurisdiction of local governments, e.g. organisation of public transport as well as voivodeship government: creation of supralocal spatial planning documents (Metropolitan Study). However, this important act, anxiously awaited by local governments, was not strengthened by relevant bylaws and as a result of the change in central authorities, was abolished by the provisions of a new act. Namely, on 9 March 2017 it was replaced by an act establishing the ´ askie Voivodeship, restricting the applicaonly to date metropolitan union in the Sl˛ tion of metropolitan structures to the region of Upper Silesian conurbation cities. Under the Regulation of the Council of Ministers of 26 June 2017 on the estab´ askie Voivodeship of a metropolitan association called “Górno´sl˛askolishment in Sl˛ Zagł˛ebiowska Metropolia”, the first multi-tasks metropolitan association in Poland was established on 1 July 2017. The association began operation in early 2018 and was financed from the state budget—5% of PIT from the population of the association area and contributions from the budgets of the constituent communes. Following the

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Act on the Silesian Metropolitan Area, other cities have also moved for establishing metropolitan associations in their areas. The application of the Gda´nsk-Gdynia-Sopot metropolis and the Łód´z agglomeration were ‘frozen’ by Parliament in 2020. The emerging debate on the status of metropolitan areas and failures of the top-down creation of metropolitan structures gave rise to self-government structures based on voluntary cooperation of gminas and poviats (bottom-up). The most advanced ones are (year of establishment in parentheses): Stowarzyszenie Szczeci´nskiego Obszaru Metropolitalnego (Szczecin Metropolitan Area Association 2006) and Stowarzyszenie Metropolia Pozna´n (Pozna´n Metropolis Association, see Kaczmarek and Ryder 2015). Hope for intensifying integrated governance in metropolitan areas was offered by the EU cohesion policy instrument, i.e. Integrated Territorial Investments (ITI). Its implementation in Poland consisted in departing from the perception of areas through the prism of administrative borders, including individual city potentials, and emphasising the relationship between cities and their functional areas, which can take place both in terms of institutions and agendas, as well as specific infrastructure measures. In order to implement the ITI instrument, local governments were obliged to forge an institution (ITI association) in the form of a communal union, association or inter-communal accord. Out of 17 functional urban areas (FUA, see Fig. 5.2), 8 adopted the form of inter-communal accords and 9 established associations (Kaczmarek and Kociuba 2017). According to OECD criteria, it means that only 53% (in the OECD countries 68%) of metropolitan areas in Poland operate under the weak metropolitan integration formula with their own governance authorities (Ahrend et al. 2014). None urban functional areas of a voivodeship centre operates within the formula of a multitasks communal union. In the case of the aforementioned Górno´sl˛asko-Zagł˛ebiowska Metropolia (Upper Silesian Metropolis), 41 communes that are part of it do not form the ITI Association. These functions are performed by the self-government ´ askie Voivodeship, Association of Gminas and Poviats of the Central Subregion of Sl˛ comprising 73 gminas and 8 poviats. As of 2020, the chance that the model of metropolitan associations will be introduced across Poland is negligible, as is the proposal of creating another tier of territorial self-government (metropolitan poviat). The ongoing debates, numerous draft legislations submitted by government, Parliament and cities themselves and finally partial solutions (establishment of only one obligatory association, i.e. Górno´sl˛askoZagł˛ebiowska Metropolia) resemble the history of the development and implementation of the metropolitan reform in Italy. In their text Città metropolitane: La lunga attesa (2014), Tortorella and Allulli called it “a long wait” and dubbed the entire period of relevant debates “years of announced and never implemented reforms”. As in Italy, it can conclude only with a clear political shift.

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Fig. 5.2 Range of ITI unions in functional urban areas. (Source Own study based on the ITI strategies of voivodeship centres)

5.7 Summary and Recommendations The current territorial structure of Poland in terms of communes is the result of the territorial reform of 1973 and the stage of local government reform of 1990, with minor modifications to the present day. The current administrative division at poviat and voivodeship level is a result of the second stage of the 1999 self-government reform and to a large extent refers to the units of 1950–1975. The Act of 24 July 1998 on the introduction of the basic three-tier territorial division of the state established gminas, poviats and voivodeships as units of the basic division of the country. As of 1 January 2020, the principal territorial division of Poland is as follows: • Regional tier—16 voivodeships, • Subregional tier—380 poviats, including 66 cities with poviat status and 314 land poviats, • Local (municipal) tier—2477 gminas, including 302 urban communes, 642 urbanrural communes and 1533 rural communes. The current administrative division of Poland has therefore been fairly stable since its introduction in 1999 and has so far undergone only minor modifications.

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The number of voivodeships has not changed; 7 new poviats have been created, 12 gminas have been liquidated, mainly through incorporation into cities. It is also worth noting that every year there are small corrections to the borders of voivodeships, districts and municipalities and that the status of some municipalities (from rural to urban–rural) is changing due to the granting of city rights to rural commune centres. With its three-tier structure of territorial administration, Poland is one of 13 European countries with such an extensive territorial framework. In the European Union, a similar structure exists in 10 countries. There are three levels of territorial administration in both federal and unitary countries. This model of territorial structure is generally characteristic of countries with a large territory and sizeable population. Characterising the territorial division of Poland in comparison with the countries of the European Union, it is also worth noting the so-called ‘governance span’, i.e. the number of levels of territorial administration and corresponding administrative units. This is measured by the average number of lower-level units per upper-level unit. In Poland, the ratio 1 (voivodeship): 23 (poviats in the voivodeship): 7 (municipalities in the poviat) differs significantly from the proportions found in other European countries with a three-tier structure. In Germany, the ratios are as follows: 1: 27: 33, in Belgium: 1: 3: 59, in Italy: 1: 5: 79, in Spain: 1: 3: 161, France: 1: 4: 365. In these countries, therefore, a ‘pyramid’ layout prevails, with small municipalities at the base and fewer large subregions at a higher level of governance (units such as: kreis, department, province, etc.). Assuming such a model of ‘management span’ to be common in Europe, the administrative division of Poland is characterised by strong regional and municipal levels and a fragmented structure of poviats as sub-regional units. The increased demands placed on the public administration make it necessary to continuously improve the effectiveness of public management and also by rationalising the territorial structures, corresponding to the changing spatial and functional layouts. Various factors, both internal and external, influence the current territorial and administrative structure. They result in varied dynamics of economic development, especially related to the globalisation of the economy, convergence processes supported by the EU structural funds, as well as factors related to the transformation of the settlement network and processes such as suburbanisation (spatial development, mainly large cities) and metropolisation (the functional development of large cities— ‘metropolises’). No wonder, then, that in retrospect, opinions have been voiced concerning the need for corrections to and even reforms of Poland’s territorial organisation. The empowered communities of territorial units are increasingly emanating a sense of regionalism (voivodeships) and localism (communes and poviats), and those that are deprived of self-government representation are demanding corrections to the territorial division and the inclusion of their right to self-government. The Constitution of the Republic of Poland (Article 15(2)) stipulates that the basic territorial division of the state must take into account social, economic or cultural ties and ensure the ability of territorial units to perform public tasks. In the light of this provision, there is a need to unambiguously verify the idea of establishing a ´ 17th voivodeship (Srodkowopomorskie – Central Pomerania) and the separation of

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Warsaw of Mazowieckie Voivodeship as another, 18th voivodeship. Decisions in this respect should be preceded by an analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of possible changes, based on economic, spatial, functional, and social characteristics. The concept of metropolitan reform should be considered in Poland, preferably in stages, from metropolitan associations to metropolitan poviats, assuming major flexibility of territorial and systemic solutions on a national scale (mono- and polycentric agglomerations). As Izdebski (2010) notes, the three-tier territorial and administrative division in existence since 1998 is not based on the polarisation-diffusion model of development, corresponding to the solutions adopted in developed countries. In this model, a special development role of places where development potential is concentrated is assigned to urban areas, in particular metropolitan areas, which by their very nature should perform selected functions of a regional nature, identified within the statistical standards of the European Union at the level of NUTS 3 regions. Possible changes in the territorial division might include options of combining urban and rural poviats primarily in sparsely populated areas, with a strong concentration of service infrastructure in the central city. At the same time, instruments should be provided to counter the financial and investment washout (suburban communes by the central city). In managing an urban region, the principle of partnership is important, limiting competition between the central city and the surrounding communes and districts. An important role in creating the spatial basis for the operation of selfgovernments (especially in agglomerations) could be played by new proposals of legislatively diverse forms of municipal unions in the form of functional urban and metropolitan areas. All changes should be preceded by a debate involving experts and the general public. Solutions which are substantively justifiable and socially accepted may be implemented in stages or as administrative experiments. Territorial structures, if they are a ‘straightjacket’, whereby local and regional authorities perform public duties not always adapted to their size, can also be changed flexibly. Therefore, when creating a spatial framework for the operation of territorial corporations, it is necessary to offer various possibilities of implementing tasks within other spatial arrangements, supplementing the basic division and using various forms of inter-territorial cooperation. A flexible territorial framework may be used to carry out tasks on an ad hoc basis but does not meet the requirements of permanence or the sustainability of territorial structures. The inclusion in Polish legal regulations of the possibility for the bottom-up creation of territorial units (self-government unions, metropolitan poviats) will be an expression of progressing decentralisation of administration and a trust in local government. Territories have internal regulatory capacity and their own driving force (governance, new geography of problems). Politicians and scientists tend to overestimate the actual impact of territorial reorganisation on the evolution of space.

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Part II

Transformation of Society, the Economy and the Environment

Chapter 6

Dynamic of Economic and Social Development Jerzy Jan Parysek and Lidia Mierzejewska

Abstract The chapter presents the results of research on the economic development of Poland after 1989, that is in new political circumstances. These studies of a general nature were conducted on the basis of 12 typical features which mainly concern economic growth, and to a lesser extent social development (specifically, standard of living). The main idea was to analyse the trajectory of transition from the initial phase in 1990 to the final one in 2018 and to investigate and describe the dynamics of changes occurring in selected development categories (the features taken into account). This was possible thanks to the application of relevant methods of time series analysis (in particular, a graphic method of trajectory analysis). An attempt was also made to indicate relations between economic growth and standard of living, as well as processes affecting the level of GDP as a synthetic measure of development and remuneration as a measure of the quality of life. The study is a synthetic presentation of the economic growth after 1989 and is based on the analysis of changes in the basic indicators concerning the demographic situation (the population number, natural increase, occupational activity and the unemployment rate), the economy (GDP, inflation, the number of business entities, investment outlays, the budget deficit) and the living standards of inhabitants (remuneration, housing, cars). Keywords Economic growth · Living standard · Development trajectories

6.1 Introduction The reasonably long period of time since the political changes in 1989 provides a good opportunity to assess the economic and social development of Poland in the new systemic conditions following the transformation. At the turn of 1989 and 1990, a J. J. Parysek · L. Mierzejewska (B) Faculty of Human Geography and Planning, Adam Mickiewicz University, B. Krygowskiego 10, 61-680 Pozna´n, Poland e-mail: [email protected] J. J. Parysek e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Churski and T. Kaczmarek (eds.), Three Decades of Polish Socio-economic Transformations, Economic Geography, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06108-0_6

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substantial change took place in the political situation embracing political, economic and social spheres. The political system changed relatively quickly. The transformation of the economy was much more time-consuming because the transition from a centrally-planned economy to a market economy is a difficult and long process. On the one hand, the inertia of the old system works, and on the other, there is a pressing need for the development of a new economic model relevant to a given situation and possibilities. Similarly, the transformation of the mentality of a society which must relearn how to function in a democratic system and market economy takes a long time. Leaving it to historians, political scientists and sociologists to assess the political changes and also the social effects of the transformation, this study deals with economic growth and only some of its social aspects. Specifically, it is an assessment of development processes in selected, substantial categories of socio-economic growth. Based on the analysis of the time series of data concerning fundamental, so it seems, development categories, what is presented is a description and evaluation of changes which took place after 1989. The research conducted involves Poland as a whole with a full awareness of regional differences in ongoing transformation and development processes. The literature describing transformation and also factors behind the changes is abundant. There is much more reading on the first period of the transformation, including the crisis (Bałtowski and Miszewski 2006; Chojnicki 1990; Chojnicki et al. 1999; Carter and Maik 1999; Kołodko 1999a, b, 2000; Kowalik 2001, 2007; Misala and Bukowski 2003; Bałtowski and Miszewski 2006; Kołodko 2000, 2007, 2010a, b; Kowalski 2009; Parysek 1992, 1997, 1999; Pozna´nski 2001a, b; Rolski 2013; Slay 1994; Wilczy´nski 2007, 2009), much less on its initial and middle period (Hare and Turley 2013; Kołodko 2009, 2010a, b; Rubini et al. 2011; Wo´zniak 2011; Bal-Wo´zniak and Wo´zniak 2011), and even less on its later years (Gomułka 2014).1 These are various studies where the viewpoint presented, from critical to favourable, was often related to the ideological orientation or political leaning of an individual author and the period when the analysis and assessment were made (Zagóra-Jonszta 2017). The authors of this text sought to make the most objective evaluation of the transformation, for which research limited to a multidimensional assessment of development processes based almost exclusively on statistical analysis seemed to be the most conducive. Therefore, this study will not provide a description and evaluation of the causes of the transformation, its course; nor will it indicate the factors and determinants of the changes presented. This is merely a description and assessment of the dynamics of the transition of Poland’s economy from its state in 1990 to the one in 2019 along with a general attempt to explain the recognised changes.

1

There are certainly more similar works; here selected are those presenting different viewpoints and assessments.

6 Dynamic of Economic and Social Development

127

6.2 Research Methods The basis for drawing conclusions on the dynamics of economic transformation processes—to be precise, on developments after 1989—was statistical data arranged chronologically.2 The arrangement of reliable data spanning a fairly long time required data that can be accepted as describing socio-economic development in basic substantial categories. Hence, the basis for the analysis was data regarding the demographic situation (the population number, natural increase, occupational activity, unemployment), economic growth (GDP, economic entities, investment, inflation and the budget deficit) and specifically understood manifestations of development (housing stock, average pay, number of cars). What was examined was the state of affairs (the state in a particular year), events (changes occurred in the two years compared, specifically in the year adopted as initial and final for a given case) and processes (time series). The data applied in the research were presented in Table 6.1, with the change dynamics in Table 6.2. In the analysis of development dynamics, however, use was also made of a rarely applied, yet very interesting, method of graphic presentation and assessment of the transition from the initial to final state: a development trajectory graph. A trajectory is a term that comes from ballistics and denotes the path taken by a bullet as it moves from the moment it is fired to the target. Traditionally, a linear graph of changes in a given phenomenon, e.g. changes in GDP in the considered period, may be adopted as a certain example of the graphic manifestation of a ‘development trajectory’. Such a graph gives an overview of a changing situation, although it may seem somewhat simplified. However, in this research, another type of development trajectory graph was applied which had seldom been adopted in studies of development processes (Ormerod 1993; Hingel 1993; Parysek 2002, 2004); it was used, amongst others, in other works by the authors of this research (Parysek 2002, 2004, 2005, 2016; Parysek and Mierzejewska 2012, 2013, 2014). When drawing such a trajectory, a seemingly illogical solution is applied. In the rectangular coordinate system, the size of a given occurrence is not presented as points in a specific year, but as changes which took place in two successive years. Thus, a phenomenon in the current year is marked on the x-axis (tb) whilst the one from the previous year (tp) is on the y-axis. Therefore, subsequent points in the rectangular coordinate system will be changes which occurred in the next successive years. The trajectory showing the development process (process of changes) is a curved line connecting two successive points presenting changes from the first to the last year of the studied period, making it possible to determine the directions, dynamics and nature (including stability) of changes year by year.

2

These were data officially published by Statistics Poland.

7.88

4.56

10.65

35.10

32.65

38,125

38,116

38,136

38,167

2006

2007

2008

2009

12.10

9.50

11.20

14.80

19.00

17.60

−7.39

−3.90

38,174

38,157

2004

2005

13.52

13.21

−5.72

−14.16

38,219

38,191

2002

2003

4.99

11.62

13.24

10.32

38,254

38,242

10.20

2000

0.59

10.30

13.20

14.90

16.00

14.90

13.70

11.40

6.50

Unemployment rate (%)

2001

20.27

38,667

38,263

1998

1999

42.71

32.43

38,639

38,660

1996

1997

94.90

47.03

38,265

38,609

1994

1995

120.50

102.00

38,203

38,239

1992

1991

1993

157.40

142.00

38,073

38,144

1990

Natural increase (thous)

Population number (thous)

Years

15,868

15,800

15,241

14,594

14,116

13,795

13,617

13,782

14,207

14,526

14,757

15,356

15,177

14,969

14,791

14,747

14,772

15,135

15,861

16,474

Occupational activity (thous)

1372.21

1286.07

1187.61

1069.82

990.47

933.06

845.93

810.62

779.98

747.03

615.12

549.47

465.67

382.55

301.35

210.41

155.78

114.24

82.43

59.15

Total GDP/bln PLN

103.50

104.20

102.50

101.00

102.10

103.50

100.80

101.90

105.50

110.10

107.30

111.80

114.90

119.90

127.80

132.20

135.30

142.40

170.30

685.80

Goods and services price index (%)

3742.67

3757.09

3685.61

3636.04

3615.62

3576.83

3581.59

3468.22

3325.54

3,186.70

3041.40

2844.26

2599.04

2414.18

2112.70

2163.05

1896.90

1731.66

1504.80

1205.48

Business entities (thous)

Table 6.1 Selected indicators of economic and social development in 1990–2018

218,580.91

217,259.71

191,713.54

154,880.28

131,054.93

120,466.71

110,859.78

109,265.86

121,362.88

133,160.16

125,954.42

112,813.50

90,437.70

65,622.00

47,144.70

33,865.10

24,715.90

20,159.70

16,883.70

11,581.00

Investment outlays (millions/PLN)

2636.81 2866.04 3158.48 3315.38

−25,063.00 −15,956.00 −24,346.00 −23,845.00

2506.93

2409.69

2314.66 −28,361.00

–41,417.00

−37,043.00

2239.56

1923.81 2061.85

−15391.00 −32,358.30 −39,402.60

1239.49 1706.74

−3296.60 −12,479.00

873.00 1061.93

−2182.60

628.08 702.62

−5739.80 −7448.00 –−9167.20

348.33 466.05

−6911.50 −4342.00

102.96 177.00

2439.20

Average monthly pay (PLN)

−3097.30

Financial result of state budget (millions/PLN)

13,302

13,150

12,994

12,877

12,776

12,683

12,596

12,438

11,946

11,845

11,763

11,688

11,613

11,547

11,491

11,434

11,524

11,437

11,309

11,180

Housing stock (thous)

(continued)

16,495

16,080

14,589

13,384

12,339

11,975

11,244

11,029

10,503

9991

9283

8891

8533

8054

7517

7153

6771

6505

6112

5261

Passenger cars (thous)

128 J. J. Parysek and L. Mierzejewska

8.20

6.60

5.80

−5.75

−0.87

−26.022

38,433

38,434

38,411

2016

2018

9.70

2017

11.40

−1.31

−25.61

38,479

38,437

2014

2015

13.40

13.40

1.47

−17.74

38,533

38,496

2012

12.50

12.40

Unemployment rate (%)

2013

34.82

12.92

38,530

38,538

2010

Natural increase (thous)

2011

Population number (thous)

Years

Table 6.1 (continued)

16,484

16,423

16,197

16,084

15,862

15,568

15,591

15,562

15,473

Occupational activity (thous)

1989.35

1,861.15

1800.24

1720.43

1656.90

1629.43

1566.82

1445.30

Total GDP/bln PLN

101.60

102.00

99.40

99.10

100.00

100.90

103.70

104.30

102.60

Goods and services price index (%)

4365.38

4309.80

4237.69

4184.41

4119.67

4070.26

3975.33

3869.90

3909.80

Business entities (thous)

257,966.04

244,429.03

271,839.28

250,776.38

231,155.49

237,627.29

243,346.19

217,287.28

Investment outlays (millions/PLN)

−10,406.00

−25,354.00

−46,160.00

−42,607.00

–28,977.00

−42,194.00

4834.76

4527.89

4290.52

4150.86

4003.99

3877.43

3744.38

3435.00 3625.21

−44,591.00 −25,124.00 –−30,407.00

Average monthly pay (PLN)

Financial result of state budget (millions/PLN)

14,615

14,440

14,272

14,119

13,983

13,853

13,723

13,587

13,470

Housing stock (thous)

23,429

22,504

21,675

20,723

20,004

19,389

18,744

18,125

17,240

Passenger cars (thous)

6 Dynamic of Economic and Social Development 129

113.94

102.11

90.82

75.95

62.48

2.90

1758.09

48.30

−114.76

329.67

93.02

100.09

100.07

100.90

100.08

100.05

100.02

98.96

99.98

99.97

99.94

99.93

99.96

99.96

99.92

99.97

100.05

100.08

1993/1992

1994/1993

1995/1994

1996/1995

1997/1996

1998/1997

1999/1998

2000/1999

2001/2000

2002/2001

2003/2002

2004/2003

2005/2004

2006/2005

2007/2006

2008/2007

2009/2008

233.59

–116.81

52.79

52.20

247.47

49.55

93.04

84.65

84.86

127.37

84.82

75.68

84.09

92.63

143.83

97.71

113.92

129.44

76.50

78.03

88.59

93.13

107.38

108.76

120.18

175.38

100.15

90.22

100.19

1992/1991

Unemployment rate (in %)

1991/1990

Natural increase (thous)

Population number (thous)

Years

100.43

103.67

104.43

103.39

102.33

101.31

98.80

97.01

97.80

98.43

96.10

101.18

101.39

101.20

100.30

99.83

97.60

95.42

96.28

Occupational activity (thous)

106.70

108.29

111.01

108.01

106.15

110.30

104.36

103.93

104.41

121.45

111.95

118.00

121.73

126.94

143.22

135.07

136.36

138.59

139.36

Total GDP /bln PLN

99.33

101.66

101.49

98.92

98.65

102.68

98.92

96.59

95.82

102.61

95.97

97.30

95.83

93.82

96.67

97.71

95.01

83.62

24.83

Goods and services price index (%)

99.62

101.94

101.36

100.56

101.08

99.87

103.27

104.29

104.36

104.78

106.93

109.43

107.66

114.27

97.67

114.03

109.54

115.08

124.83

Business entities (thous)

100.61

113.33

123.78

118.18

108.79

108.67

101.46

90.03

91.14

105.72

111.65

124.74

137.82

139.19

139.21

137.02

122.60

119.40

145.79

Investment outlays (millions PLN)

Table 6.2 Dynamics of economic and social development of Poland in 1990–2018 (year by year)

97.94

152.58

63.66

88.37

68.48

111.81

94.01

121.77

210.24

123.34

378.54

151.04

23.81

123.08

129.76

132.19

62.82

104.97

110.20

108.69

105.18

104.04

104.11

103.35

108.62

107.18

112.72

137.70

116.72

121.64

124.25

111.87

134.77

133.80

196.80

171.91

−126.98 223.15

Average monthly pay (PLN)

Financial result of state budget (millions PLN)

101.16

101.21

100.91

100.79

100.73

100.69

101.27

104.12

100.85

100.69

100.65

100.65

100.57

100.49

100.50

99.22

100.76

101.13

101.15

Housing stock (thous)

(continued)

102.51

110.16

109.00

108.57

103.09

106.56

102.01

105.28

105.12

107.63

105.36

104.18

105.89

107.06

104.15

105.78

104.09

106.43

116.18

Passenger cars (thous)

130 J. J. Parysek and L. Mierzejewska

15.13

2991.03

99.96

99.89

99.99

100.00

99.94

2014/2013

2015/2014

2016/2015

2017/2016

2018/2017

22.46

1959.68

7.37

87.88

80.49

84.54

85.09

85.07

100.00

99.90

2013/2012

−1207.35

99.99

2012/2011

100.81

102.48

107.20

37.09

100.02

2011/2010

Unemployment rate (in %)

11.37

106.66

100.95

2010/2009

Natural increase (thous)

Population number (thous)

Years

Table 6.2 (continued)

100.37

101.40

100.70

101.40

101.89

99.85

100.19

100.58

97.51

Occupational activity (thous)

106.89

103.38

104.64

103.83

101.69

104.00

108.41

105.33

Total GDP /bln PLN

99.61

102.62

100.30

99.10

99.11

97.30

99.42

101.66

99.13

Goods and services price index (%)

101.29

101.70

101.27

101.57

101.21

102.39

102.72

98.98

104.47

Business entities (thous)

105.54

89.92

108.40

108.49

97.28

97.65

111.99

99.41

Investment outlays (millions PLN)

41.04

54.93

108.34

147.04

68.68

138.76

121.03

56.34

187.00

Financial result of state budget (millions PLN)

106.78

105.53

103.36

103.67

103.26

103.55

103.29

105.54

103.61

Average monthly pay (PLN)

101.21

101.18

101.08

100.98

100.94

100.95

101.00

100.87

101.26

Housing stock (thous)

104.17

103.82

104.61

103.70

103.22

103.56

103.42

105.12

103.52

Passenger cars (thous)

6 Dynamic of Economic and Social Development 131

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Fig. 6.1 Population number—development trajectory

6.3 Demographic Situation Statistical data for the years 1990–2018 show a fairly stable population in the country oscillating around 38 million people (Statistics Poland [GUS]). It is not possible, however, to determine the exact number of inhabitants, mainly due to the lack of reliable information on foreign migration.3 For this period the smallest population was recorded in 1990 (38 mln 73 thous) and the largest in 1998 (38 mln 667 thous). The variance in the population number for 1990–2018 was merely 0.5% and the median was in 1999 (38.3 mln). The trajectory shows the lack of any tendency in Poland’s demographic growth. There are two clear loops showing changes, albeit small, in the population number which is dependent on many different factors that cannot be determined without detailed research, especially since those changes were marginal (Fig. 6.1). This situation is also documented by the dynamics (year by year) of changes in the population number indicating more considerable changes in the years 1994–1996, 1998–2000 and 2009–2011 (Fig. 6.2). It would seem that this relatively stable demographic situation creates a favourable perspective for the country, but this is not the case, because natural increase—which fell from 157.4 thous persons in 1990 to (-) 26 thous in 2018 in the investigated period—is unsatisfactory. As with the number of people, the trajectory of natural increase was also looped, albeit as late as from 1998. Until then, a gradual decline in increase had taken place (Fig. 6.3). Up to 1999, the dynamics of natural increase (year by year) had manifested relative stability, disturbed by some obscure changes in 1999–2001, followed by a period of a relative stability lasting until 2013 which ended with a clear diversity in 3

This is so because it is assumed that in Poland there are about 2.5 mln migrants now, mainly from Ukraine, as well as from other countries, and a significant proportion of Poles outside Poland are still recorded as inhabitants of Poland and that emigration and immigration are certainly not balanced.

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Fig. 6.2 Population number—dynamics of changes year by year

Fig. 6.3 Natural increase—development trajectory

dynamics (Fig. 6.4). It seems that the reason for this is, on the one hand, a low birth rate (also including the lowest fertility level in Europe—1.3) and, on the other, a high mortality ratio.4 The demographic forecasts assume that in 2050 the population in Poland will be 33 mln 950 thous, of whom 55% will reside in cities (with 60.2% in 2015). Admittedly, the average life expectancy will be higher (81.0–84.1 for men and 87.6–88.9 for women), but at the same time the age median will grow (50.1 for men and 54.8 for women) as the population ages. With reference to this study, what 4

The top fertility rates are noted for countries open to immigration, i.e. France, Great Britain, Ireland, Belgium the Netherlands and Scandinavian countries (there are not data for Germany or they are not reliable).

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J. J. Parysek and L. Mierzejewska

Fig. 6.4 Natural increase—dynamics of changes year by year

happened in demography after 1989 is relevant. Starting from 1990, natural increase gradually fell to reach nearly zero in 1999. After some revival in 2000 and 2001, the values were negative in the next four years. Although the years 2005–2011 saw a gradual rise, in 2012 again a negative increase was recorded, showing in consecutive years steep values, especially high in 2013 (−17.7 thous), in 2015 (−25.6 thous) and in 2018 (−26.0 thous people). The situation described, as was already mentioned, results from the fact that the number of newborn children is increasingly lower and more and more people die (cf. Figure 6.4). As evidenced by the data from 1990– 1993, natural increase, despite the particularly difficult economic situation facing the inhabitants, was indeed gradually lower, but each year it was higher than 100 thous people.5 In consecutive years it demonstrated a steep downward trend and showed a negative balance in 2002–2005. From 2006 a gradual growth in natural increase occurred followed by another drop with a negative balance in subsequent years starting from 2011. The highest negative balances were recorded for the years 2018 (−26 thous), 2015 (−25.6 thous), 2013 (−17.7 thous) and for 2003 (−14.2 thous). The population number, natural increase and also migration movement, especially the economic migration of Poles, which is difficult to be reliably determined, remain the same as occupational activity and unemployment rate resulting primarily from the dreadful state of the economy inherited in 1990 from the old system and also from the transformation process in the first years.6 Admittedly, in the early transition period the unemployment rate was not high, although it should be remembered that before 1990 unemployment officially did not exist in the statistics. In 1988, for instance, 5

It was a period called ‘shock transformation’, painful for society; This is the aforementioned shock transformation. We will probably not know about the mistakes made in the first years of transformation, because the interpretation of economic decisions taken and their effects, especially after 2005, fell into political conflict, which should not embrace representatives of the scientific environment.

6

6 Dynamic of Economic and Social Development

135

Fig. 6.5 Unemployment rate—development trajectory

there were merely 5 thous jobseekers per 430 thous vacancies (Parysek 2018). In the following years of the transformation, the unemployment rate showed recurring changes; it rose and fell in the following years. In 1990–1994, it grew, followed by a decline until 1998 and then an increase until 2004 up to a maximum rate for the years after 1990, which was 19% (3.2 mln jobless). In the subsequent years until 2008, the unemployment rate fell and then gradually rose until 2013. From 2014 it systematically went down to 5.8% (2018). In the years 1990–2018 the variance in the unemployment rate was 17.5% and the median of 12.4% came in 2010. Its fluctuation can be found in the trajectory graph which, in the years 1990–2017, demonstrates three full loops indicating non-linearity in the process of changes (Fig. 6.5). As in the case of changes in the population number and natural increase, the trajectory shows the complexity of the causes of the state of affairs presented, and thus the complexity of the transformation process itself. This is also confirmed by an analysis of the dynamics of changes in the unemployment rate determined year by year, whose graph presents a sinusoidal image with a gradually decreasing, and from 2013 dying out, amplitude (Fig. 6.6). The unemployment level should be compared to the occupational activity of people (determined by the number of those working), which like the unemployment rate shows periodic fluctuations. What is characteristic is that in 2018, the situation returned to its initial state from 1990, that is to 16.5 mln persons in employment.7 These are the two years when the number of working persons reached its highest level. The lowest (13.6 mln people) was noted for the year 2003. The variance of changes in the level of activity for the period of the study was very low (5.3%) and the median was for 2007 (15.2 mln), which indicates the relatively smooth progress of the changes taking place (activity growth). The trajectory of changes in occupational 7

Occupational activity is measured by the number of working people, which allowing for generally minor changes in the number of the country’s inhabitants and with the lack of data on the working age population, is not a series transgression.

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J. J. Parysek and L. Mierzejewska

Fig. 6.6 Unemployment rate—dynamics of changes year by year

activity generally demonstrates a decrease until 2003 and an increase in consecutive years. However, these are not monotonic changes. This process was disturbed in 1993–1999 whilst activity was falling and in 2009–2015 whilst it was rising and two loops may be clearly discerned in the trajectory (Fig. 6.7). What was typical of changes occurring in this area was the reversal of the decline in occupational activity in 2003 and its renewed growth. The dynamics of changes in the number of professionally active shows three growth peaks: in the years 1992–1997, 2002–2007 and from 2010 a gradual increase with a variable dynamic year by year. In 1991–1994, 1999–2003 as well as in 2010 and 2013 the dynamics of growth in the number of professionally active persons was negative (Fig. 6.8). Theoretically, an increase in occupational activity could be not only related to the growing number of the working Fig. 6.7 Occupational activity—development trajectory

6 Dynamic of Economic and Social Development

137

Fig. 6.8 Occupational activity—dynamics of changes

age population but also to the development of entrepreneurship visible in the rising number of privately owned business,8 which can be proved by the correlation coefficient. Unfortunately, the calculated correlation coefficients do not demonstrate such a dependency (the correlation coefficient of the professionally active persons and the number of private enterprises is r = 0.138, whilst it is 0.259 for professionally active people and the number of inhabitants). Referring to the numerical data subject to the research, the only reasonable conclusion is that the level of occupational activity in the studied period depended on many factors and in 2018 the situation returned to its state in the year 1990, after the fall until 2003, followed by a gradual increase.

6.4 Economic Development Gross domestic product (GDP) is a kind of synthetic measure of economic development. In the years 1990–2018, GDP showed stable, monotonic growth, from PLN 59.1 bln in 1990 up to PLN 1989.3 bln in 2017.9 A rapid increase in GDP caused the variance for the years 1990–2017 to remain at an average level—62.7%, with the median between 2003 and 2004. From 1994 an increase in GDP shows a monotonic course, which can be indicative of a certain stability of economic development (Fig. 6.9). The dynamic of GDP growth shows a downward trend year by year, which is understandable since the economy emerged from a state of deep collapse in 1990. In fact, until 2001, there was a gradual decline in this dynamic followed by an increase, although changing almost every year, oscillating between 100 and 110% 8

The study assumes, with some simplification, that an increase in the number of private enterprises with a stable population number can be treated as an increase in entrepreneurship. 9 The GDP value includes the denomination of the Polish zloty from 1995; GDP values expressed in prices from a given year, i.e. allowing for inflation.

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Fig. 6.9 Gross domestic product GDP—development trajectory

(Fig. 6.10). Generally, one can assume that there were no serious disturbances in the economic growth assessed by GDP values and dynamics. The price index for goods and services decreased steadily, but not monotonically (inflation). The hyperinflation of 1990 noted at 685.8% (rate 585.8%) dropped to 101.6% (a rate of 1.6%) in 2017. This high rise in the prices of goods and services in the first years of the transformation, called hyperinflation, continued until 1997 when costs started to stabilise, reaching low inflation in 2002 and continuing with only slight increases to 2018. Some disturbances in the steadily decreasing inflation were noticeable in 2000, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2011 and also in 2016 and 2017. The trajectory of changes shows a dynamic, ever gradually decreasing fall in the inflation rate until 1998 after which there were some years of disturbances in its decline. Fig. 6.10 Gross domestic product GDP—dynamics of changes

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Before 2018 a year by year change in the inflation rate took place with 0% in 2014, deflation in 2015 (99.1%) and 2016 (99.4%) and then again, a slight rise in the subsequent years (Fig. 6.11). Prior to 1993, the dynamics of inflation determined year by year gradually declined, continuously stabilising with time to around 101– 102% (Fig. 6.12). On the basis of the results of the conducted studies, a progressive process of price stabilisation can be noted, not obviously affected by the 2007–2008 crisis. The variance in the price index for goods and services, primarily owing to the years of hyperinflation, was 80.9%, and the median (104.2%) was for the year 2008. One of the most important changes in the economy was privatisation which resulted in, and can be measured by the number of private enterprises in operation, which grew from 1 mln 205.5 thous in 1990 to 4 mln 365.4 thous in 2018. The Fig. 6.11 Goods and services price index—development trajectory

Fig. 6.12 Goods and services price index—dynamics of changes year by year

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increase was monotonic in character and statistically documented disturbances in this monotonicity were minor. The variance in the number of private enterprises for the entire period was 27.6%, therefore relatively low, similar to the unemployment rate. The median—3 mln 581.6 thous—was for the year 2003, that is in the middle of the transformation for the compared time frame. All this additionally emphasises the monotonicity of changes in this respect. The course of the process is documented in both the trajectory drawn (Fig. 6.13) and the graph of the dynamics of year by year changes (Fig. 6.14). Undoubtedly, investment was of critical importance both for the economic transformation and socio-economic development in the period in question. Whilst in 1990 the amount totalled PLN 11.6 bln, by 2017 it had already reached PLN 267 bln. The significance of foreign investment as well as EU funds (after 2004) Fig. 6.13 Business entities—development trajectory

Fig. 6.14 Business entities—dynamics of changes

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Fig. 6.15 Investment outlays—development trajectory

in the absence of serious national capital should be clearly highlighted. Also, in this case, an increase in investment outlays was monotonic with a greater leap forward in the years 2006–2008, stability in 2008–2010, and once again significant growth in 2011–2015, with a certain decrease in investment in 2016 and 2017. Considering the fact that the general total of expenditure included all spending incurred in consecutive years, regardless of its source, it is also difficult in this case to determine the root cause of imbalance in the growth monotonicity in 2010–2017 when the impact of the economic crisis was softening. The variance in the time series of investment expenditure was already wider than in the cases previously discussed and stood at 58.1%, whereas the median happened in 2003/2004. The investment trajectory indicates monotonic growth, albeit with two periods that disturbed this process—the ‘loop’ of 1998–2004 and the disturbances after 2009 (Fig. 6.15). However, the graph showing the dynamics of investment outlays presents a sine curve with a declining amplitude. In 2000–2002, 2009–2010, 2011–2013 and 2015–2016 the dynamics of expenditure fell (below 100%—Fig. 6.16). As the indicators considered so far show progressive economic growth, the financial outcome of the state budget (balance) manifested a continuous budget imbalance. In fact, it was only in 1990 that an increase in revenue in relation to expenditure was recorded—a total of 2.4 bln. Since then, we have been dealing with a budget deficit of different amounts in various years, the highest being 46.1 bln in 2006, 44.6 bln in 2010, 42.6 bln in 2015, 42.2 in 2013 and 41.4 bln in 2004. Nevertheless, what is more important is the percentage share of the budget deficit in GDP. The 1990 surplus (4.12%) was replaced by a deficit of 3.76% as early as 1991, to reach a maximum high percentage of 6.1% in 1992. Since that year the percentage share of the deficit decreased until 1997 (0.47%) and in the years until 2004 remained above 4%. The general downward trend (although not monotonic) lasted until 2011 (1.86%) and over the next years it rose and fell in leaps and bounds (max. 2.54% in 2013 and min. 1.28% in 2017). However, it is a positive sign that in 2018 it decreased to 10.4 bln, the lowest amount since 1999. In this category what is important is to relate

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Fig. 6.16 Investment outlays—dynamics of changes

the deficit to GDP, as shown above. A factor regulating public debt was regulations issued by the European Committee (a deficit below 3% GDP). The budget deficit trajectory shows a singularly exceptional course resulting from the lack of a clear and straightforward tendency in this respect. Relatively clear tendencies can be observed for 1997–2001, when there was general deficit growth and after 2015 with a fall in the deficit (Fig. 6.17). The graph of changes in budget deficit dynamics is sinusoidal with changes in pace. The situation improved in the years 1992–1993, 1996–1997, 2004–2007, 2010–2011, 2013–2014 and after 2015 (Fig. 6.18). The budget deficit will always result from the economic situation—specifically, from the attempt to balance capability with needs, which follows from the state’s economic policy (and achievements in this regard) as well as social policy (the possibility to satisfy a range of unmet needs). Fig. 6.17 Financial result of state budget—development trajectory

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Fig. 6.18 Financial result of state budget—dynamics of changes year by year

6.5 Standard of Living (Wealth) The description and assessment of changes in living standard were mostly limited by the unavailability of time-related data which could have broadened the substantive scope of the analysis. Three features (variables) were taken into account in the research: remuneration (pay), the size of accommodation and the number of passenger cars. One should also consider that these indicators were affected by processes such as inflation, the denomination of the Polish zloty, the free housing market and an increase in housing prices related to it, as well as changes in the consumption structure and a relative fall in car prices combined with a high demand for this prestigious commodity in Poland, not justified by the material condition of people. A certain factor correcting the features considered was also the period when the economy and society gradually emerged from collapse and transitioned towards a path of development. The basic factor determining personal income is remuneration. Between 1990 and 2018 the average pay increased from PLN 102.96 in 1990 to 4834.76 in 2018.10 The trajectory of the increase in average pay runs in a straight line, indicating monotonic growth (Fig. 6.19). It is understood that after years of gradual reduction in living standards (until 1990), the dynamics of remuneration increase in the first years of the transformation were tremendous, much higher than in the following years. By 2000 the growth gradually weakened in order to stabilise later at 103–110%, altering year by year (Fig. 6.20). The housing conditions (the size of accommodation) and the number of cars owned (the indicator of individual motorisation) can be adopted as a certain measure of living 10

The amount of remuneration in 1990 may be somewhat surprising, nonetheless, it results from the conversion of remuneration from this year in relation to hyperinflation and denomination of the zloty and the very poor financial situation of the population (in 1975).

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Fig. 6.19 Average monthly pay—development trajectory

Fig. 6.20 Average monthly pay—dynamics of changes

standards. Housing stock in the investigated period went up from 11 mln 180 thous flats in 1990 to 14 mln 615 thous in 2018, with only slightly more inhabitants (38.4 mln in 2018 and 38.1 mln in 1990). Such a situation generally, but rather theoretically, suggests an improvement in this field. Generally, because this is statistics, and theoretically since the statistics include both inhabited and uninhabited homes (abandoned because of degradation and high purchasing prices or rents). Whilst in 1990 there was one flat per 3.4 people, by 2018 this number has fallen to 2.6, which, as mentioned earlier, is not reflective of the actual housing situation. The trajectory of increase in housing shows monotonic growth, higher in 2000–2002 (Fig. 6.21). The dynamics, including a weakening in 1992–1994 and a surge in 2001–2002, present a stable position in this respect because they oscillate between 100.05% and 100.1% (Fig. 6.22). Despite these doubts, a certain improvement in the housing situation became a reality.

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Fig. 6.21 Housing stock—development trajectory

Fig. 6.22 Housing stock—dynamics of changes year by year

A much better indicator of living standards may appear to be the number of registered passenger cars, which grew from 5 mln 261 thous in 1990 to 23 mln 429 thous in 2018. This is almost 4.5 times more than in the initial year. There were 130 cars per 1000 people in 1990 and 610 in 2018, which was one of the highest rates not only in Europe but worldwide as well. A car in Poland became the most desirable commodity, not justified by the income level or the consumption structure (Parysek 2016). The high cost of houses/flats compared with remuneration did not cause such a dynamic rise in demand as in the case of cars, with a large number of people not owning their own home.11 The trajectory of growth in the number of cars is a straight line, which indicates its monotonicity and the undisturbed course of this 11

In 2019, 1 m2 of a new flat in Poland cost about PLN 8 thous (EUR 2 thous) and in large cities from PLN 12–18 thous (EUR 3–4.5 thous) against an average gross salary of PLN 4 thous (EUR 1 thous).

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process (Fig. 6.23). It does not mean that the year by year dynamics were the same. The growth in the number of passenger cars was admittedly gradually lower, but after a rapid fall in 1993, it oscillated between 105 and 106%, with a larger increase in 2005–2008. From 2010 it levelled off and, with minor fluctuations, remained at 104% (Fig. 6.24). Fig. 6.23 Passenger cars—development trajectory

Fig. 6.24 Passenger cars—dynamics of changes year by year

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6.6 Synthesis 6.6.1 Correlations and Dependencies Every description of a socio-economic situation requires an attempt at explaining the observed state of affairs. The first study that could be performed in relation to the available data was the assessment of the association degree of ongoing development processes, possible thanks to correlation analysis. Then, the impact of the factors (variables) considered in the study on the synthetic (in a sense) indicators of economic development (GDP) and social development (remuneration) was assessed by using a multivariate regression model. Correlation analysis allows the following conclusions to be drawn: (1)

(2)

(3)

(4) (5)

(6)

The population number is not indicative of any important correlation with the considered development variables of economic and social development, which is due to a stable population number in the country (the variation coefficient for time series was 0.48%).12 Falling, and in many years, negative natural increase, is positively correlated with the inflation rate (r = 0.621) and the budget deficit (r = 0.632), but negatively with the number of private enterprises (r = −0.888), remuneration (r = −0.766), the number of cars (r = −0.677) and flats/houses (r = −0.678), which on the one hand, is indicative of the social costs of demographic collapse and, on the other, a relatively better financial situation enjoyed by society (cars, flats, salaries) caused by a lack of population increase.13 Occupational activity, especially its growth, limits unemployment (r = − 0.753) and increases wealth to a certain extent, expressed by the number of cars (r = 0.502), and improves the housing situation (r = 0.450)14 . Obviously, unemployment is not conducive to the creation of domestic product (r = −0.887), and it limits occupational activity (r = −0.753); It is evidently confirmed that GDP growth results from investment (r = 0.973) in, and development of, entrepreneurship (r = 0.810) leading simultaneously to a rise in salaries (r = 0.810) and living standards, which is measured by cars owned (r = 0.792) and the housing situation (r = 0,793). It can be assumed at the same time that the following are not conducive to GDP growth: unemployment (r = −887), budget deficit (r = −0.687) and changes in natural increase (r = −0.618); On the basis of the conducted research it can be assumed, although it is difficult to logically explain, that a rise in inflation is related first of all to natural increase (r = 0.621) and that inflation, albeit to a smaller degree,

Correlation coefficients at the level of α = 0.001; r = 0.5541 were considered. Determination of impact of natural increase on the indicators considered is difficult due to a rapid fall until 1998 and a positive or negative rise in consecutive years; 14 The last two correlation coefficients (r = 0.502 and r = 0.450) are significant, at the level of α = 0.01. 12 13

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has a negative effect on the budget deficit (r = 0.379) and adversely affects entrepreneurship (r = −0.546), remuneration (r = −0.412), GDP (r = − 0.361) and the number of cars (r = −0.369); Entrepreneurship proves to be an important development factor. The growing number of business entities leads to a rise in salaries (r = 0.961) and GDP (r = 0.810). Moreover, it reduces the deficit budget (r = −0.705), but is not conducive to natural increase (r = −0.889), Investments seem to be a basic development factor, mainly for GDP growth (r = 0.973), entrepreneurship development (r = 0.776), rise in salaries (r = 0.776), improvement in the housing situation (r = 0.759) and increase in the number of cars (r = 0.765). At the same time, investment contributes to the reduction of the budget deficit (r = −0.631) and, to a lesser extent, inflation (r = −0.351); It is commonly known that a budget deficit is not conducive to economic development, which is also confirmed by the research conducted. The budget deficit is negatively correlated with variables that can be recognised as ones describing favourable development factors, such as GDP (r = −0.687), entrepreneurship (r = −0.705), investment (r = −0.631), as well as remuneration, related to a certain degree to a budgetary balance (r = −0.634) as well as car ownership (r = −0.564). The budget deficit is influenced to some extent by: natural increase (r = 0.632), and, to a lesser extent, by inflation (r = 0.379); Salaries show a high level of correlation with the number of business entities (r = 0.961) and GDP (r = 0.810). Moreover, an improvement in the financial situation is reflected in the number of cars owned (r = 0.985) and housing (r = 0.983), whereas the budget deficit (r = –0.634) and natural increase (r = −0.766) adversely affect the financial situation; In the light of the research conducted, one can assume that the housing situation is determined primarily by remuneration (r = 0.983), entrepreneurship (r = 0.911), GDP (r = 0.792) and occupational activity (r = 0.450), whereas the budget deficit (r = −0.603) and natural increase (r = −0.678) exert a negative influence; The situation is similar with regard to wealth, measured by the number of cars owned. This is affected by remuneration (r = 0.985), entrepreneurship (r = 0.996), GDP (r = 0.792) and investment (r = 0.765), and negatively influenced by natural increase (r = −0.677), the budget deficit (r = −0.564), inflation (r = −0.369) and unemployment (r = −0.344). The housing situation and the number of cars are highly correlated (r = 0.992).

Based on the analysis of the value of correlation coefficients, two groups of correlated variables have been distinguished15 :

15

The ‘immediate neighbour’ method where the grouping criterion was the taxonomic distance dik specified as dik = (1 - Rik ), where Rik = the correlation coefficient of the ith and kth variable;

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(2)

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A close mutual correlation of variables describing GDP, investment expenditure, business entities, occupational activity, remuneration, the housing situation, cars and the population figure shows a strong relationship between economic growth and living standards as well as economic development (reflected in GDP) determined by such factors as investment, entrepreneurship, occupational activity, and to a lesser extent, the population number; Natural increase, inflation, unemployment as well as the budget deficit are correlated with variables adversely affecting economic growth, as well as exerting an indirect impact on living standards.

The conducted regression analysis incorporated two models. The first included explained variable (dependent) GDP as a measure of economic development and the second—remuneration (pay), as an indicator of living standards (wealth). Explanatory variables (independent) are ones which theoretically may influence the GDP value and the level of remuneration. In the model assessing the influence of independent variables on GDP what was considered were variables describing: occupational activity (x 1 ) and investment outlays (x 3 ), which theoretically positively affect GDP, as well as inflation (x 2 ), unemployment (x 4 ) and the budget deficit (x 5 ) with a negative influence on GDP. In the calculation procedure in which variables with a minor impact on the level of the independent variable (GDP) were gradually eliminated, the following regression equation was obtained: y = −80,266.4 + 6.269 x 3 − 6.03 x 5 , with a fit index of R2 = 97.42%. It means that the GDP is significantly and positively affected by investment (x 3 ) and negatively by the budget deficit (x 5 ). In the model assessing the influence of independent variables on remuneration, variables were considered that described the level of entrepreneurship (x 1 ) and investment expenditure (x 3 ), theoretically positively affecting remuneration as well as inflation (x 2 ), unemployment (x 4 ) and the budget deficit (x 5 ) with a theoretically negative impact on remuneration. In the calculation procedure during which, as in the first model (GDP), variables with a minor influence on remuneration were gradually eliminated, the following regression equation was obtained: y = −80.996 + 0.0134 x 3 − 0.0207 x 5 , with a fit index of R2 = 98.04%. This means that investment (x 3 ) is the basic factor influencing remuneration, whereas the state’s budget deficit (x 5 ) has a negative impact.

6.6.2 Events as Independent Factors and Development Determinants Analysing the socio-economic development of Poland after 1989, one may ask how the following events were marked in this process: the end of the first, painful, stage of transformation (1990–1994), the state’s accession to the EU (2004), and the world economic crisis (2008 and beyond).

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With regard to 1990, the first phase of the transformation ended with a slight rise in the population (by 192 thous persons), a clear weakening in the dynamics of natural increase (from 157.4 thous in 1990 to 94.9 thous in 1994), a rise in the unemployment rate (from 6.5 to 16%), with a simultaneous decline in occupational activity, deceleration of hyperinflation (a rate of 32.2% in 1994 in relation to 586% in 1990) and GDP growth, but starting from a very low level. The number of business entities grew quite conspicuously, which is indicative of entrepreneurship development and the privatisation of the economy. Investment outlays doubled, although a budget deficit was noticeable. Gradually, but too modestly, the standard of living improved from its low point of 1990. In other words, the economy continuously recovered from crisis, although this was not reflected in better living conditions. Poland’s membership in the European Union brought about a minor decrease in the population figure (emigration related to the opening of labour markets in the EU), the reversal of negative natural increase since 2006 and its growth by 2010, as well as its decline again until 2018 (once again negative since 2013). GDP increased gradually and this process continued uninterrupted until 2019. Likewise, the entrepreneurship level grew. The inflation rate rose first and then decreased. Investment expenditure grew noticeably. Unfortunately, in 2004, the state’s budget deficit reached PLN 41.4 bln (4.44% of GDP), slightly decreasing to PLN 44.6 bln by 2010 (although this was already 3.1% of GDP). Remuneration picked up gradually. The housing situation improved slightly, and car ownership blossomed. But four years later, the world faced an economic crisis, the course of which made it impossible to correctly assess the economic and social effects of Poland’s membership in the European Union, which was more likely to be observable after four years (after a gradual inflow of aid). The 2008 crisis hit suddenly and quite unexpectedly. However, it did not have a negative impact on the country’s demographics. The population began to grow, and natural increase took on new dynamics; occupational activity continued to rise slowly. It was merely the unemployment rate that started to rise gradually (from a low of 9.5% in 2008 to 13.4% in 2013) which is difficult to explain rationally considering the relatively stable level of professional activity and the number of business entities. This resulted most likely from hidden unemployment in rural areas, the possibility of receiving unemployment benefit, and the greater labour efficiency in production plants modernised during the transformation. Nevertheless, GDP grew regularly and rapidly year by year (108.3% in 2007–2008 and 106.7%, 105.3% and 104% in the next years), although within 2007–2010 investment levelled off at PLN 217 bln, which was certainly not conducive to development. The budget deficit of PLN 24.3 bln in 2008 was the lowest since 2000 (except for the low level of PLN 15.9 bln in 2007), but it fluctuated in the years to come. As late as in 2018 it reached PLN 10.4 bln. Remuneration rose continuously, as did the number of passenger cars and the housing stock. In other words, the global crisis did not affect the economy and society in Poland as much as it did other European countries. Essentially, the previously established development dynamic was maintained, despite a fall in investment, a rise in unemployment, inflation or the high budget deficit shown in the figures used in this study. The literature also points to a reduction in industrial production, the level

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of consumption and changes in its structure, an increase in debt and fall in the zloty exchange rate. At the same time, depreciation of the Polish zloty was a factor behind GDP growth and exports (Poland in the light of the economic global crisis, 2010). Up to this day it is not clear what contributed to the relatively sound, comparing to other European countries, economic situation enjoyed by Poland in the years 2008– 2011. What is emphasised, amongst other things, is exports driven by demand for Polish goods and the crisis in Germany (Poland’s biggest business partner), public investment, individual consumption, tenuous formal financial links to the Eurozone, keeping the Polish currency, as well as how GDP was calculated, for a favourable assessment of the economic situation (Poland in the light…, 2010, Adamowicz and Adamowicz 2018).16

6.7 Conclusion The research conducted on the economic and social development of Poland in the years 1990–2019 covered a substantial scope that resulted from collected, reliable statistical data. It seems that these data permitted an evaluation of what happened since 1990 within basic categories. Generally, recovery happened gradually as well as the implementation of the socio-economic transformation and stabilisation of the economy. The transformation model carried out, despite different evaluations, led to a state on the basis of which it was possible to introduce programmes of economic development, modernisation of the economy and improvement in living standards in the new political circumstances. Certainly, various programmes and projects had different results and priorities whose efficiency may be discussed in the future on the basis of analysis free from political entanglement. In any case, the research has shown that economic aspects—mainly investment, but also entrepreneurship and occupational activity, as basic factors affecting GDP—were improving, and this has also indicated the relationship between enhanced living standards and economic growth. The graphs and tables present the development processes in selected basic categories. Its scope was also limited by the scheduled text volume.

16

Unfortunately, publications about the overall situation in Poland during the 2008–2011 crisis are difficult to find, which is in marked contrast to a great abundance of detailed studies on selected aspects of the economy (e.g. labour market, banking sector, public finances, agriculture, food industry, foreign trade, insurance market, technological progress and innovation, tourism, functioning of territorial self-governments, also investing in Special Economic Zones, etc.).

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Ormerod P (1993) Notes on unemployment. Paper presented at Unemployment Conference at Wiston House, Sussex (September 1993). Henley, London Parysek J (1992) Polski przemysł a nowe warunki społeczno-ustrojowe (Polish industry and new socio-systemic conditions). Biuletyn KPZK PAN 159:75–88 Parysek J (1997) Efekty procesu transformacji społeczno-gospodarczej w Polsce. Bilans okresu 1989–1996 (Effects of socio-economic transformation in Poland. Consolidation of the years 1989–1996). In: Parysek J, Rogacki H (eds) Przemiany społeczno—gospodarcze Polski lat dziewi˛ec´ dziesi˛atych (Socio-economic changes in Poland in the 1990s). Bogucki Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Pozna´n, pp 25–46 Parysek J (1999) The spatial dimension of the process of socio-economic transformation (in the first 6 years). In: Doma´nski R (ed) Emerging spatial and regional structures of an economy in transition. KPZK PAN. Stud Regionalia 8:25–54 Parysek J (2002) Metropolises and processes of metropolisation. Geograpia Pol 75(1):25–42 Parysek J (2004) Trajektorie rozwoju miast polskich w latach 1992–2002 (Development trajectories of Polish cities in 1992–2002). In: Parysek J (ed) Rozwój regionalny i lokalny w Polsce w latach 1989–2002 (Regional and local development in Poland in 1989–2002). Bogucki Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Pozna´n, pp 116–132 Parysek J (2005) Miasta polskie na przełomie XX i XXI wieku: rozwój i przekształcenia strukturalne (Polish cities at the turn of the 21st century: Development and structural changes). Bogucki Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Pozna´n Parysek J (2016) Dla kogo miasto? dla ludzi czy dla samochodów (Whom is the city intended for? People or vehicles?)? Stud Miejskie 23:9–27 Parysek J (2018) O rozwoju społeczno—gospodarczym oraz czynnikach i uwarunkowaniach rozwoju (Socio-economic development as well as factors and determinants of development). In: Churski P (ed) Teoretyczne i aplikacyjne wyzwania współczesnej geografii społecznoekonomicznej (Theoretical and application challenges of contemporary socio-economic geography). STUDIA KPZK PAN CLXXXIII, pp 37–56 Parysek J, Mierzejewska L (2012) Trajectories of the demographic development of Poland after 1999. Bull Geogr Socio-Econ Ser 17:109–125 ˙ Parysek J, Mierzejewska L (2013). Zycie miasta—studium Poznania. Miasto i jego mieszka´ncy (The life of the city—the study of Pozna´n. The city and its inhabitants). Bogucki Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Pozna´n ˙ Parysek J, Mierzejewska L (2014) Zycie miasta—studium Poznania. Infrastruktura miejska (The life of the city—the study of Pozna´n. Urban infrastructure). Bogucki Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Pozna´n Polska wobec s´wiatowego kryzysu gospodarczego (Poland in the light of the global economic cirsis), 2009. Raport. Narodowy Bank Polski, Warszawa Pozna´nski KZ (2001a) Obł˛ed reform. Wyprzeda˙z Polski (Reform lunacy. Sale of Poland). Ludowa Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza, Warszawa Pozna´nski K (2001b) Wielki przekr˛et. Kl˛eska polskich reform (A great scam. The failure of Polish reforms). Towarzystwo Wydawnicze i Literackie, Warszawa Rolski M (2013) Krytyka planu Balcerowicza w uj˛eciu Grzegorza Kołodki oraz Tadeusza Kowalika (Criticism of the Balcerowicz plan in the eyes of Grzegorz Kołodko and Tadeusz Kowalik). Studia Ekonomiczne, Uniwersytet Ekonomiczny w Katowicach Rubini N, Mihm S, Kołodko GW, Mitoraj R (2011) Ekonomia kryzysu (Economics of the crisis). Warszawa. Waters Kluwer Polska Slay B (1994) The polish economy, crisis, reform and transformation. Princeton Legacy Library. Princeton University Press, New Jersy Wilczy´nski W (2007) Dylematy polityki ustrojowej po 18 latach polskiej transformacji (Dilemmas of systemic policy after 18 years of Polish transformation). Ekonomista 6:757–770 Winiecki J (ed) (2009) Kryzys globalny. Pocz˛atek czy koniec (Global crisis. The beginning or the end). Wydawnictwo Regan Press, Gda´nsk

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Wo´zniak MG (2011) Gospodarka polski 1990–2011. Transformacja. Modernizacja. Droga do spójno´sci społeczno-ekonomicznej (Transformation. Modernisation. The road to socio-economic cohesion). Vol. 1 – Transformacja (Transformation), Wydawnictwo Nauk PWN, Warszawa. Zesz Nauk 130:88–100 Zagóra-Jonszta U (2017) Polsce ekonomi´sci o przebiegu i skutkach transformacji (Polish economists on the course and the effects of transformation). Uniwersytet Ekonomiczny w Katowicach. Stud Ekonomiczne. Zesz Nauk 316:208–2019

Chapter 7

Car Market Transformation Tadeusz Stryjakiewicz and Bartłomiej Kołsut

Abstract The purpose of this chapter is to present, in a spatial approach, changes that have occurred within the passenger car market in Poland since 1990 (i.e. since the start of the systemic transformation) under the influence of global, national, regional, and local factors. Defining the most important features of the Polish car market transformation, the study focuses on the following issues: development stages, the sale of new cars, import of used cars, and spatial variation of car ownership. The transformation of the car market in Poland well reflects the rapid social and economic changes taking place after the collapse of the centrally planned economic system. The country witnessed a significant growth of car ownership and a shift from public to individual modes of transport. Currently, the Polish car market seems to be at the saturation level achieved by its Western European counterparts, although it retains its own specificity—for example, in terms of the share of new and used cars registered. Despite more than three decades of transformation and a growing number of studies devoted to the car market in Poland, it remains an intriguing research field for geographers because the factors of its spatial differentiation call for a more profound analysis, also in the context of potential future market changes (such as the electromobility trend). Keywords Car market · Motorisation · Transport · Car ownership · Poland

7.1 Introduction Amongst the constitutive components of the Polish post-communist transformation, the ‘revolutionary’ change in the car market and car ownership (we apply the short term ‘car market transformation’) is an underestimated field of research. It can be seen as a distinguishing mark of the whole transformation process, worth a broader discussion from both the domestic and global perspective. Poland seems to be an T. Stryjakiewicz (B) · B. Kołsut Faculty of Human Geography and Planning, Adam Mickiewicz University, B. Krygowskiego 10, 61-680 Pozna´n, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Churski and T. Kaczmarek (eds.), Three Decades of Polish Socio-economic Transformations, Economic Geography, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06108-0_7

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interesting ‘laboratory’ to study the factors underlying the transformation of the car market. When looking at historical aspects, the development of motorisation in West European and North American states took a completely different course than in Poland (and in other countries of Central and Eastern Europe). In the latter case, the ‘first motorisation revolution’ (using the notion introduced in relevant literature by Freyssenet 2009) started much later (in the early 1990s) and was highly dynamic (between 1990 and 2019, the number of cars registered in Poland quadrupled). The systemic transformation made it possible for the national economy to join globalising and integrating processes, which also greatly influenced its markets, including the car one. In a relatively short time, this market experienced three critical moments (the ‘shock’ of systemic transition, Poland’s accession to the EU and the global financial crisis of 2007–09), each fundamentally changing its situation. All those elements have made the Polish car market unique and interesting not only from the country’s perspective. The chief goal of this chapter is to present, in a spatial approach, changes that have occurred within the passenger car market in Poland since 1990 (i.e. since the start of the systemic transformation) under the influence of global, national, regional, and local factors. The study focuses primarily on the cognitive aspect of the problem and involves the identification and analysis of dynamics and spatial differences of car market characteristics, including (1) development stages of the car market, (2) the market for new cars, (3) import of used cars after EU accession, and (4) spatial shifts in car ownership (or the level of motorisation). The time scope of the research covers the whole 30-year period of transformation, although detailed analyses of the spatial differentiation of car market characteristics involve the last 15 years (2004–2019), i.e. since Poland’s accession to the European Union. In the chapter use was made of data records on all personal cars in Poland, collected by the national administration (the Central Vehicle Register database). They enable the analysis of the car market for all administrative units; in our case these are districts (poviats). Unfortunately, due to the poor quality of spatially disaggregated data for the earlier period of transformation, this information is not used in our spatial analyses.

7.2 Development Stages of the Car Market The unique character of the car market in Poland, as in other countries of Central and Eastern Europe, results, amongst other things, from the fact that until 1990 it had developed in the circumstances of a centrally planned economy, which was different from a market economy. In principle, up until the 1970s the supply of cars was very limited. According to Pucher (1995), at that time a car was perceived by the authorities as a luxury commodity, a symbol of capitalism, materialism and consumerism. As a result, according to data from Poland’s Ministry of Transport, in 1970 there were only 15 passenger cars per 1000 inhabitants. Whilst in the following years (1970s and 1980s), due to a partial opening of Poland’s economy, the number of passenger cars started to grow systematically (a symbol of this breakthrough was the

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commencement of mass production of the Fiat 126p in 1973 by Fabryka Samochodów Małolitra˙zowych/Factory of Small-Engine Cars in Bielsko-Biała/Tychy), the rate of individual motorisation remained much lower than in Western European countries. As a result, after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1990, there were about 140 cars per 1000 inhabitants, whilst in Western Europe (EU15) the corresponding ratio was more than 400 cars per 1000 inhabitants (European Commission 2011). A true automobile boom took place in Poland in the 1990s. The political and economic transformation made it possible to integrate the country’s economy into globalisation and integration processes, which had a significant impact on the development of the market. The years 1990–1997 well reflect the ‘game’ for the Polish car market (in terms of both car production and sales). Its main participants were the government and multinational corporations (MNCs), and its major stages as well as the strategies of the actors involved are presented in Table 7.1. There were three basic elements of conflicts and bargaining (described in detail by Stryjakiewicz 2000): • Between monopolistic strategies (pursued largely by the first and initially the biggest investor in the car business, Fiat, in the early 1990s) and measures taken to curb the monopoly (by the Polish government, the Anti-Trust Office and foreign competitors); • Between protectionist tendencies (on the part of EU-based MNCs) and global operators (Daewoo and General Motors as a counterbalance for the dominance of Fiat and other West-European firms enjoying the privilege of import quotas); and • Between strategies of some MNCs intending to make Poland a country of car assembly plants and the government policy aiming to ensure the location in Poland of enterprises with a full production cycle and significant multiplier effects. Thanks to the relative balance between the participants involved, the above ‘game’ led to progressive demonopolisation and diversification of the car market in Poland (see Fig. 7.1); the resultant beneficial effects were enjoyed by the consumers. Apart from the systemic transformation, in a relatively short period the automobile market experienced two more critical moments: Poland’s accession to the EU and the global financial crisis of 2007–09. Each of these factors significantly changed the market situation (Fig. 7.2). The opening of borders, resulting from the systemic transformation, enabled a much larger number of car brands and carmakers to appear on the market and bolstered the import of used cars from abroad. The steady increase in the number of cars at that time was influenced by an improvement in the country’s economic situation (in 1990–99, the level of GDP increased by 88%), which contributed to an increase in earnings and a gradual improvement in the quality of life of the inhabitants. Komornicki (2003) also points out that for many Polish citizens, having a car had become a token of prestige and social status. As a result, within ten years (1990– 1999) the number of passenger cars in Poland increased by 76%. During this period Poles were relatively eager to buy new cars (in 1999 their sales exceeded 640,000), whilst the number of cars imported from abroad was closely related to the level of customs duties in force at that time (Klimowska and Klose 2007). This resulted in large annual fluctuations in the number of cars imported to Poland (Fig. 7.2).

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Table 7.1 The ‘game’ for the car market in Poland in the 1990s Stage Strategies of Fiat

Government strategies

Strategies of competing enterprises and international institutions

I

Contract to purchase the former state-owned Factory of Small-Engine Cars in Bielsko-Biała/Tychy by Italian concern Fiat (in 1992), ensuring it protective regulations (e.g. in tariffs and taxes) and a monopolistic position in small-engine car manufacture (in 1993, 97% of sales in this class)

Introduction, under an agreement with Fiat, of countervailing duties on imported parts and subassemblies

EU countries forcing Poland to establish import quotas for their cars and to gradually lift duties under association agreements; Establishing assembly plants in Poland by Western concerns (e.g. Volkswagen) India’s complaint lodged with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) charging Poland with breaking principles of free trade in cars through its protectionist policy towards EU countries

II

Series of increases in price of Fiat Cinquecento on the home market (e.g. eight hikes in 1994, not always justified by inflation) Introduction of a system of interest-free prepayments for cars as a result of great unmet demand

Attempts at countering the Fiat monopoly through: – Encouraging further foreign investors – Legal actions (e.g. by Anti-Monopoly Office against interest-free prepayment system as contrary to Polish Commercial Code and punishing Fiat) – Allowing private import of assembled cars from abroad

More investment in Poland by non-EU MNCs, so far discriminated against by lack of quota (e.g. Korean Daewoo, which engaged in a car price war and took over a substantial share of Fiat’s home market—see Fig. 7.1) Mass development of assembly plants

III

Slowing down of car price increase and even relative decrease due to growing competition on the market Setting up of assembly and production of new models in Poland (Fiat Siena) Protest (together with Daewoo) against government policy of licencing simple assembly of cars granted to foreign companies not investing in Poland (in particular Korean Hyundai)

Cap on issuing licences to assemble cars in Poland and defining new rules for foreign firms wanting to enter the Polish car market (1998) Consecutive and successful investment incentives (e.g. for General Motors in the Katowice Special Economic Zone)

Repeated warnings from EU bodies concerning government policy of licencing car assembling in Poland (especially by Korean firms) Car producers switching from simple assembly under the SKD system to the CKD type; their declarations of further investments and transforming assembly plants into manufacturing ones (e.g. Volkswagen, Volvo), or abandoning assembly (continued)

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Table 7.1 (continued) Stage Strategies of Fiat

Government strategies

Strategies of competing enterprises and international institutions

Stability of the car market in Poland and its division amongst the biggest market players

IV

Source based on Stryjakiewicz (2000:14–15)

1995

1997

1996 Opel, 9.2%

Opel, 7.9%

other, 17.1%

Volkswagen, 10.9%

Daewoo, 1.4% Opel, 4.7%

Fiat, 35.4% other, 24.3%

Fiat, 41.7%

Fiat, 50.6% other, 18.3%

FSO, 26.2% Daewoo, 26.1%

Daewoo, 26.1%

Fig. 7.1 Changing division of the car market in Poland in 1995–1997. Source based on SAMAR data 1.2 sales of new cars

number of cars (million)

1

import of used cars

0.8

0.6 0.4 0.2

the systemic transformation

financial crises Poland's and collapse accession of Daewoo to the EU branch and Polish automakers (FSO, FSM)

global financial crisis

2018

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2003

2002

2001

2000

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1996

1995

1994

1993

1992

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1990

0

start of rapid economic growth (growth of GDP >3% per year)

Fig. 7.2 Dynamics of the car market in Poland after 1990. Source own study based on data from SAMAR and Polish Central Vehicle Register (Centralna Ewidencja Pojazdów) database

The situation changed significantly after Poland’s accession to the European Union (Adamowicz 2009; Komornicki 2011; Mutrynowski 2015). In the first year of membership, over 800,000 used cars were imported (mainly from other EU countries), and in the record year 2008 the figure rose to more than 1.1 million. As a result of the mass import of used cars, the number of new vehicles sold decreased. This

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translated automatically into problems for manufacturers and dealers. In addition, the unfavourable situation of the automotive industry was aggravated by the worsening economic situation related to the global financial crisis (Merkisz 2009). 2010 saw the lowest number of new cars sold since the beginning of the 1990s. Despite a temporary collapse of the market after 2008, the number of passenger cars registered in Poland grew almost steadily, in particular after 2013 (when Poland recorded a yearly GDP growth of more than 3%). However, the proportions between new cars registered and imported used ones did not change significantly. One can conclude that the year of Poland’s joining the EU was crucial for the transformation of the domestic car market. This transformation can be assessed in a twofold manner. On the one hand, it facilitated a quick catching up with the motorisation level of developed countries of Western Europe as well as enriching and diversifying the home market. On the other hand, because of the huge number of imported used cars,1 Poland has sometimes been perceived as a ‘junkyard’ for such vehicles (Kołsut 2020; see also: Root 2006). One of the effects of the large-scale import of used vehicles from abroad was an increase in the average car age in Poland. According to European Automobile Manufacturers Association data, in 2018 the average car in Poland was 13.9 years old (in Germany: 9.5; in France: 9.0; in the United Kingdom: 8.0). However, it is also worth noting that this kind of import (followed by reconditioning used cars and their further export to Eastern-European countries) revived local entrepreneurship and created new income sources in some peripheral areas. One way or another, this enormous role of the second-hand car market for imported used cars is one of the unique features of the Polish post-communist transformation not only in its local dimension, but also in the global perspective (Kołsut 2020). This is the reason why the following more detailed analysis of the car market transformation in Poland is divided into two segments, i.e. the market for new cars and the import of used cars after EU accession. Both impacted the transformation of car ownership, its dynamics and structure (including spatial differences).

7.3 The Market for New Cars Of special importance from the point of view of national economic growth is the market of new cars sales based on domestic brands. During the period of intensifying motorisation, the automotive industry in most developed countries was primarily concentrated on the home market. That is how the car markets of the USA, Germany, Japan, and France developed. Other trends were observed in developing countries, including Poland, in the post-communist period. It should be noted here that it was the systemic transformation that triggered the decline of domestic brands and a fundamental change in the structure of the market for new cars. Before 1990, new car sales 1

During the transformation period, the proportion between the number of new cars registered and the number of imported used cars changed from 8:1 in 1997 to 1:4 in 2005 (the first year after EU accession) to 1:2 in 2018.

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250,000

number of cars

200,000

150,000

100,000

50,000

1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

0

Fiat 125p & Polonez (FSO)

Fiat 126p (FSM)

Fig. 7.3 Dynamics of domestic car production (1967–2000). Source own elaboration based on Boniecki (1999) and Podbielski (2011)

were based mainly on domestically produced vehicles (largely under Italian licence), such as: Fiat 126p (segment A), Fiat 125p and its successor Polonez (segment D). These cars were produced in the largest quantities in the 1980s in Polish plants belonging to the Fabryka Samochodów Osobowych/Factory of Personal Cars in Warsaw (FSO) and Fabryka Samochodów Małolitra˙zowych/Factory of Small-Engine Cars in Bielsko-Biała/Tychy (FSM) (for details see Doma´nski, 1981; Stryjakiewicz 1999, 2000; Pavlinek 2006; Wójtowicz and Rachwał 2014). Still at the beginning of 1990s, the production and sales of Fiat 126p and Polonez were at a relatively high level (Fig. 7.3), but quickly plummeted. This, in turn, led to an increase in imports of new cars and sales of cars manufactured in Poland by the Volkswagen Group and General Motors (Opel). Moreover, in the second half of the 1990s, sales of Daewoo cars produced in Poland relatively cheaply (at the privatised Factory of Personal Cars in Warsaw), clearly increased (Pak et al. 2002; Stryjakiewicz 2000). As indicated earlier (see Fig. 7.2), after the collapse of Daweoo Motors as a result of the Asian crisis (Almeida et al. 2015) and due to the deteriorating situation of the Polish economy, the sale of new cars dropped and until 2013 remained at the level of ca. 250–300,000 annually, i.e. ca. 7–8 cars per 1000 inhabitants (for comparison, in Germany this figure was approx. 44 per 1000 inhabitants). This state of affairs lasted until the leasing market started to develop rapidly (Fig. 7.4). This was facilitated by the rapid pace of economic development (GDP growth of more than 3% per year). Small Polish businesses began to use leasing on a large scale, as it provides opportunities to reduce the amount of income tax they pay. The development of the company cars market bolstered the sales of new cars in 2018 to about 600,000 vehicles (Skoda, Volkswagen, and Toyota were amongst the most popular car brands). The spatial distribution of new car registrations purchased by individual customers (Fig. 7.5) shows a very strong correlation with the level of economic development.

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number of new cars registrations (thousands)

400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 personal cars

company cars

Fig. 7.4 Dynamics of new company and personal cars registrations 2004–2019. Source own study based on Polish Central Vehicle Register (Centralna Ewidencja Pojazdów)

Fig. 7.5 Spatial structure of new cars registrations (excluding company cars) per 1000 inhabitants (2004 and 2019). Source own study based on Polish Central Vehicle Register (Centralna Ewidencja Pojazdów)

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Most new cars are purchased by inhabitants of large urban agglomerations. This is due to a well-known factor in car ownership research, i.e. the relationship between car price and consumer income (Dargay and Gately 1999).

7.4 Import of Used Cars After EU Accession Since Poland acceded to the European Union, its economic and social reality has changed rapidly. The opening of Western markets and lifting of many institutional restrictions resulted in the intensification of trade, migration and increased the integration of the Polish economy and society (likewise in of other countries of Central and Eastern Europe) with the so-called ‘old Union’. An example of the revolutionary changes resulting from Poland’s integration with the EU are those related to the used car market and international trade (Chu and Delgado 2009; Cos, ciug et al. 2017; Grubel 1980). Vehicles depreciating and withdrawn from use by members of richer societies became an attractive proposition for less affluent consumers from Central and Eastern Europe (Pardi 2020). For them, owning a car is not only a symbol of prestige and higher material status but also a necessary element of everyday life in circumstances of reduced access to public transport. The opening of Poland to imports of used vehicles from Western Europe in 2004 triggered a revolution in the domestic car market. Virtually all significant customs and tax restrictions were lifted, which resulted in a radical reduction in the value of imported cars. In the period 2004–2018, about 12 million imported used passenger cars were registered in Poland, which means that over 15 years, an average of about 800,000 cars were imported annually. In the record-breaking year 2008, the figure stood at over 1.1 million cars. These figures are much higher than the data for countries importing cars from Japan and the USA (Davis and Kahn 2010; Coffin 2015; UNECE 2017; Golunov 2018). From the point of view of importing used cars to Poland, the last 15 years can be divided into three main subperiods (Fig. 7.6). The first of them (2004–2008) was the time of the largest imports, which can be described as the ‘first import boom’. Over the five years following EU accession, an average of over 860,000 used passenger cars were registered in Poland annually. This was due to the relatively large supply of older used cars in Western Europe and the high demand on the Polish side, where the motorisation rate was relatively low and far from saturation. In 2009, there was a big drop in the number of cars imported to less than 700,000. It was the beginning of a five-year period (2009–2013) of ‘market saturation and economic downturn’, with reduced levels of used car imports. The fact that demand on the passenger car market declined during that time can be explained by several factors. First of all, Poles felt (though to a lesser extent than residents of Western European countries) the economic crisis and falling incomes, which meant they bought fewer cars. Secondly, in 2009 there was a massive jump in the value of the euro against the Polish złoty (PLN) and the average annual exchange rate that year was about 4.3 PLN. This was by as much as 0.8 PLN higher compared to the average

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number of cars (million)

1

period I "first import boom"

period II "market saturation and economic downturn"

period III "import renaissance"

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Fig. 7.6 Dynamics of used cars import (2004–2018). Source Own study based on Polish Central Vehicle Register (Centralna Ewidencja Pojazdów)

exchange rate from 2008. Third, the supply of used cars had decreased in Western European countries, especially of those older than 10 years. This was due to the fact that countries such as Germany, France, and Italy introduced state vehicle scrapping programmes (‘cash for clunkers’) combined with stimulating the market for new car sales (Haydock et al. 2012). After 2012, however, there was a gradual ‘renaissance of imports’ of used cars to Poland. In 2016, imports of used cars again exceeded one million; slightly fewer cars were imported to Poland in 2018 (950,000) and 2017 (850,000). However, this was also accompanied by an increase in sales of new cars, which was the main element that distinguishes this period from the period of the ‘first import boom’. The year 2018 was record-breaking in terms of the number of new registrations (over 1.4 million passenger cars). In addition to the high scale of imports, the highest sale of new cars in 20 years was also recorded, exceeding 500,000 that year. On the one hand, this resulted from an increase in income and on the other from the development of car leasing (most of the new cars registered were company cars). Imports of used cars are based on actions of entrepreneurial individuals and small firms. It is connected to so-called ‘entrance gates’, responsible for bringing them into Poland. The spatial distribution of the imported used cars first registration index in 2004 and 2018 is presented in Fig. 7.7. It shows clearly the above average representation of districts (poviats) with a large number of imported cars in western Poland (Wielkopolska Region, and to a lesser extent also in Lubuskie Region). Amongst 13 districts with the highest index value in the 2014–2018 period (over 500), 10 are from Wielkopolska and 3 from Lubuskie Region. These administrative units are commercial import centres with numerous used car dealers and used car sales outlets (located especially in the area about 50–80 km around Pozna´n).

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Fig. 7.7 Spatial structure of imported used cars registrations per 1000 inhabitants (2004 and 2019). Source own study based on Polish Central Vehicle Register (Centralna Ewidencja Pojazdów)

7.5 Change in the Level of Motorisation and Its Spatial Differences The highly dynamic car market of new and used vehicles as well as the increase in the affluence of the Polish society translate into a rapid increase in the level of motorisation (or car ownership). This has been continuous throughout the entire transformation period, i.e. from 1990 to the present (Fig. 7.8), with the highest average annual increases taking place at the beginning of the transformation period (1990– 1991), in the years 2004–2008 (i.e. between Poland’s accession to the European Union and the onset of the global financial crisis), and since 2015. It should be noted, however that in 2018 Poland merely reached the level of individual motorisation of the United States from 1964, Germany from 1990, and the United Kingdom from 2004. On the other hand, the large share of the secondary market and the frailty of automotive statistics (discussed at length in an article by Kołsut et al. (2020), in particular the registration of cars known as ‘deal souls’2 make Poland’s motorisation rate ambiguous when compared to other European countries (Fig. 7.9). Nationwide, the transformation process leads to bridging spatial gaps in the motorisation rates (Fig. 7.10). Regions favourably standing out early on were those of Wielkopolska (Greater Poland), Upper Silesia and south-western Mazovia (Poland’s core triangle). In 2019 a ‘spatial sprawl’ of car ownership towards peripheral regions could be observed (a large share of this is accounted for by the used car market). On the other hand, the growth of the motorisation rate has been relatively slower 2

These cars are included in the register, although they have not been on the road for a long time.

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Fig. 7.8 Motorisation rate change in 1989–2018. Source Own study based on Polish Central Vehicle Register (Centralna Ewidencja Pojazdów)

(I) 700

662

600

625 615 608 595

571 555 550 534 531

500

505 502 492 486 484 481 479 477 470 456 443 429 428

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505 502 492 486 484 481 479 477 470 456 443 435 429 428

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Fig. 7.9 Motorisation rate (number of cars per 1000 inhabitants) according to the official European Commission reports for Poland (I) and after the authors’ correction (II). Source Kołsut et al. (2020; 2022)

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167

Fig. 7.10 Spatial structure of motorisation rate (2004 and 2019). Source own study based on Polish Central Vehicle Register (Centralna Ewidencja Pojazdów)

in the largest metropolitan centres, such as Warsaw, Krakow, Łód´z, Pozna´n, and Wrocław (but not their suburbs). The low level of individual motorisation is still found in the underdeveloped and structurally weak regions of Northern Poland (with the exception of the Kaszuby region) and a significant number of districs (poviats) in South-Eastern Poland. Summing up, we can say that the impact of the car market transformation on the distribution of car ownership leads to similar effects in spatial terms as the European Union’s cohesion policy.

7.6 Conclusions The transformation of the car market well reflects the rapid social and economic changes that took place after the collapse of the centrally planned economic system in Poland. Moreover, it is strongly embedded in the processes of globalisation and European integration (in particular, after Poland’s accession to the EU). The country witnessed a significant growth of car ownership and a shift from public to individual modes of transport. Currently, the Polish car market seems to be at the saturation level of its Western European counterparts, although it remains unique, for example, in terms of the share of the new and used cars registered. Geographically, a tendency to bridge the gaps in the motorisation rate within Poland and in comparison with its western neighbours is recorded, although there are still spatial differences due to brand preferences, age and other specific features of cars. The factors determining

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these differences need a deeper analysis, also in the context of potential future market changes (such as the electromobility trend). Despite three decades of transformation and a growing number of studies, the car market in Poland remains an intriguing field for interdisciplinary research, including geography.

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Kołsut B, Stryjakiewicz T, Gadzi´nski J (2022) Do motorisation statistics reflect the real geography of car ownership in Poland? Quaestiones Geographicae 41(2):95–108. https://doi.org/10.2478/ quageo-2022-0016 Komornicki T (2003) Factors of development of car ownership in Poland. Transp Rev 23(4):413–431 Komornicki T (2011) Przemiany mobilno´sci codziennej Polaków na tle rozwoju motoryzacji. IGiPZ PAN, Warszawa Merkisz J (2009) The automotive market in the time of global economic crisis. Combust Engines 3:3–13 Mutrynowski T (2015) Rynek samochodów osobowych w Polsce. Kwartalnik Nauk o Przedsi˛ebiorstwie 1:91–101 Pak YS, Lee J, An JM (2002) Lessons learned from Daewoo Motors’ experience in emerging markets. Multinatl Bus Rev 10(2):122 Pardi T (2020) Searching for industrial policy: the long decline of the French automotive industry. In: New frontiers of the automobile industry. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, pp 113–135 Pavlínek P (2006) Restructuring of the Polish passenger car industry through foreign direct investment. Eurasian Geogr Econ 47(3):353–377 Podbielski Z (2011) Polski Fiat 126p, czyli Maluch. Warszawa, Wydawnictwo ZP Pucher J (1995) The road to ruin?: impacts of economic shock therapy on urban transport in Poland. Transp Policy 2(1):5–13 Root E (2006) The impact of used car imports on the industry and markets in Eastern Europe. In: Proceedings of the global automotive conference, vol. 11. Florence, Italy Stryjakiewicz T (1999) Adaptacja przestrzenna przemysłu w Polsce w warunkach transformacji. Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM, Pozna´n Stryjakiewicz T (2000) Implications of globalisation for regions and localities in an economy in transition: the case of Poland. In: Parysek JJ, Stryjakiewicz T (eds) Polish economy in transition: spatial perspectives, Bogucki Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Pozna´n, pp 7–28 UNECE (2017) Used vehicles: a global overview. United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. https://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/trans/doc/2017/itc/UNEP-ITC_Background_P aper-Used_Vehicle_Global_Overview.pdf (20 Jan 2021) Wójtowicz M, Rachwał T (2014) Globalization and new centers of automotive manufacturing— the case of Brazil, Mexico, and Central Europe. Pr Komisji Geografii Przemysłu Pol Towarz Geograficznego 25:81–107

Chapter 8

Changes in Ownership and Production Structure of Agriculture Anna Kołodziejczak

Abstract Over the last three decades, the agricultural development in Poland has been influenced to the greatest extent by two transformations, i.e. post-socialist and European, determining the course of the trajectory of Poland’s agricultural development. The shock therapy of the early 1990s, as a way of accelerating the transformation, created circumstances unfavourable for agriculture, in which thousands of workers laid off from non-agricultural enterprises returned to farms, leading to a decrease in budget support, closure of the State Agricultural Farms (PGR) and other factors that resulted in a collapse in agricultural income and a decline in agricultural production. Poland’s accession to the EU was a strong incentive for development, including agricultural, via Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) mechanisms. The chapter aims to present the most important spatial changes in farming resulting from transformation processes. These changes are related to the loss of natural potential of agriculture, processes of land concentration, specialisation and an increase in farm production scale (crops and livestock husbandry), differences in socio-economic space and progress in sustainable farming. Keywords Agriculture · Agricultural land use · Agrarian structure · Specialisation intensity · Diversification of agricultural production · Poland

8.1 Introduction Agriculture is a specific economic sector because outside capital and work, there is also the production factor, which is land. One of the main features distinguishing agricultural production is its nature and strong dependence on natural conditions. Apart from that, farming is significantly influenced by socio-economic factors, such as the agrarian structure of agriculture, organisation of labour, mechanisation, the A. Kołodziejczak (B) Faculty of Human Geography and Planning, Adam Mickiewicz University, B. Krygowskiego 10, 61-680 Pozna´n, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Churski and T. Kaczmarek (eds.), Three Decades of Polish Socio-economic Transformations, Economic Geography, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06108-0_8

171

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type of production technology used and the related efficiency of production factors, agricultural culture and politics. The marketiation of the economy in 1990 followed by the accession to the EU in 2004, strongly affected the functioning of agriculture and organisation of agricultural holdings in Poland. Before Poland joined the EU, support for agriculture from the state budget had been weak. The share of outlays on farming in the total budget spending varied in 1990–2002 from 2–3% with a decreasing trend. The expenditure was about 0.5% of GDP (Wilkin 2014). The opportunity to benefit from pre-accession funds and the prospect of EU membership became a strong incentive to introduce a new type of agricultural policy and support system for the development of agriculture and rural areas. This process was successful which was proved by the full and good use of the funds granted to Poland within SAPARD (Rudnicki 2008). Amongst all the countries which entered the EU in 2004, Poland was the largest beneficiary in this respect. The means appropriated for Poland were generally well used, as was manifested by changes in agriculture. The preparatory period and years of Poland’s membership in the EU structures resulted in dynamic structural changes in agriculture, which originated in the transformation of the socio-economic system. These trends have continued because the measures taken under Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) concentrate increasingly more on the improvement of agricultural competitiveness (Kołodziejczak and Kossowski 2014). The study aims to present the most important spatial changes in agriculture resulting from transformation processes. These changes are related to: the loss of natural potential of agriculture, land concentration processes, specialisation and an increase in the farm production scale (crops and livestock husbandry), differences in socio-economic space and progress in sustainable farming. The research examined the years 1990–2020 and depended on the availability of data and the lack of possibility of conducting an analysis for particular time frames. It resulted from the instability of the scope of the occurrences investigated or their different descriptions. The dynamics and the effects of changes in Polish agriculture have been specially diversified as a result of the regional complexity of historical and natural determinants as well as socio-economic factors. It can be observed that in the years 2002–2016, the share of agriculture in GDP and global production was decreasing. In 2002, it was 4% and 4.9%, respectively, whereas in 2016, it was 2.4% and 3.2% (Fig. 8.1). The similar trends can be noticed in the share of agriculture in the possession of fixed assets. In 2016, agriculture had 4.6% of all the fixed assets in the economy as compared to 8.2% in 2002. The share of agriculture in the investment outlays of the entire state’s economy in the studied period was relatively stable and accounted for 2%; when compared to the share in fixed assets (4.6%), this means that the recovery of fixed assets in agriculture was more than twice as slow as in the whole economy. With regard to those employed by sections and divisions, it can be inferred that Poland’s agriculture in 2016 engaged 15.5% of the state’s entire labour force (15.9% together with forestry, hunting and fishing), and changes in this area were relatively slow.

2002

2004

2006

2008

2010

2012

2014

2016

Working population

Gross fixed capital formation

Investment outlays

Global production

Gross Domestic Product

Fig. 8.1 Share of agriculture in Poland’s economy in 2002–2016. Source Based on data from Statistics Poland

0,0

2,0

4,0

6,0

8,0

10,0

12,0

14,0

16,0

18,0

8 Changes in Ownership and Production Structure of Agriculture 173

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A. Kołodziejczak

Changes in the agrarian structure were multidirectional; some ownership forms lost their position, whilst others gained in importance. There was an increase in the number of medium-sized agricultural holdings, and the distribution of plots own by farms was deteriorating. The political transformation was accompanied by a decrease in agricultural production, but it grew after Poland’s accession to the EU despite a loss in agricultural land. What followed was a departure from crop production monoculture in favour of diversified farming practices. There appeared considerable changes in the spatial structure of animal production concerning the distribution of animal populations, better adjustment of their numbers to feed resources and market capacity. Regions with a clear specialisation in animal husbandry developed. Polish agriculture in 2004–2020 was well suited for the implementation of multifunctional farming (Wilkin 2010) which is one of the assumptions of the conception of integrated development of agriculture and rural areas (van Huglenbroeck et al. 2007; Kołodziejczak 2010b). According to De Vries (2000), agricultural activity, outside its primary function of producing food, can simultaneously form the landscape, provide environmental benefits (e.g. land protection), preserve biodiversity, enable sustainable management of renewable natural resources and contribute to socio-economic stimulation of rural areas.

8.2 Changes in Agricultural Land Use The economic, social and political transformation after 1989 significantly influenced the land use structure. The process of population concentration progressed. Urban agglomerations developed. The importance of industry in the state’s economy declined, and structural changes in agriculture took place. These processes were accompanied by changes in agricultural land use. The deterioration in macroeconomic conditions of agricultural production caused further loss in agricultural land, mainly that of the lower quality. These areas increased land of all other categories (Ba´nski 2007). Between 1990 and 2020, one can observe a loss of agricultural land as well as its smaller proportion in the country’s area. In 1990, the overall area of agricultural land was 18,230 thous ha, and in relation to 2020, it was smaller by 561 thous ha, whereas farms administered 15,503 thous ha in 2010, and in comparison to 2002, this area was smaller by 1396 thous ha (Table 8.1). Changes in agriculture between 2004 and 2020 can be attributed mainly to the EU Common Agricultural Policy. This policy was implemented by establishing a single agricultural market, ensuring the free movement of goods between member states, preferring to supply the internal market with the community’s agricultural products, financing agricultural policy from the EU budget. It was also manifested by the rotation of use within agriculture. Arable land was transformed into pastures, fallows and land set aside, and low-quality agricultural land was designated for afforestation and woodlots. What also took place was a transformation of pasture into cropland. Oftentimes, the abandonment of farmland coexists with the intensification of cultivation in the same regions. The changes observed are in some places related to

8 Changes in Ownership and Production Structure of Agriculture

175

Table 8.1 Agricultural land use in Poland in 1990, 2002, 2004, 2010, 2012 and 2020a Agricultural landa total

Arable land

Orchards

Meadows

thous ha

%

thous ha

%

thous ha

%

thous ha

%

thous ha

%

1990

18,230

58.3

14,311

78,5

269

1.5

2427

13.3

1533

8.4

2004

18,042

57.7

12,685

77.2

278

1.7

2390

14.6

2390

6.0

2012

18,065

57.2

13,876

76.8

292

1.6

2278

12.6

1621

9.0

2020

17,669

56.5

13,591

76.9

282

1.6

2227

12.6

1569

8.9

Years

Including Pastures

Agricultural census 20022

16,899

59.1

13,066

77.3

271

1.6

2,531

15.0

1,031

6.1

20102

15,503

57.8

10,878

70.6

374

2.4

2,629

17.0

674

4.3

a A serious difficulty in carrying out analysis of the resources and agricultural land use structure is the

major discrepancy between the area given by Statistics Poland (SP) and Head Office of Geodesy and Cartography (HOGC) (Table x). It has been assumed that the data provided by both the institutions are reliable because the former shares data for farms, whilst the latter gives the information about the area pertaining to all users. Therefore, HOGC data were treated as the general resources of particular categories of agricultural land without its current use, whereas SP data concern the area used by farms b Without: built-up agricultural land as well as that with ponds and ditches Source Based on the National Land Register and 2 Common Agricultural Censuses

land scarcity or are often individual choices connected, e.g. to the decision of farmers to retire (Rudnicki 2009). The present structure of agricultural land use results to a great extent from farmers’ response to changes in economic and market conditions. In the case of distribution of land and its agricultural use, occurring changes should be generally positively assessed although some of them were negative, especially when it comes to the rapid loss of arable land. In the analysed period, together with the socio-economic development of the country, the area of agricultural land decreased by 1396.3 thous ha, whereas arable land diminished by 2144.7 thous ha. This is an irreversible process, but arable land should be more rigorously protected against its easy designation for non-agricultural purposes. The picture of spatial differences in the distribution of agricultural land is formed by a combination of two principle elements, i.e. demographic pressure of varying intensity in different parts of the country and the degree of suitability of natural conditions for agriculture. In Poland, the agricultural land use structure is characterised by a large share of arable land. In the general resources of agricultural land, it covers over ¾ of its area. In the years 2002–2020, the greatest changes in the agricultural sector took place after accession to the EU and adoption of the CAP norms. The changes in the agricultural land use structure were significantly influenced by various payments preferring specific farmland and the way it was used (Rudnicki and Wi´sniewski 2018). These preferences changed the proportion of particular categories of land in the agricultural land use structure (Table 8.2). The payments mentioned caused an increase in the share of arable land in the agricultural land use structure until 2012

176

A. Kołodziejczak

Table 8.2 Changes in the agricultural land structure by voivodeship in Poland in 2002, 2012 and 2020 Voivodeship

Dynamics of changes in agricultural land structure 2002 = 100 (p.p.) Arable land

Dolno´sl˛askie

Orchards

Meadows

Pastures

2012

2020

2012

2020

2012

2020

2012

2020

+0.6

– 0.7

– 0.1

– 0.2

– 1.0

– 1.3

– 0.9

– 1.1

Kujawsko-Pomorskie

+1.5

– 1.4

– 0.3

– 0.9

– 0.3

– 0.6

– 0.3

– 0.6

Lubelskie

– 0.4

– 2.6

+0.1

+0.1

– 0.3

– 0.7

– 0.3

– 0.5

Lubuskie

0

– 2.8

– 0.1

– 0.2

0

– 0.7

– 0.2

– 0.5

Łódzkie

– 0.8

– 2.9

0

+0.2

+0.2

0

– 0.1

– 0.1

Małopolskie

+0.1

– 1.3

– 0.5

– 0.9

– 0.1

– 0.3

+0.1

– 0.1

Mazowieckie

– 0.5

– 3.9

+0.1

+0.3

+0.1

– 0.2

+0.1

– 0.2

Opolskie

+2.7

+2.2

– 0.2

– 0.3

– 1.6

– 1.9

– 0.9

– 1.0

Podkarpackie

– 3.1

– 9.1

– 0.2

– 0.6

+0.1

– 1.0

+0.3

– 1.3

Podlaskie

– 1.3

– 4.9

– 0.1

– 0.1

+0.2

– 0.7

+0.2

– 0.7

Pomorskie ´ askie Sl˛ ´ etokrzyskie Swi˛

+1.8

– 1.6

– 0.1

– 0.2

– 0.7

– 1.3

– 0.5

– 0.9

+2.0

– 0.1

– 0.7

– 1.2

+0.1

– 0.4

– 0.7

– 0.7

– 2.1

– 4.8

1.6

1.7

0

– 0.4

– 0.2

– 0.4

Warmi´nsko-Mazurskie +1.2

– 2.8

0

– 0.1

– 0.2

– 1.2

– 0.4

– 1.8

Wielkopolskie

+1.9

+0.1

– 0.2

– 0.3

– 0.6

– 0.9

– 0.5

– 0.6

Zachodniopomorskie

+0.8

– 4.9

– 0.1

– 0.2

0

– 1.1

– 0.4

– 1.1

Poland

+0.2

+3.6

–0.1

–0.1

–0.2

–0.7

–0.2

–0.6

+ growth, − decline Source Own study on the basis of the National Land Register

´ etokrzyskie, in most regions in Poland apart from the Podkarpackie, Lubelskie, Swi˛ Łódzkie, Mazowieckie and Podlaskie voivodeships, where a decrease was recorded from −0.4 to −2.1 percentage points (p.p.). In 2020, in comparison to 2002, an increase in the share of arable land continued in Opolskie Voiovodeship by 2.7 p.p. and in Wielkopolskie by 0.1 p.p. The agricultural policy is characterised, inter alia, by the rotation of agricultural land use. Arable land was transformed into orchards, pastures, fallows and land set aside, and low-quality agricultural land is designated for afforestation and woodlots. The proportion of orchards in the agricultural land structure increased in the regions of the voivodeships ´ etokrzyskie and Mazowieckie. with intense orchard cultivation: Lubelskie, Swi˛ The mentioned growth contributed to a fall in the proportion of meadows and pastures in the agricultural land structure. Farmers could obtain higher payments for the meadows they owned if their use was compliant with the EU requirements, especially if they were situated within the area of ‘Nature 2000’, and this was connected with the protection of endangered bird species and natural habitats (Kołodziejczak 2015). Up to 2012, the mountainous areas of the Carpathians in the Małopolskie

+0.1

−1.8

Poland

+0.3

+1.5

−1.5

+0.7

−0.7

−4.9

−3.3

6.6

−3.2

+6.8

+2.4

−4.5

−0.5

−4.2

−1.0

−1.9

0.0

+ growth, - decline Source own study on the basis of the National Land Register

−0.9

+4.2

−1.6

−2.5

Wielkopolskie

+2.0

−2.5

Warmi´nsko-Mazurskie

Zachodniopomorskie

−6.1

−0.6

−6.0

−2.2

´ etokrzyskie Swi˛

+7.8

+4.1

Pomorskie ´ askie Sl˛

+0.2

+3.0

−2.4

−1.2

Podkarpackie

−0.9

−1.0

Opolskie

Podlaskie

−0.8

−2.3

−0.7

−2.8

+1.8

−3.0

−0,9

−3.2

Lubuskie

Łódzkie

Małopolskie

−0.2

−1.4

Lubelskie

Mazowieckie

−0.2

+0.8

−0.5

−1.7

2012

2020

2012

Dolno´sl˛askie

Arable land

Agricultural land

+5.0

−2.6

−0.8

−2.3

−6.9

−6.3

+5.5

−4.7

−3.3

+1.8

−7.6

−2.6

−6.6

−2.2

−3.6

−0.9

−1.2

2020

Dynamics of changes in area 2002 = 100 (in %)

Kujawsko-Pomorskie

Voivodeship

−5.8

−21.6

−23.9

−15.3

+57.4

−9.1

−28.6

−31.5

−27.6

+64.6

−64.8

−23.1

−14.1 −41.0

−26.6

−42.2

−41.5

+7.4

−25.3

+6.4

−26.9

+2.7

−56.0

−27.7

2020

−14.6

−17.2

−24.0

−0.7

−13.8

−3.8

−16.3

+2.1

−22.2

−20.5

2012

Orchards

Table 8.3 Changes in the area of agricultural land by voivodeship in Poland in 2002, 2012 and 2020 Meadows

−3.5

−2.5

−6.8

−4.2

−2.3

−5.0

−1.3

−0.3

−1.3

−13.2

−2.1

−1.6

−0.7

−0.8

−3.4

−5.8

−8.2

2012

−5.8

−4.7

−8.8

−7.9

−3.5

−8.5

−3.3

−1.3

−8.0

−15.2

−4.0

−3.8

−2.6

−2.4

−5.2

−7.5

−10.5

2020

Pastures

−4.2

−7.7

−11.6

−4.5

−4.8

−13.1

−1.7

+0.2

−0.4

−22.7

−1.6

0

−1.5

−2.8

−6.5

−9.1

−7.9

2012

−7.3

−11.4

−14.5

−8.0

−7.5

−13.8

−4.4

−1.5

−7.8

−24.5

−4.2

−2.5

−4.3

−5.1

−10.9

−11.9

−10.0

2020

8 Changes in Ownership and Production Structure of Agriculture 177

178

A. Kołodziejczak

Fig. 8.2 Changes in the density of agricultural land in Poland in 2002–2012. Source Gł˛ebocki (2014a, b). Agricultural land use, appendix CD, Fig. 4.2

and Podkarpackie voivodeships as well as the Łódzkie, Mazowieckie and Podlaskie voivodeships recorded an increase in the share of meadows. In 2020, in comparison to 2002, all regions, apart from the Łódzkie voivodeship (0 p.p.), noted a decrease in the proportion of meadows in the agricultural land structure. In the investigated period, pastures were also transformed into meadows or cropland. This resulted in a decline in the share of pastures in all voivodeships. The changes observed have been related to land scarcity in some places or they often followed individual choices connected to, e.g. the decision of farmers to retire. The present agricultural land use structure results to a large extent from farmers’ responses to changes in economic and market conditions. The greatest concentration of changes in the forms of agricultural land use occurred in the Warmi´nskoMazurskie, Pomorskie, Zachodniopomorskie and Lubuskie voivodeships. A significant share of changes can be also noticed in the Podkarpackie and Podlaskie voivodeships (Table 8.3). In the years 2002–2020, changes which occurred in the agricultural land use structure were a continuation of the restructuring of Polish agriculture that originated in the 1990s. The intensity of these processes varied both time-wise and regionally. This resulted from the implemented agricultural policy and its final effects. The most dynamic and at the same time the most difficult changes in social terms were

8 Changes in Ownership and Production Structure of Agriculture

179

those related to the closure and restructuring of PGR (State Agricultural Farms) brought about in the 1990s. These processes took place under extremely difficult conditions (Zgli´nski 2003). The lack of patterns and legislation on reprivatisation in agriculture was not conducive to the restructuring and development of the former PGRs. Moreover, the transition to a market economy meant that many individual farms were unable to adapt to the new situation. Land became a traded commodity, which significantly influenced the changes in its agricultural use (Gł˛ebocki 2014a). The changes that occurred in 2002–2010 in agricultural land resources are shown in Fig. 8.2. These are mainly losses, and their increase concerns single territorial units scattered across the country. In the spatial distribution of the areas with agricultural land use changes what is also clearly visible are the areas surrounding urban agglomerations, protected areas and those with low-quality soils designated for afforestation ´ askie voivodeship. and industrial purposes, e.g. in the Sl˛

8.3 Changes in the Area and Ownership Structure and the Spatial Organisation of Farms Until 1989, agriculture in Poland was based on three main types of land ownership: state (Agricultural State Farms), cooperative and represented by individual farms. The latter made up about 76% of the entire area of agricultural land at the end of the 1980s and was the most important element of the ownership structure of farms in Poland. The majority of such farms were small—merely a few ha. The primary role in the agricultural sector was played by State Agricultural Farms (Ba´nski 2011). After 1989, the three main ownership types (individual, cooperative and state) were replaced by two forms—private and public. The public sector includes first of all land taken over by the State Treasury from former state farms and the State Land Fund as well as the land of the State Forest Holding and the property of communes. In the private sector, individual farms, agricultural production cooperatives, commercial companies play an essential role. The period after 1989 saw the closure of the state sector and the strengthening of the role of individual agricultural holdings. It was accompanied by the slow revival of large landownership, mainly in the areas managed by State Agricultural Farms (Gł˛ebocki 1998, 2002, 2005). These processes, originated by political changes, were permanent, but their dynamics varied in terms of particular ownership types (Gł˛ebocki 2014b). The changes that took place between 2002 and 2020 were multidirectional. Some of the analysed ownership forms increased their land resources, whilst others dwindled. Any increase in agricultural land mainly concerned commercial companies, whereas other ownership forms were characterised by the loss of former land resources. In absolute terms, the agricultural land of commercial companies noted the highest increase, by 337.5 thous ha and their share in the ownership structure of agricultural land grew by 2 p.p. (Table 8.4).

180

A. Kołodziejczak

Table 8.4 Ownership structure of agricultural land in Poland in 2002 and 2012 Land ownership structure

Area in ha 2002

Agricultural 2671.60 State Treasury

2012

2020

2002

Share in total area % 2012

2020

Changes in structure (p.p.)

1605.50

1303.90

13.9

8.5

7.4

−6.5

Individual farms

13,561.30

13,753.40

12,896.50

70.7

73.1

73.0

+2.3

Cooperative farms

223.8

154.9

111.0

1.2

0.8

0.6

−0.6

Commercial companies

287.4

514.8

624.9

1.5

2.7

3.5

+2.0

Churches and religious associations

95.3

105.1

102.6

0.5

0.6

0.6

+0.1

Land cooperative

53.0

48.5

39.3

0.3

0.2

0.2

−0.1

Total area of agricultural land

19,182.6

18,804.5

17,669.3

100.0

100.0

100.0

x

+ growth, − decline Source own study on the basis of the National Land Register

The establishment and development of these companies were related to former state agricultural farms; therefore, they emerged mainly in former PGR areas in western voivodeships. It is also worth mentioning that in the analysed period commercial companies started to grow in eastern voivodeships, and in 2020, they owned considerable resources of agricultural land in communes situated in the belt adjacent to the eastern state border. These firms may play a significant role in stimulating the development of these economically neglected regions. With regard to individual ownership of farms, the area of agricultural land increased by 192.1 thous ha up to 2012, and then in the years 2012–2020 decreased by 856.9 thous ha. Between 2002 and 2020, the share of farmland resources of this ownership form in the structure of agricultural land increased by 2.3 p.p. The main reason behind the small rise was the freedom to divide farms into minor parts designated for commercial purposes. A similar trend could be observed in the resources of church property and religious associations, which grew by 9.8 thous ha by 2012, and later decreased by 2.5 thous ha until 2020. Nationwide, church property is of minor significance, mainly due to spatial dispersion. Farmland is usually leased to other users because few congregations and seminaries run agricultural activity. The changes in the agricultural land ownership structure arose for various reasons, the most significant of which relate to the size structure of farms—causing a continued increase in the concentration of land into large business units. The second important

8 Changes in Ownership and Production Structure of Agriculture

181

factor behind changes in the ownership structure is urbanisation processes, particularly intense in rural areas surrounding large urban agglomerations. These processes were supported by legal regulations which allowed full freedom to divide farms into smaller parts. The effects of this legal act can be observed not only in suburban areas. They were first visible in regions with long traditions of so-called family divisions characterised by a strong fragmentation of farms. After the political changes (in 1989), this process took place in the areas situated in the vicinity of larger cities and those with high recreational and landscape values. As a result, the division of farms into smaller parts is common and in some Polish regions has become rampant. Thus, not only a regression in the ownership of farms by natural persons has been noted but also the abandonment of agricultural functions in general (Gł˛ebocki 2014b). The 1990s witnessed an increase in miniature farms (1–2 ha of agricultural land), which constituted a self-supply base for the majority of the rural population and a decrease in small and medium-sized farms (3–15 ha) which could not provide a livelihood for farming families. The number of large agricultural holdings was clearly growing (Wilkin 2014). In 2002–2010, the average farm increased from 8.44 to 9.76 ha.1 When compared to the whole country, this increase is small, but the changes in this indicator are strongly spatially diversified (Fig. 8.3). The reasons for such a small increase in the area of medium-sized farms are complex. Changes in the size structure of farms are strongly linked to the agricultural land resources of the State Treasury. In central and south-eastern Poland, where these resources were limited, no increase in the medium-sized farms was observed, particularly because these were usually regions characterised by intensified processes of farm divisions into smaller parts for various reasons. In these areas, miniature farms (1–2 ha AL) constituted the largest group. Although it was marked by the greatest decline in the analysed period, the proportion of this group in the total number of farms is still high. It fell by a mere 4.5% from 50.6% in 2002 to 46.1% in 2010 (Gł˛ebocki 2014b). In the remaining groups of farms, the dynamics of changes was diversified. Small and medium-sized holdings between 2 and 15 ha were becoming less important, which was demonstrated by a decrease in the number of farms and their agricultural land. Larger resources of the State Treasury enabled the improvement of the size structure of farms in the communes of northern, western and south-western Poland. Positive changes in the size structure of farms are a long and slow process. It can be confirmed by a still high proportion of small farms up to 5 ha, whereas the significance of large agricultural holdings of over 15 ha AL is growing. Undoubtedly, these changes resulted from the transition to a market economy and shifts in ownership relations. Poland’s accession to the EU had also a major impact and bolstered, for instance, the profitability of agricultural production. The requirements of new union markets led to an improvement in the quality and competitiveness of produced goods, which was also supported by technological changes in the food industry. One should not forget the EU financial aid received for various projects connected to the 1

The average size of farms was calculated in relation to the agricultural land area. Data from the Common Agricultural Censuses of 2002 and 2010.

182

A. Kołodziejczak

Fig. 8.3 Changes in medium-sized farms with over 1 ha of agricultural land by commune in Poland in 2002–20,100. Source Gł˛ebocki. 2014b, a. Changes in the agrarian structure of Polish agriculture, appendix CD, Fig. 1.6

development of agriculture and rural areas. Those factors, as well as direct payments related to the area of the agricultural land owned, systematically changed the attitude of Polish farmers towards the farm size and the quality of food produced. Positive changes in the ownership and size structure are accompanied by negative occurrences including the deterioration in the spatial organisation of farms. The privatisation of the agricultural land of the State Treasury, along with the transfer of land to other users as well as other shifts connected mostly with buying/selling transactions, usually accompanies, besides an increase in the area of farms, the deterioration of spatial distribution and land fragmentation. The result is a specific modern checkerboard pattern of fields that has nothing to do with the traditional checkerboard pattern formed by family divisions. The former developed in the areas with the majority of large farms, increasing their size thanks to the State Treasury resources and other land transfers. Therefore, there has been a growing number of farms with

8 Changes in Ownership and Production Structure of Agriculture

183

land situated separately in several or even more parts, often far from the original farm. The second checkerboard pattern occurs in the areas dominated by small and multigenerational traditions of family divisions. It originated in the times of the tree-field system (Gł˛ebocki 2014b). As a result of the ownership changes related to multidirectional buying/selling transactions in 2002–2010, the number of agricultural holdings with ten or more separate parts of land increased by 110.7 thous, and those with their land in 6–9 parts increased by 65.2 thous. The total share of farms with such a defective distribution was 23.7%, whereas in 2002, it was almost half of it—12.3% of the agricultural system (Table 8.5). According to Gł˛ebocki (2014b), attention should be paid to the fact that these were the only groups that grew in number. At the same time, the number of farms with fewer distributed plots fell. Of particular, importance was the loss of farms with land concentrated on one plot. These were usually smaller holdings which lost their agricultural status for different reasons. It was even worse regarding the area of agricultural land, over 60% of which belonged to farms with six or more separated plots in 2010. A checkerboard pattern of particular farmsteads was not limited to one village, but often went beyond its boundaries and in extreme cases even crossed the national border. This applies to farms situated in the Polish parts of Spiš and Orava in the Małopolskie voivodeship which have parts of their land on the territory of Slovakia and Czechia. What is unfavourable for the development of agriculture is also a division of farms into smaller parts for family and commercial reasons. In some areas, these divisions make their size structure worse, enlarge the intensity of a checkerboard pattern of land and seriously diminish the area of farmland. This is most often arable land. This phenomenon is negative because of its dynamic development and spatial distribution. It was triggered by the growing demand of city residents for land properties wishing to improve their living conditions by, e.g. living in rural areas. Next to individual buyers, large investment companies have also contributed to rising demand for agricultural properties intended for housing development and other economic purposes. In many regions, these negative occurrences have been supported by the lack of local spatial development plans as well. The extent of this phenomenon and related effects means that one of the most urgent tasks Polish agriculture is faced with is how to begin large-scale land consolidation. After the political transformation in 1989 and changes in the agrarian structure, no major consolidation was carried out. Apart from the lack of adequate financial means, the main obstacle was a lack of legislation on land privatisation. Consolidation works are often the cause of various social conflicts as well. Family and commercial divisions were not also conducive to consolidations, thwarting the effects of ongoing works in this respect. Some hope for the reduction of the defective distribution of land in many regions of Poland can be related to the last amendment of the act of 1982 made by the Sejm on 29 July 2011. The amendment was aimed at facilitating work connected to the implementation of the measure ‘Land consolidation’ as part of the Rural Development Programme in the years 2007–2013 and 2014–2020 (Woch 2012).

13.0

8.3

4.0

378,672

243,226

117,353

4–5 plots

6–9 plots

10 and more

42.3

684,123

228,021

308,453

365,138

678,922

%

10.1

13.6

16.1

30.0

30.2

100.0

+94.4

3,489,650

3,008,377

3,251,595

−3.6 +26.8

2,903,617 4,546,057

−44.5 −28.1

16,899,297

ha

2002

20.7

17.8

19.2

26.9

15.4

100.0

%

Agricultural land area

−22.3

Changes 2002 = 100

+ growth, − decline Source Gł˛ebocki (2014b). Changes in the agrarian structure of Polish agriculture: 59.

32.4

1,232,675

944,333

1 plot

2,264,657

Number

%

100.0

Number

2,916,260

2010

2002

Farms

2–3 plots

Total

Number of plots

Table 8.5 Farms and the agricultural land area by the number of plots in Poland in 2002 and 2020

6,074,262

3,241,083

2,655,061

2,637,255

8,953,136

15,502,975

ha

2010 %

39.2

20.9

17.1

17.0

5.8

100.0

+74.7

+7.7

−18.3

−42.0

−63.6

−9.3

Changes 2002 = 100

184 A. Kołodziejczak

8 Changes in Ownership and Production Structure of Agriculture

185

8.4 Specialisation Intensity and Diversification of Agricultural Production Agricultural production has been subject to continuous economic and structural changes. According to Krasowicz (2009), as early as since the 1990s, the impact of economic and organisational factors on agricultural production has been greater than that of natural conditions. An important factor affecting farm production was Poland’s accession to the European Union, when agriculture was covered by the Common Agricultural Policy. The level and structure of agricultural production depend on natural determinants, but changes observed in 2002–2017 were primarily caused by financial interventionism. The Common Agricultural Policy is more focussed on sustainable farming, innovations, market research and the support system for all developing farms (Kołodziejczak and Kawi´nska 2014). Agricultural production embraces crop cultivation and breeding animals. A significant proportion of crops does not go directly to the market but is processed on farms into animal products. At the same time, there have long been unfavourable relations between animal and crop products for different reasons. Agricultural production, especially crop cultivation, depends to a great degree on natural conditions; hence, its supply is variable over time, which, with the dominance of cereals in the sowing structure, causes various (usually undesirable) repercussions in animal production (Gł˛ebocki 2014b). One way to improve the effects of agricultural production is specialisation. It is quite a broad notion, embracing the research issues concerning the structure of agricultural production and its directions, particularly directions in commercial farming, which are described in the literature as directions of agricultural specialisation (Kulikowski 2003). In agriculture, the concept of specialisation allows answering the question what should be produced and sold in a given farm to generate the highest possible profit. Regional specialisation is often identified by the comparison between the economic structure in a region and that in the country. To determine the changes in the level of crop and animal specialisation by voivodeship in 2004–2019, a location quotient was used. Crop production, which is more related to climatic conditions than animal husbandry, was more varied (it changed over time). In the analysed period, in the commercial structure of farming, the share of crop production in 2007 diminished in relation to 2004 by 6.1 p.p. due to a decrease in the proportion of commercial production of cereals, industrial crops and fruits. In the years 2008–2019, this share had an upwards tendency and grew in 2019 by 3.2 p.p. in relation to 2007. In the investigated period, there was no specialisation in crop production in the Podlaskie, Warmi´nsko-Mazurskie and Wielkopolskie voivodeships (Fig. 8.4). The western voivodeships had a high level of specialisation in crop production. It resulted from the land structure of these voivodeships, where large farms prevailed. The Dolno´sl˛askie, Lubuskie and Zachodniopomorskie voivodeships specialised in ´ etokrzyskie rye wheat production, whereas in Małopolskie, Podkarpackie and Swi˛ cultivation prevailed. Rape yields well on lighter soils as long as they are rich in

186

A. Kołodziejczak

Fig. 8.4 Regional specialisation level of crop production in Poland in 2004, 2007, 2013 and 2019. Source Own study

nutrients. Therefore, regional specialisation in rape production was identified in the Lubuskie, Zachodniopomorskie, Dolno´sl˛askie, Opolskie, Pomorskie voivodeships and in 2019—in Kujawsko-Pomorskie (Kasprzak and Kołodziejczak 2014). Whilst crop production as part of the regional specialisation in agricultural production was identified in numerous voivodeships, in the case of animal husbandry, the situation was different. The level of the share of commercial animal production in the total commercial production was influenced primarily by a clear increase in the proportion of milk commercial production (by 3.6 p.p.). This involved northeastern Poland, i.e. the Podlaskie and Warmi´nsko-Mazurskie voivodeships, which specialised in beef production as well (Fig. 8.5). The Wielkopolskie voivodeship also had a high level of specialisation not only in beef but mainly in pork production (livestock numbers were over twice as large as the country’s average). Each region has its own specific features and pursues its own strategy of agricultural development expressed in the relations between the intensity of organisation and the intensity of farming. The intensity of agricultural production organisation

8 Changes in Ownership and Production Structure of Agriculture

187

Fig. 8.5 Regional differences in specialisation of animal production in Poland in 2004, 2007, 2013 and 2019. Source Own study

defines the relation between labour and capital inputs per unit area; it is an index of the development of agricultural space. Poland’s accession to the EU and inclusion in the financial support for agriculture through direct payments and a variety of programmes for the years 2004–2006 and 2007–2013 has brought about changes in the level of intensity of agricultural production organisation in some voivodeships, in both crop and animal production. The intensity of agricultural production organisation, by voivodeship and by poviat, was established on the basis of Common Agricultural Census data from the years 2002 and 2010. 2002 was not only the reference year for the study of changes in intensity but also of the adjustment of Polish agriculture to a market economy. To analyse the intensity of agricultural production organisation, use was made of the point method designed by Kope´c (1987), which relies on labour-intensity determinants for individual groups of crops and animals. The intensity of agricultural production organisation is the sum of the intensities of crop and animal production organisation. A characteristic feature of the production of crops in Poland is regional differences in their structure, intensity of organisation, yield volume and proportion of cash crops produced. Whilst the crop structure

188

A. Kołodziejczak

is controlled primarily by natural conditions, the changes observed in 2002–2010 were mostly induced by factors related to the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy. After 2004, there were significant changes in the basic proportions of crops grown on arable land. Between 2002 and 2010, the total crop area dwindled from 10.8 to 10.4 million ha, or by 3.1%, which was largely due to a substantial drop in the number of farms engaged in crop production. Farmers preferred those lines of crop production that required minor financial input and were included in the EU payment schemes. The effect on the crop structure and farming systems adopted was especially readily visible in the least favoured areas (Góral 2016). The expansion of the rape-growing area was primarily due to the size structure of farms (it is hard to organise the production of rape on small farms correctly) and to a drop in the area of fallow land, which was sown with rape intended for energy-related purposes (Kołodziejczak and Rudnicki 2017). This situation had no significant influence on the organisation of crop production: its level was weakly intensive in 2002 and remained so in 2010. What had a stabilising effect on the coefficient of the intensity of crop production organisation was the high proportion of cereals in the crop structure, oscillating around 70% over the entire study period (Kopi´nski 2009). In 2002, the values of the coefficient defining the level of crop production varied between 87.4 points in Warmi´nsko-Mazurskie to 137.5 points in the KujawskoPomorskie voivodeship (Table 8.6). Lubuskie, Podkarpackie, Podlaskie, Warmi´nsko-Mazurskie and Zachodniopomorskie were voivodeships where the level was extensive, and cereals were grown on a large scale, whilst in Kujawsko-Pomorskie, Opolskie, Wielkopolskie, Lubel´ etokrzyskie, the level of organisation of crop production was moderate. By skie, Swi˛ 2010, the situation had improved: in half the voivodeships, the coefficient of intensity had increased, with the voivodeships of Lubuskie and Zachodniopomorskie moving from an extensive to a weakly intensive level. This growth in intensification in those voivodeships was recorded primarily on large farms and was caused by a variety of factors. An important role amongst them was played by mineral and organic fertilisation as well as mechanisation because farm owners used the financial support obtained to buy tractors and farming machines and often devoted direct payments to the purchase of fertilisers or pest control products. A drop in the level of intensity from ´ etokrzyskie moderate to weak was recorded in the voivodeships of Lubelskie, Swi˛ and Wielkpolskie, whilst in Silesia, it declined from weakly intensive to extensive. In the opinion of Gł˛ebocki (2007), changes in field-crop production do not always go in the desired direction, with individual farms often looking after their own shortterm interests. An example is the predominance of cereals (because of the ease and low costs of cultivation) over the remaining crops, of practically secondary significance. A decline in the numbers of cattle and sheep caused a loss of interest in the production of meadows and pastures as the cheapest source of forage; a smaller role is also played by fodder plants. Since 2002, and especially after Poland’s accession to the EU and the introduction of limits on milk production, livestock numbers have stabilised, but one can note a polarisation and concentration of animal production over the study period. The

8 Changes in Ownership and Production Structure of Agriculture

189

Table 8.6 Intensity of crop production organisation in Poland in 2002 and 2010 Voivodeship

Years 2002

Changes in coefficient

2010

Coefficient

Level

Coefficient

Level

Dolno´sl˛askie

115.53

Weakly intensive

122.97

Weakly intensive

+

Kujawsko-pomorskie

137.46

Moderately intensive

133.24

Moderately intensive

−

Lubelskie

125.25

Moderately intensive

115.85

Weakly intensive

−

Lubuskie

87.48

Extensive

100.53

Weakly intensive

+

Łódzkie

116.85

Weakly intensive

117.58

Weakly intensive

+

Małopolskie

117.95

Weakly intensive

118.6

Weakly intensive

+

Mazowieckie

115.99

Weakly intensive

112.51

Weakly intensive

−

Opolskie

131.18

Moderately intensive

138.47

Moderately intensive

+

Podkarpackie

99.81

Extensive

91.26

Extensive

−

Podlaskie

99.64

Extensive

87.19

Extensive

−

Pomorskie

105.3

Weakly intensive

107.81

Weakly intensive

+

´ askie Sl˛

100.24

Weakly intensive

98.35

Extensive

−

´ etokrzyskie Swi˛

126.52

Moderately intensive

121.37

Weakly intensive

−

Warmi´nsko-mazurskie Wielkopolskie Zachodniopomorskie Poland

87.41

88.22

Extensive

+

Moderately intensive

123.08

Weakly intensive

−

95.41

Extensive

110.98

Weakly intensive

+

113.71

Weakly intensive

112.35

Weakly intensive

−

130.88

Extensive

+ growth; - decline Source own calculations on the basis of Statistics Poland data

animal stocking rate is an important measure of the intensity of animal production organisation. In 2002, the level of organisation of animal production in Poland was weakly intensive and had not changed significantly by 2010 although the national value of the coefficient fell by 4.8 points (Table 8.7). In 2010, six voivodeships—Lubuskie, Łódzkie, Mazowieckie, Podlaskie, Warmi´nsko-Mazurskie and Zachodniopomorskie—registered coefficient values

190

A. Kołodziejczak

Table 8.7 Intensity of animal production organisation in Poland in 2002 and 2010 Voivodeship

Years 2002 Coefficient

Dolno´sl˛askie Kujawsko-pomorskie

59.43 146.66

Changes in coefficient

2010 Level Extensive Moderately intensive

Coefficient

Level

35.72

Extensive

−

121.15

Weakly intensive extensive

−

Lubelskie

85.1

Extensive

74.89

Extensive

−

Lubuskie

53.54

Extensive

45.66

Moderately intensive

−

Łódzkie

124.18

Weakly intensive

127.49

Extensive

+

Małopolskie

115.03

Weakly intensive moderately intensive

85.3

Moderately intensive

−

Mazowieckie

128.86

Extensive

132.63

Extensive

+

Opolskie

97.08

Extensive

76.89

Extensive

−

Podkarpackie

82.18

Highly intensive

55.8

Very intensive

−

Podlaskie

152.49

Extensive

178.35

Extensive

+

Pomorskie

92.62

Weakly intensive extensive

75.85

Extensive

−

100.38

Extensive

88.74

Extensive

−

93.51

Highly intensive

84.33

Extensive

−

86.1

Extensive

93.68

Moderately intensive

+

Extensive

−

´ askie Sl˛ ´ etokrzyskie Swi˛ Warmi´nsko-Mazurskie Wielkopolskie Zachodniopomorskie Poland

172.67

147.06

41.98

53.21

105.88

Weakly intensive

101.08

+ Weakly intensive

-

+ growth; − decline Source own calculations on the basis of Statistics Poland data

higher than in 2002. Only in three voivodeships did the level fall, from weakly ´ askie and from very to moderately intenintensive to extensive in Lubelskie and Sl˛ sive in Wielkopolskie. Wielkopolskie and Kujawsko-Pomorskie stood out for their highest intensity of agricultural production organisation and relatively high intensity of farming, whilst Lubuskie, Zachodniopomorskie, Pomorskie and Warmi´nskoMazurskie displayed relatively high intensity of farming but an extensive model

8 Changes in Ownership and Production Structure of Agriculture

191

of its organisation. This favours the development of conventional (industrialised) agriculture. In 2002, the values of the coefficient defining the animal production level ranged from 41.98 points (Zachodniopomorskie) to 172.67 points (Wielkopolskie). Clearly dominant was the extensive level of organisation of animal production because in some regions there was a rise in the number of farms with no livestock, engaged exclusively in crop production. A weakly intensive level of animal production was found in Małopolskie and Łódzkie; Mazowieckie and Kujawsko-Pomorskie showed moderate intensity, whilst the level was high in Wielkopolskie and Podlaskie, both specialising in dairy cattle and Wielkopolskie additionally in pig husbandry. What accelerated the adjustment of sanitary and veterinary conditions in agricultural holdings to EU standards was the process of concentrating the husbandry of slaughter animals and dairy cattle, which caused small farms to give up keeping a few cows. In 2010, the level of organisation of animal production was still extensive in Dolno´sl˛askie, Lubelskie, Lubuskie, Opolskie, Podkarpackie, Pomorskie and ´ etokrzyskie although their values of the coefficient fell. In three voivodeships, the Swi˛ level had changed: in Kujawsko-Pomorskie from moderate to weakly intensive and ´ askie from weakly intensive to extensive. Only in five voivodein Małopolskie and Sl˛ ships was there an increase in the value of the coefficient, and only, two voivodeships changed their level of organisation of animal production: Łódzkie, from weakly to moderately intensive, and Podlaskie, from very to highly intensive. In spite of the increase in the concentration of animal husbandry, its level of production organisation is not a threat to the natural environment. Controls checking compliance with environmental protection rules, primarily on pig farms and measures taken by local government authorities restrain an excessive concentration of pig production. In the whole of Poland, the level of agricultural production organisation did not undergo any significant change between 2002 and 2010; despite an increase in the value of the intensity coefficient, it remained to be weakly intensive (Table 8.8). It was found that there were smaller differences amongst voivodeships in the intensity of crop production organisation than in that of animal production organisation. In 2002, there was a clear predominance of a weakly intensive level. Regions at an extensive level formed a compact belt extending from Dolno´sl˛askie through Lubuskie, Zachodniopomorskie and Pomorskie to Warmi´nsko-Mazurskie, with Podkarpackie in the south-east falling out of this pattern. Kujawsko-Pomorskie and Podlaskie displayed a moderately intensive level and Wielkopolskie, a very intensive one. ´ etokrzyskie and Małopolskie voivodeships, what is immeIn the Lubelskie, Swi˛ diately visible is the effect of their agrarian structure on the low intensity of agricultural organisation, which enables them to apply ecological methods of production. Podlaskie and Mazowieckie followed a model of an intensive organisation of production, especially animal, whilst engaged in extensive farming (Kołodziejczak 2010a, b). The existing regional differences in agricultural production in terms of the intensity of its organisation reflect the phenomena and changes that took place in Poland over the years 2002–2010. They mostly resulted from organisational-economic determinants and natural conditions and further enhanced the polarisation of crop and

192

A. Kołodziejczak

Table 8.8 Intensity of agricultural production organisation in Poland in 2002 and 2010 Voivodeship

Years 2002

Changes in coefficient

2010

Coefficient

Level

Coefficient

Level

Dolno´sl˛askie

174.96

Extensive

158.08

Extensive

−

Kujawsko-pomorskie

284.11

Moderately intensive

254.39

Moderately intensive

−

Lubelskie

210.35

Weakly intensive

190.74

Extensive

−

Lubuskie

141.02

Extensive

146.19

Extensive

+

Łódzkie

241.03

Weakly intensive

245.08

Weakly intensive

+

Małopolskie

231.88

Weakly intensive

203.9

Weakly intensive

−

Mazowieckie

244.84

Weakly intensive

245.14

Weakly intensive

+

Opolskie

228.26

Weakly intensive

215.37

Weakly intensive

−

Podkarpackie

181.99

Extensive

147.06

Extensive

−

Podlaskie

252.12

Moderately intensive

265.53

Moderately intensive

+

Pomorskie ´ askie Sl˛

197.92

Extensive

183.66

Extensive

−

200.61

Weakly intensive

187.08

Extensive

−

´ etokrzyskie Swi˛

220.03

Weakly intensive

205.7

Weakly intensive

−

Warmi´nsko-Mazurskie

173.51

Extensive

181.9

Extensive

+

Wielkopolskie

303.55

Highly intensive

270.14

Moderately intensive extensive

−

Zachodniopomorskie

137.39

Extensive

164.2

Poland

219.59

Weakly intensive

213.43

+ Weakly intensive

−

+ growth; − decline Source Own calculations on the basis of Statistics Poland data

animal production in the country. Their range was considerable, especially in animal production. A highly intensive and a very intensive level in both 2002 and 2010 was found in regions showing relatively higher animal stocking rates (the Wielkopolskie, Kujawsko-Pomorskie, Łódzkie, Mazowieckie, Podlaskie voivodeships), whilst a decline in livestock numbers was recorded in the poviats of south-eastern Poland with their large proportion of small-sized and subsistence farms. Those major changes

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in livestock numbers were also reflected in the level of organisation of crop production. Owing to changes in the feeding system of pigs, there was a serious fall in the importance of potatoes as fodder and an increase in the demand for cereals and maize, whilst the proportion of fodder plants grown on arable land was noted in regions with large concentrations of dairy cattle husbandry. What significantly influenced the level of organisation of crop production was the structure of industrial crops. A consequence of those changes was a great simplification of the crop structure and, hence, also of the intensity of crop production organisation. After Poland’s accession to the EU, there was an increase in the area of land sown to rape and common agrimony. The liquidation of sugar factories caused the share of sugar beets to dwindle in the crop structure and their cultivation to concentrate on larger commercial farms in the poviats of the Kujawsko-Pomorskie, Wielkopolskie and Opolskie voivodeships. The existing regional differences in agricultural production in terms of specialisation and the intensity of agricultural organisation show a clear connection with the diversification of farming methods (conventional, sustainable, ecological agriculture). In 2004–2009, what followed was an increase in the diversification which concerned the agricultural land of almost all voivodeships. The group of regions with a high rate of diversification in terms of the area of agricultural land comprised the ´ askie, Małopolskie, Podkarpackie and Wielkopolskie voivodeships. This suggests Sl˛ that the agrarian structure of agriculture does not play a decisive role there. In the ´ askie voivodeship, the dense settlement network (metropolitan area) case of the Sl˛ and the concentration of farms in mountainous areas were diversification factors. In Wielkopolskie, it was caused by an increase in the farmland for ecological agriculture. The group of regions with a slow rate of farming diversification included the ´ etokrzyskie voivodeships. In the Lubuskie and Opolskie Lubuskie, Opolskie and Swi˛ voivodeships, the phenomenon of applying one method to the whole agricultural ´ etokrzyskie voivodeship, the area, i.e. sustainable farming, is progressing. In the Swi˛ concentration of ecological agriculture rose, and the factors behind this method of farming were the vast tracts of protected land and tremendous number of small farms. The research confirmed that by the diversification of farming under the influence of economic factors resulting from the EU Common Agricultural Policy, Polish agriculture is increasingly better adapted to environmental conditions (Kołodziejczak 2010a, b, 2018; Kołodziejczak and Kossowski 2011).

8.5 Conclusions Polish agriculture, like the entire economy during the transformation, recorded major changes in functioning, mainly an increase in the scope and importance of market mechanisms. These changes became even more pronounced after Poland’s accession to the EU. There is also a tendency, typical of a developed market economy, to decrease the share of agriculture in generating GDP.

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Over the first two decades of the twenty-first century, the Common Agricultural Policy set the direction of changes in Polish agriculture regarding the natural environment, promoting measures for sustainable development, i.e. the implementation of cross-compliance rules or abiding by the code of good agricultural practice. This has brought agriculture and rural areas together into a system of sustainable development based on the conception of integrated development of agriculture and rural areas, where multifunctionality plays an important role. Despite the inclusion of Polish agriculture in the instruments of the Common Agricultural Policy, which undoubtedly gave a significant impulse to accelerate changes in the structure of farms, this structure is still fragmented. A large proportion of land is used by small farms, which are less competitive than large-scale agricultural holdings because of a lack of production specialisation. In Polish agriculture, as a result of absorption of EU means, the process of structural changes has been spatially diversified, aimed, on the one hand, at moving away from intensive forms of production and supporting measures for multifunctional rural development (land afforestation, diversity of farming activity) and on the other hand, at measures stimulating agricultural development, concerning an improvement in the agrarian-demographical structure (structural pensions) and the technical equipment of farms (investments in agricultural holdings, etc.). This process contributed to reducing spatial disparities in Polish agriculture to a minor degree. The observed changes in Polish agriculture so far should be assessed positively, but they are not sufficient. They are still needed in the agrarian structure, in the efficiency of farming and in the better application of financial support under the Common Agricultural Policy.

References Ba´nski J (2007) Geografia rolnictwa Polski (Agricultural geography of Poland), PWE. Warszawa Ba´nski J (2011) Changes in agricultural land ownership in Poland in the period of the market economy. Agric Econ 57(2):93–101 Gł˛ebocki B (1998) Przemiany struktury agrarnej polskiego rolnictwa w latach 1990–1996 (Changes in the agrarian structure of Polish agriculture in 1990–1996). In: Gł˛ebocki B (ed) Przestrzenna transformacja struktury agrarnej a wielofunkcyjny rozwój wsi w Polsce (Spatial transformation of the agrarian structure versus multifunctional development of rural areas in Poland). Bogucki Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Pozna´n, pp 9–73 Gł˛ebocki B (2002) Struktura własno´sciowa u˙zytków rolnych w Polsce po 11 latach transformacji gospodarki (Ownership structure of agricultural land in Poland after 11 years of the economic transformation). Przegl˛ad Geograficzny 74(3):425–450 Gł˛ebocki B (2005) Struktura agrarna—zmiany po 12 latach restrukturyzacji polskiego rolnictwa (1990–2002) (Agrarian structure—changes after 12 years of the restructuring of Polish agriculture). In: Gł˛ebocki B (ed) Struktura przestrzenna rolnictwa Polski u progu XXI wieku (Spatial structure of Polish agriculture at the start of the 21st century). Bogucki Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Pozna´n, pp 45–99 Gł˛ebocki B (2007) Rolnictwo (Agriculture). In: Rogacki H (ed) Geografia społeczno-gospodarcza Polski (Socio-economic geography of Poland). Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN. Warszawa, pp 185–271

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Chapter 9

Tertiarisation of the Economy: Restructuring of the Service Sector Joanna Dominiak and Justyna Weltrowska

Abstract The chapter aims to present the changes taking place in the service sector in Poland in 1989–2019. The current development level of the service sector in Poland is primarily a consequence of the political and economic conditions that have existed in Poland in recent decades. In the period of real socialism, Poland’s socioeconomic policy was focused on the development of industry. The share of people employed in services was much lower than in developed European countries. It was only in 1989 that the political, social and economic changes initiated in Poland built the foundations for the faster development of this sector. The dynamic development of services that has taken place in Poland since the beginning of the 1990s has been accompanied by changes related to its structure. This study shows the quantitative and qualitative changes taking place in the area of services. The analysis of the generic structure focuses primarily on the development of modern knowledge-based services, in particular business, financial and electronic services. The analysis of structural changes is carried out on the basis of the Polish Classification of Economic Activities (PKD), on the basis of the data published by Statistics Poland (GUS) and Eurostat. Keywords Service sector · Modern services · Poland

9.1 Introduction Services in Poland are relatively poorly developed in relation to other European economies, in particular the highly developed countries of Western and Northern Europe. The current development level of the service sector in Poland is primarily a consequence of the political and economic conditions that have existed in Poland in recent decades. In the period of real socialism and a centrally controlled economy, Poland’s socio-economic policy was primarily focused on industrial development. It J. Dominiak (B) · J. Weltrowska Faculty of Human Geography and Planning, Adam Mickiewicz University, B. Krygowskiego 10, 61-680 Pozna´n, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Churski and T. Kaczmarek (eds.), Three Decades of Polish Socio-economic Transformations, Economic Geography, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06108-0_9

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was only in 1989 that the political, social and economic changes initiated in Poland built the foundations for the faster development of the service sector. Since the beginning of the 1990s, this sector has been developing rapidly, accompanied by changes related to its structure and organisation. In terms of structural changes, according to the concept of the self-service society by Gershuny, the importance of consumer services is decreasing in favour of services for producers and business. This process took place in all European economies, but in Poland, as well as in other countries of Central and Eastern Europe, it was delayed. The growing significance of services for producers and business, especially specialised ones with highly-qualified staff, including services with high knowledge saturation, is the most important direction of transformation in the service sector not only in Poland, but also in other economies. It becomes even more important in the context of a knowledge-based economy. An important aspect of organisational changes in the functioning of companies is the development of new forms of providing and distributing traditional services and contact with customers using computer techniques and the Internet, i.e. electronic services (e-services). The development of this form of service provision took place in almost every service activity that does not require direct contact between the service provider and the recipient (Dominiak 2011). This chapter aims to present the changes occurring in the service sector in Poland in 1989–2019. The main goal is achieved by: (1) the identification of general trends in the transformation of the economic structure in Poland; (2) the analysis of changes in the internal structure of the service sector; (3) the characteristics of the main tendencies and directions of service development. The conducted analysis of the generic structure is used to identify the main directions of changes in the service sector in Poland, which include, first of all, the development of modern knowledge-based services, in particular business, financial and electronic services. The analysis of structural changes is carried out on the basis of the Polish Classification of Business Activities (PKD), on the basis of the data published by Statistics Poland (GUS) and Eurostat.

9.2 Service Development: A Theoretical Approach One of the first and most important concepts of the economy explaining the causes and changes in the economic structure of states is the concept of three sectors of the economy, formulated by Fisher (1939) and later developed by Clark (1940) and Fourastié (1969). According to this theory, along with the progressing economic development, the role of agriculture tends to decrease, the importance of industry grows, then stabilises and declines, followed by a systematic increase in the importance of the service sector. The reasons for this state of affairs were perceived in the changes in the structure of consumption and demand (Fisher) or labour productivity (Clark) and the impact of technical progress (Fourastié) (Kłosowski 2006). Many

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works have been devoted to this theory both in foreign (eg. Wolfe 1955; Menz 1965) and Polish publications (Kwiatkowski 1980; Niewadzi 1982; Szukalski 2001). Later, it became increasingly apparent that the simple division of the economy into three sectors: agricultural, industrial and services is not so obvious and does not fully explain the essence of the economic processes taking place today (W˛egrzyn 2011). The sectoral approach presented by the creators and promoters of the concept of the three sectors of the economy, and in particular its criticism, also became the starting point for considerations on the concept of the service economy by Giarini (1987). In this concept, the sectoral approach is replaced by a functional one in which we deal with the entirety of service activities, regardless of their affiliation to individual sectors of the economy. According to Giarini (2001), service functions (no longer the service sector) have become the key economic tool in any production system. They dominate all forms of production, both in industry and in agriculture, leading to a situation where there is no product whose production and life cycle would not depend on services. This applies starting from the conceptual stage, when research and development and financial services are of key importance, through the production stage (where quality control as well as financing is important), distribution (logistics, sales, marketing), use (leasing), to disposal (recycling). In the Giarini service economy, the fact that the service sector represents 2/3 of the national economy is not the most important. The key is that services are becoming increasingly present in all sectors of the economy. It is a modern way of creating wealth implemented by the entire economic system, not by individual sectors separately. The importance of services in development should therefore be considered much more broadly than the share of the service sector in employment or GVA creation—and through the prism of links between other sectors. According to many researchers (Kłosowski 2006; Nowosielska 1994), the functional approach is a significant progress compared to the sectoral approach, but because of limited statistics, its use in empirical research is extremely difficult. With regard to the concept of three sectors of the economy, what was also discussed in the literature was the role of technological progress in social and economic changes. One of the most important is Bell’s notion of a post-industrial society (1973). The author distinguished three phases of social development: a pre-industrial society dominated by agriculture, an industrial society dominated by industry, and a postindustrial society dominated by services. In a post-industrial society (on whose basis the idea of an information society was later developed), knowledge and information become strategic resources, replacing the previously dominant ones—work and capital. According to Bell, changes in the employment structure in economic sectors are also accompanied by shifts in the structure of services. In the first phase of the pre-industrial society, personal services prevailed. In the development phase of the industrial society, services for producers and businesses evolved, whilst in the last post-industrial phase, the main role is played by ‘specialised, technical and intelligent services, combining with scientific research, education, health protection or broadly understood management’ (Kłosowski 2006 after Bell 1973).

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In opposition to the concept of the post-industrial society, another idea was created that also concerned the impact of technological progress—the notion of a neo-industrial society, according to which societies do not evolve towards a postindustrial society, but towards a self-service society. Following this idea, Gershuny (1977) formulated a model of a self-service society. According to Gershuny, as a result of technological progress and the introduction of product and process innovations, there has been an increase in production and the distribution of durable goods (such as washing machines, home cinemas, cars). Thanks to the mass appearance of these goods and rising prices for certain types of services, households themselves began to provide services they had previously purchased. This process has led to a decline in the importance of services for the public (such as laundry, cinema, public transport, etc.). According to this concept, we are faced with a decline in the importance of services for the population, caused by technical innovations that stimulate the process of servicing households. Gershuny holds that the decline in the importance of services for the population is accompanied by the growing importance of services for producers and business. Enterprises, unlike households, more and more often decide (for financial reasons) to use external services (outsourcing and externalisation of services). This resulted in a shift in the service sector and a relative increase in the importance of services for manufacturers and business (Kłosowski 2006). Additionally, along with the growing tendency to substitute some market services with durable goods, there is an increasing demand for services related to financing purchases, insurance, counselling, repair and maintenance (Szukalski 2001). Gershuny is considered, along with Miles, as one of the precursors of the New Service Economy, a trend emphasising the importance of innovation (especially in the field of ICT) in the development of services and the entire economy. The essence of this concept is to indicate the evolution of the treatment of services, often referred to as the laggards of the economy, from activities that are an addition to agriculture and industry to an important economic sector, bringing together people with high qualifications and decisive for technological progress. The issue of service innovativeness has become an important trend in the source literature. The following works should be mentioned here: Gallouj and Weinstein (1997); Hauknes (1998); Coombs and Miles (2000); Gallouj (2002); Drejer (2003); Tether (2003); Howells and Tether (2004); Miles (2005) and others. Until recently, the growing importance of the third sector, both in job creation and in terms of economic measures, was undoubtedly the most important element of the structural transformation of the economy of most countries worldwide. According to estimated data, in developed economies at the turn of the twentieth century, 47% of the employed worked in the agricultural sector, 28% in the industrial sector, and 25% in the service sector. Until the 1970s, structural changes were mainly characterised by a rapid decline in the importance of sector I, and new jobs were generated mainly in sectors II and III (Feinstein 1999, after Peneder et al. 2003). The following decades were a time of increasing tertiarisation. The transfer of labour resources from the first to the second, and then the third sector is closely related to the process of socioeconomic development. It is generally accepted that the higher the share of services

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in generating GDP and employment, the higher the level of the country’s socioeconomic development (Gawlikowska-Hueckel 2014; Ulbrych 2016). However, it should be remembered that the service sector is largely heterogeneous, and therefore tertiarisation as a process of increasing the importance of the entire sector requires further exploration and an answer to the question of which service activities are the direct cause of the growing importance of sector III. An in-depth analysis of structural changes in the service sector indicates that knowledge-based and information services play a special role in this development (Peneder et al. 2003). They are widely regarded as the quaternary sector (De Bandt 1999). The process of their dynamic development in the structure of the service sector and its increasing importance in all economic activities is referred to as quarternarisation (Peneder et al. 2003). In fact, until the early twenty-first century, there was no indication that the perception of the role of services as the most important driving force of modern economies could be shaken. However, the economic crisis at the turn of the first and second decades of the twenty-first century revived the issue of reindustrialisation. As far back as ten or fifteen years, the need for reindustrialisation was not indicated, as it was recognised that the service sector played a fundamental role in the transition from the post-industrial to the information phase. It turned out that countries that gradually gave up industrial activities in favour of services do not always cope with the conditions of the modern economy, especially during a global crisis. However, the assessment of the role of industry has fundamentally changed (Dominiak and Rachwał 2016). The question was whether further economic growth would be possible without a permanent industrial base (Backer et al. 2015). The growing interest in the development of industry does not, however, mean a decrease in the importance of services. Modern reindustrialisation, based on modern, innovative branches of industry, with high ‘knowledge consumption’ is not possible without service activities.

9.3 Development of the Service Sector in Poland as Compared with the EU Countries The interest in the development of the service sector is related to its importance for the development of the modern economy. This is expressed in measures (employment, GVA, GDP, the number of registered entities, investment outlays) showing its growing share and role in the economy. The theory of three sectors of the economy holds that there is a commonly noticeable tendency to shift from production to services as the country’s socio-economic level increases. This is visible mainly in highly developed countries, whose economies have been based on services for years. These countries are in the final, most advanced stage in the development of the service sector, which includes the development of knowledge-based services that are becoming the driving force of the economy. In countries featuring less socioeconomic development, the service sector is in one of the lower development phases:

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(1) the primary phase, dominated by services that do not require high-level qualifications, (2) the growth phase, characterised by the development of services requiring specific qualifications, or (3) the industrial service phase and an increase in the consumption of services, where the simultaneous development of service activities related to the service to industry and consumer services is observed (Flejterski et al. 2005: 36). The aim of the chapter is to analyse the level of development of the service sector in relation to other sectors of the economy and to show its changes in Poland as compared with other EU countries. Until 1989, the economy of Poland, like other countries of Eastern Europe, developed around the idea of large industrial investments. At the beginning of the systemic transformation, Poland was characterised by a significant share of people (36%) working in industry and 29% in agriculture (see Fig. 9.1). On the other hand, the share of people employed in services was clearly lower than in developed European countries in the 1960s; it was at the level of 23%. In 1989 the foundations for the dynamic development of this sector were laid. The first period was characterised by a rapid increase in employment in service activities. In the years 1989–2019, the share of the employed increased from 36 to 59% (by 65%). Compared to the 1960s, this is an increase of 155%. In the analysed period (1989–2019), the dynamic growth in employment in services was accompanied by a marked decline in employment, mainly in agriculture, from 29% in 1989 to 9% in 2019 (despite a significant decline, the share of agriculture is clearly higher than the EU average). The industry and

Fig. 9.1 Employed persons by sectors of the economy in Poland in 1989, 1995, 1999, 2009 and 2019 (in%). Source Own study based on Statistics Poland (GUS) data

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Fig. 9.2 Total gross value added and individual sectors in Poland in 1991–2018 (in PLN million). Source Own study based on GUS data

construction sector is the closest to the EU structure, and is characterised by relatively small fluctuations in the share in the number of employees. The service sector creates the largest number of jobs, both in the entire EU and in Poland. It is also the sector with the strongest dynamics of change in the number of employees. Modifications in the sectoral structure of employment show a tendency to shift from an industrial economy to a service-based economy. Therefore, there is a clear evolution towards a service society. This tendency is also confirmed by the growing share of the service sector in generating gross value added (see Fig. 9.2). The Polish economy, similarly to the economies of other developed countries, is characterised by a high share of services in generating GVA, at the level of 65% (2018). A gradual decline in the share of agriculture and industry is visible, in favour of an increased contribution of services. However, despite the growing value of the service sector in the economy, in relation to other EU countries (especially the old Union), large disproportions can be observed, resulting mainly from the low level of the third sector before marketisation. Taking into account the value of the service sector per capita in EU countries, Poland is unfortunately, along with Bulgaria, Slovakia and Romania, in the group of countries with the lowest figures. This shows the distance that still separates Poland from many EU countries (cf. Fig. 9.3). In terms of the share of employees in broadly understood services (from trade and telecommunications, through finance, to education, health care, administration, as well as culture and recreation) in relation to all employees, Poland is only ahead of Romania in the EU. Despite the fact that recently over 2 million jobs have been created in the third sector in Poland, many EU countries have seen a much faster flow of employment

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Fig. 9.3 Employment level in the service sector in EU countries in 2018 (in%). Source Own study based on Eurostat data

from manufacturing, and especially from agriculture, to the field of services. In Europe, the strongest dynamics are observed in services defined as professional—in science, technology and administrative support, similar trends are noted in Poland. As mentioned before, the strength of the service sector and the change in the role of individual sectors in the economy can be described by various measures, most often by the level of employment and gross value added. In the years 2000–2018, the dynamics of employment in the service sector in all EU countries were positive (see Fig. 9.4). The dynamics index in the analysed period achieved the highest values in Romania, Bulgaria, Luxembourg, Portugal and Malta and the lowest in France, Slovakia and Germany. The situation in the industrial sector was completely different. Negative increases in employment were recorded in 23 EU countries; only in five (Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Hungary) were the increases positive. The largest declines in employment in the industrial sector were recorded in Luxembourg and Malta, as well as in Spain and Ireland. The changes in employment dynamics by economic sectors were also accompanied by changes in the share of these sectors in the employment structure. In 2018, in the 28 EU countries, this structure was as follows: the industrial sector with construction accounted for 24.1% of total employment, and the service sector 71.2%. The advantage of the

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Fig. 9.4 Changes in the share of industry and services sectors in employment in the EU countries in 2000–2018 (%). Source Own study based on Eurostat data

service sector was even more pronounced in the countries of the ‘old’ EU-15. In this case, the share of the service sector in the employment structure was 76.5%, and of industry 20.1%. In the entire EU, compared to 2000, the share of the service sector increased from 63.1 to 71.2%, i.e. by over 8% points. Contrary to the service sector, the share of the industry sector in total employment in the EU countries fell from 27.4 to 24.1%. From the point of view of economic efficiency, not only changes in employment are important, but also the role of individual sectors of the economy in generating gross value added (see Fig. 9.5). In the EU countries, one can speak of a balance between the workload and participation in creating added value. The share of the service sector in generating GVA in 2018 amounted to 72.0% (71.2% in employment), whilst this was 74.6% amongst the ‘old’ EU-15 countries (76.5% in employment). For comparison, in Poland the share of services in generating GVA was higher in 2018 (64.9%) than the share in employment 58.8%. The countries where the most GVA was generated by the service sector include: Luxembourg (87.4%), Malta (85.4%) and Cyprus (84.0%). It is worth emphasising that these are specific economies, almost without industry. The leaders amongst the larger economies are France, Great Britain, Greece and the Netherlands. In the years 2000– 2018, an increase in the share of the service sector in generating GVA was observed in all EU countries, except Ireland. The largest increases were recorded in Malta (17.6 pp) as well as in Spain, Romania, Finland and Cyprus. In Poland, there was a slight increase in the share of the service sector in generating GVA—1 pp.

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Fig. 9.5 Changes in the share of industry and services sectors in generating GVA in the EU countries in 2000–2018 (in%). Source Own study based on Eurostat data

The presented analysis shows the importance of the service sector and its strong dynamics. In all the analysed levels, the progressive servitisation of the Polish economy is visible, although the pace of this process is not fully satisfactory.

9.4 Changes in the Structure of the Service Sector in Poland The rapid development of services that has taken place in Poland since the beginning of the 1990s has been accompanied by changes related to its structure. The service sector is constantly changing internally, and even in the most developed economies has still some way to go. The analysis of structural changes is carried out on the basis of the Polish Classification of Business Activities, based on data published by Statistics Poland and Eurostat. Owing to the changes in the European and, consequently, Polish Classification of Business Activities (transition from PKD 2004 to PKD 2007, i.e. NACE [Statistical Classification of European Activities in the European Community] Rev. 1.1 to NACE Rev. 2.0), the analysis of structural changes in the service sector is carried out in two sub-periods: in the years 2000–2008 (according to PKD 2004) and 2008–2018 (according to PKD 2007). Unfortunately, due to the lack of data, it is not possible to perform a full analysis, i.e. from 1989. The first available data is from 1995, but unfortunately, they are not comparable. In the analysed period of 2000–2008, a significant increase in employment (115.2%) in services was observed (see Table 9.1). The third sector increased its

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Table 9.1 Changes in employment in Poland by sections and divisions of NACE Rev. 1 in 2000– 2008 Sekcje/wybrane działy

Liczba Dynamika zatrudnionych (tys.) 2000

Ogółem w gospodarce

2008

15,159.2 14,037.0

Udział %

2000 = 100 2000 92.6

2000

100.0

2008

2008

100.0

Ogółem w usługach

6707.6

7825.7

116.7

44.2 100.0

55.8 100.0

Handel i naprawy (G)

2074.6

2268.8

109.4

13.7

16.2

Hotele i restauracje (H)

30.9

29.0

225.7

275.9

122.2

1.5

3.4

2.0

3.5

Transport, magazynowanie 779.3 i komunikacja (I)

809.1

103.8

5.1

11.6

5.8

10.3

Po´srednictwo finansowe (J)

298.6

356.8

119.5

2.0

4.5

2.5

4.6

Obsługa nieruchomo´sci i firm (K)

822.6

1132.6

137.7

5.4

12.3

8.1

14.5

Informatyka i działalno´sc´ pokrewna

50.5

102.5

203.0

0.3

0.8

0.7

1.3

Administracja publiczna i obrona narodowa (L)

492.6

919.4

186.6

3.2

7.3

6.5

11.7

Edukacja (M)

902.8

1038.5

115.0

6.0

13.5

7.4

13.3

Ochrona zdrowia i opieka społeczna (N)

908.2

747.6

82.3

6.0

13.5

5.3

9.6

Działalno´sc´ kulturalna, 152.7 rekreacyjna i sportowa (O)

174.5

114.3

1.0

2.3

1.2

2.2

Source Own study based on data from the Statistical Yearbooks of GUS

share in the structure by as much as 11.1 pp (from 45.6 to 57.9%), mainly because of a significant decline in employment in agriculture. For the purposes of further analysis, the service sector has been divided into traditional market services (sections G—trade and repair, H—hotels and restaurants, I—transport, storage, communication), business services (sections J—financial intermediation, K—real estate and companies) and public services (sections L—public administration and national defence, M— education, N—health care and social welfare, O—cultural, recreational and sports activities). In the structure of employment in the service sector by section, the most important role is played by section G, which mainly covers commercial activities (wholesale and retail trade, vehicle repair). From the beginning of the analysed period (and the older data indicate that this process has taken place since the beginning of the 1990s), a systematic increase in the importance of these services has been observed. The share of section G in total employment increased from 13.7% in 2000 to 16.2% in 2008. The growth rate of the number of employees in this section in the analysed period amounted to 109.4%. Slightly stronger dynamics were recorded in the section related to hotel and catering activities—section H (hotels and restaurants). The share of this section in total employment is small—1.5% (2008), but the growth rate was

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high and amounted to 122%. In the group of market services, transport services featured the weakest dynamics in terms of employment growth—section I (transport, storage, communication). Business services represented by sections K (real estate and business services) and J (financial intermediation) play an increasingly important role in the employment structure. The share of these services increased from 5.4% to 8.1% (section K) and from 1.9% to 2.5% (section J) respectively. Amongst business services, IT services recorded the highest growth (203%). Looking at public services, we note a large diversification of employment dynamics. Section L (public administration and national defence) is characterised by the strongest dynamics. The increase in its share in total employment in the years 2000–2008 from 3.3 to 6.6% and a very strong employment dynamic (187%) was the result of the administrative reform related to the introduction of districts (in Polish: powiat), and thus the expansion of the self-government administration. There was also an increase in the share of section M (education). On the other hand, a decline in employment occurred in health care services (section N—health care and social care). In the period 2009–2018, the analysis for the service sector is conducted in the following structure (see Table 9.2): traditional market services (sections: G—wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles, H—transport and warehouse management, I—related activities with accommodation and catering services), services for business (sections: J—information and communication, K—financial and insurance activities, L—activities related to the real estate market, M—professional, scientific and technical activities, N—activities in the administration and support activities) and public services (section O—public administration and national defence, P—education, Q—health care and social assistance, R—activities related to culture, entertainment and recreation and S—other service activities. Market services, stabilisation was observed in section I (accommodation and food service activities), and even a slight decrease employment share from 16.1% to 15.2% (G—commercial services). The employment growth rate was 116% (I) and 110% (G) respectively. Transport services and warehouse management were characterised by stronger dynamics (129%). Much stronger employment dynamics were observed, as in the previous period, amongst business services. IT services feature the largest increase (section J) reaching 158%. Similarly, strong were section N—administrative and support activities (149%) and section M—professional, scientific and technical services (147%). Activities related to the real estate market (120%) and financial and insurance activities (108%) developed slightly less dynamically. It is worth emphasising that both financial and insurance activities have developed rapidly since the beginning of the transformation period. Therefore, one can be convinced that these segments of service activities have already met the market demand, so their development is more balanced. On the other hand, public administration and national defense services developed slowly (106%), activities related to culture, entertainment and recreation 108% and education 111% (in this case we are dealing with a continuation of the growing trend from the previous period). Significant changes took place in relation to health care and social assistance services (122%). The processes taking place in the structure of the service sector in Poland are characteristic of most countries of Central and Eastern Europe. In these countries, the

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Table 9.2 Changes in employment in Poland by sections and divisions of NACE Rev. 2 in the years 2009–2018 Sekcje/wybrane działy

Liczba Dynamika zatrudnionych (tys.)

Ogółem w gospodarce

13,449.1 15,614.9 116.1

2009

2018

Udział %

2009 = 100 2009

2009

100.0

2018

2018

100.0

Ogółem w usługach

7539.1

9046.0

120.0

56.1 100.0

57.9 100.0

Handel, naprawa pojazdów samochodowych (G)

2163.3

2370.7

109.6

16.1

28.7

15.2

26.2

Transport i gospodarka magazynowa (H)

704.1

905.7

128.6

5.2

9.3

5.8

10.0

Działalno´sc´ zwi˛azana z zakwaterowaniem i usługami gastronomicznymi (I)

258.7

300.5

116.1

1.9

3.4

1.9

3.3

Informacja i komunikacja (J)

241.5

381.1

157.8

1.8

3.2

2.4

4.2

Działalno´sc´ finansowa i ubezpieczeniowa (K)

335.3

363.2

108.3

2.5

4.4

2.3

4.0

Działalno´sc´ zwi˛azana z obsług˛a rynku nieruchomo´sci (L)

190.4

228.1

119.8

1.4

2.5

1.5

2.5

Działalno´sc´ profesjonalna, naukowa i techniczna (M)

474.3

696.8

146.9

3.5

6.3

4.5

7.7

Działalno´sc´ w zakresie 381.4 usług admini-strowania i działalno´sc´ wspieraj˛aca (N)

568.0

148.9

2.8

5.1

3.6

6.3

Administracja publiczna i obrona narodowa (O)

651.2

106.2

4.6

8.1

4.2

7.2

613.1

Edukacja (P)

1075.5

1190.3

110.7

8.0

14.3

7.6

13.2

Opieka zdrowotna i pomoc społeczna (Q)

747.1

909.7

121.8

5.6

9.9

5.8

10.1

Działalno´sc´ zwi˛azana z kultur˛a, rozrywk˛a i rekreacj˛a (R)

145.8

157.8

108.2

1.1

1.9

1.0

1.7

Pozostała działalno´sc´ usługowa (S)

208.7

322.9

154.8

1.6

2.8

2.1

3.6

Source Own study based on data from the Statistical Yearbooks of GUS

trade service sector has a relatively larger share in employment and stronger growth dynamics. The largest growth by far is observable in business services. This results from the growing importance of knowledge-based services and business support in the era of modern economic development. The development level of services measured with the share of the employed shows significant differences in the voivodeship pattern (see Fig. 9.6). The following

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Fig. 9.6 Employment level in the service sector in 2019 and changes in the share of the service sector in employment in Poland in 1995–2019 (in%)—regional differences. Source Own study based on GUS data

voivodeships are characterised by the highest percentage of employment in the service sector: Mazowieckie, Zachodniopomorskie, Pomorskie, Dolno´sl˛askie and ´ askie. Whilst the high share of employees in service activities in the capital city Sl˛ of Mazowieckie voivodeship results from the high level of development of ICT, financial and insurance sector services as well as professional services, as well as public services, the advantage of voivodeships in the northern part of Poland is certainly the result of the development of services related to tourism and trans´ askie Voivodeships owe their strong position to a high port. The Dolno´sl˛askie and Sl˛ percentage of people working in professional services. The lowest share of employment in the service sector is found in the Opolskie, Podkarpackie, Wielkopolskie, ´ etokrzyskie and Podlaskie voivodeships. Summing up, the following regularities Swi˛ can be noticed concerning regional differences in the service development level in Poland: (1) the dominance of Mazowieckie Voivodeship (68%) of the employment share, (2) a high development level of this sector in the following voivodeships: ´ askie, (3) strong growth dynamics Zachodniopomorskie, Pomorskie, Dolno´sl˛askie, Sl˛ of the service sector in voivodeships with the lowest level of socio-economic devel´ etokrzyskie, Lubelskie, Podlaskie, Podkarpackie. It can certainly be opment—Swi˛ assumed that these voivodeships were very backward in 1995, trying to catch up with the leaders, and the development of the service sector has been slow.

9.5 Development of Business Services As shown in the analysis above, the service sector in Poland, as in other countries in our region (Central and Eastern Europe), is characterised by an unfavourable

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structure from the perspective of building a competitive knowledge-based economy, with a predominance of traditional services and a relatively small share of knowledgebased services (Dominiak 2019). The changes in the structure of the service sector of modern economies clearly show the dynamic development of ICT, as well as professional and other knowledge-based services. Similar trends can be also observed in relation to Poland, although, as shown in the previous section, the gap between Poland (and other countries in our region) from other EU countries in this respect is significant. The dynamic development of business services in Poland started at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s. On the one hand, it was associated with the emergence of demand for new or previously poorly developed services related to advertising, marketing, job placement, finance, and on the other, with the rapidly growing phenomenon of outsourcing, i.e. enterprises outsourcing specialist services to external companies. According to Illeris, the demand for this type of service was also the result of the emergence of increasingly complex business procedures. They led to a bloom in services mainly in the field of financial and legal advice (Dominiak 2006). The reason for the development of services for business is also the progressive narrow specialisation of individual sectors of the economy and competition, typical of the market economy, which force entrepreneurs to use specialist consulting services (Daszkowska 1998). The business service sector in Poland is characterised by strong development dynamics. It is assumed that this sector includes sections J—information and communication and section M—professional, scientific and technical activities as well as financial and insurance services included in section K. The development of these services in Poland is relatively poor compared to other countries, especially those with more developed economies. In 2018, in Poland, the share of these three sections in total employment was 9.1%, of which section M accounted for 4.0%. The data on the growth rate of average employment in the sections of business services in Poland indicate that their growth is much higher compared to the average employment in the economy (see Table 9.3). The growth rate in 2018 (where 2005 = 100%) was 172% for section J and 158% for section M, whilst for the entire economy it was 120%. Taking into account the growth rates in relation to the previous year, Table 9.3 Average employment in the services of sections J, K, M in Poland in 2005–2018 Przeci˛etne zatrudnienie

2005 tys

%

tys

%

2018 (gdzie 2005 = 100)

ogółem

8786.7

100%

10,411.2

100%

120.7

Sekcja J

155.5

1.7

267.6

2.5

172.1

Sekcja K

244.0

2.7

270.2

2.5

109.9

Sekcja M

277.7

3.1

427.3

4.0

158.0

Razem J + K + M

670.0

7.6

963.0

9.1

143.7

Source Own study based on GUS data

2018

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despite the marked slowdown in their development in the period of the economic crisis after 2008, an annual increase by several percentage points has been recorded. Strong growth dynamics also occur in the case of gross value added in the analysed sections (Dominiak 2019). In the investigated period, section K showed significantly lower growth rates (110%). The Polish financial system is one of the most rapidly developing areas of the economy. Financial services began to develop very dynamically as early as 1989 as a result of the market transformation of the economy, changes in banking legislation and attempts to adapt to the European financial sector (Weltrowska 2003). Undoubtedly, financial services, as well as insurance services a little later, were precursors amongst modern services. Therefore, their strongest development took place in the earlier period, compared to other modern services. One might conclude that these segments of services had already met the market demand, so their development in later years was clearly more balanced. Business services are metropolitan and that tend to be concentrated in the largest cities and urban agglomerations. The regional structure in Poland clearly shows a strong concentration of business services, in particular ICT sector services in Mazowieckie Voivodeship. The share of this province in total employment in section J in Poland in 2018 was over 50%. The situation was similar with regard to the creation of the WBD. The concentration of professional, scientific and technical services in Mazowieckie voivodeship was slightly lower and amounted to 33% in terms of GVA creation and 39% in terms of employment. Apart from Mazowieckie voivodeship, the highest share of both employees and GVA was recorded in the ´ askie, Dolno´sl˛askie and Wielkopolskie, i.e. following voivodeships: Małopolskie, Sl˛ voivodeships with the largest urban agglomerations (Dominiak 2004, 2006, 2019). The growing importance of the business service sector is closely related to the new organisational forms of services, including outsourcing and shared service centres. Their development is the result of the globalisation process and the development of information and communication technologies. This issue largely concerns business services because here activities that complement basic business operations are most often outsourced. All this results from the need to reduce the costs of enterprises and to maintain or strengthen their competitive position (Dominiak 2019). Outsourcing in Poland does not have long tradition. At the beginning of the economic transformation, outsourcing was introduced in the simplest form, i.e. what was primarily distinguished were functions of little importance for the company’s development strategy, mainly security or cleaning services (Kopczy´nski 2010). Despite the changes that have taken place in Polish enterprises since then, there are still significant differences between Poland and other countries of Western Europe and other highly developed countries. First of all, they concern the limited scope of outsourcing. Whilst in highly developed countries outsourcing concerns not only side functions, but also includes some operations crucial for the development of the enterprise (such as R&D), in Poland it is still limited to services supporting business processes. Polish enterprises most often use outsourcing (apart from simple services related to the operation of the company’s infrastructure, such as security, cleaning, etc.) for accounting services, IT, training, transport and logistics services. It is most often used by enterprises with foreign capital employing from 50 to 250

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employees. They have much greater production resources and are also characterised by more complex production processes; therefore, they entrust specific tasks to specialised external companies more often than enterprises from the SME sector (Kurdy´s-Kujawska and Ole´nczuk-Paszel 2012). There are not many sources of data on the development of outsourcing and shared service centres in Poland. The organisation collecting and publishing this type of data is the Association of Business Service Leaders in Poland (ABSL), an industry organisation representing the modern business service sector in Poland. ABSL brings together Shared Service Centers (SSC), Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), IT outsourcing (Information Technology Outsourcing, ITO) and research and development centres (Research & Development, R&D). The main reasons for the dynamic development of service centres in Poland include: (1) competitive labour costs in relation to other Western European countries; (2) qualified staff (high percentage of people with higher education); (3) the availability of office space of an appropriate standard. According to the ABSL report, in the first quarter of 2018, there were a total of 1236 BPO, SSC, IT, R&D centres in Poland, which employed 279 thousand people. This employment is growing every year by over a dozen percentage points (in 2016–2017 there was an increase of 16 pp. and in 2017–2018, 13 pp.). In the structure of service centres the most important were Shared Service Centres (35% of employment), then IT (33%), outsourcing (19%) and R&D (13%) centres. This structure does not change significantly over time. Service centres are located in the largest cities and urban agglomerations. The largest number of service centres is located in Warsaw (210) and Krakow (195). A large number of centres are also located in Wrocław (154) and the Tricity (135). These four centres have more than half (54%) of all service centres located in Poland. In terms of employment, Krakow has the largest share (22.9%; 64 thousand people), followed by Warsaw (18.1%; 51.3 thousand people) and Wrocław (16.1%; 45.1 thousand people). The share of the remaining centres did not exceed 10% of total employment in service centres. These three centres already generated over 57% of employment in service centres in Poland. 95% of the employees of the industry are employed in the 11 largest business service centres in Poland (Krakow, Warsaw, Wrocław, Tricity, the Katowice Agglomeration, Łód´z, Pozna´n, Bydgoszcz, Lublin, Rzeszów and Szczecin). As noted in the report, IT activities as well as financial and accounting services dominate in service centres, which together generate nearly half of employment in the industry (48%). The next places in terms of the share in the employment structure are taken by banking, financial and investment services, which together account for 15% of jobs in the sector, and customer contact services with a 12% share. Almost half of the service centres surveyed in the report (48%) operate on a global scale for clients (internal and external). The same share is characteristic of centres providing services to clients from selected countries or regions worldwide. Only 4% of the surveyed centres serve recipients from one country. Summing up, it should be noted that the relocation of services, as an important phenomenon resulting from the shaping of the international division of labour, plays an important role in the development of the service sector in Poland. Service centres

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not only generate jobs, especially for young educated staff, but are also a source of knowledge and a place to acquire key skills. Usually, employees at such corporate centres learn innovative solutions in the field of SAP systems, IT techniques, control systems, etc. The research conducted by Niedzielski and Łobacz shows that the transfer of knowledge from service centres is an important aspect of building the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises (Niedzielski and Łobacz 2017).

9.6 Other Tendencies and Directions of Development in the Field of Services The dynamic development of business services in Poland has been one of the most important, but not the only trend in changes in the generic structure of the service sector during the transformation period. It should be noted that throughout the analysed period, trade services have the largest share in the structure by type of service sector. The commercial sector in Poland after 1989 was also characterised by strong dynamics of changes. At the beginning of the socio-economic transformation, trade in Poland was highly monopolised and the dominant turnover was generated by the public sector. Its organisational and economic capabilities were weak (Karasiewicz and Trojanowski 2016). During the socio-economic transformation in Poland, there was a rapid development of trade, both quantitatively and qualitatively, which was manifested by an increase in the number of service outlets and an increase in the sales area (Kaczmarek 2014). According to Karasiewicz and Trojanowski (2016), four phases can be distinguished in the transformation of trade in Poland: (1) privatisation (related to the takeover of stores belonging to liquidated state-owned and cooperative enterprises by private owners and the creation of new service outlets; (2) internationalisation (related to the entry of foreign enterprises on the Polish market, e.g. Ikea in 1990, Leclerc in 1992); (3) concentration (development of large-area trade); (4) innovation (development of e-commerce). The reforms implemented after 1989 related to the transition to a market economy created conditions for thriving trade. In the initial phase, private domestic capital and then foreign capital was deployed, which began to flow in the form of direct investments. Over time, shopping centres began to occupy increasingly larger areas and their location was no longer limited to big cities. In addition to the commercial function, they also began to offer gastronomic, recreational and cultural facilities, with a wide range of leisure activities (Kaczmarek 2014; Kaczmarek and Kaczmarek 2006). Currently, what has been observed is a process of greater concentration and capital integration, which is related to acquisitions and mergers of retail chains. Similar trends related to privatisation and consolidation during the transformation period have been also observed in other services (e.g. catering, hotel, transport). To some extent, these processes also accompany the transformations of the public service sector—medical and educational. The common feature of changes

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in all types of services is the increasing influence of technological progress, the way of providing, distributing services, and forms of contact with the client. One of the important aspects of service development is the introduction of new forms for the provision of services, which are replacing the existing, traditional forms. The development of the ICT sector, which offers new technologies and tools for innovative changes in this area, is of particular importance here. Electronic services are examples of innovative forms service provision. Thanks to the widespread access to the Internet, we observe a rapid development of electronic services, which are either completely new or a fresh spin on traditional services. Considering the type of services provided, the most common are: electronic administration (e-government), electronic commerce (e-commerce), electronic education (e-learning), remote medical services (e-health), electronic banking (e-banking), electronic marketing (e-marketing), electronic insurance. The process of developing electronic services, conditioned by the availability of the Internet, began in Poland in the 1990s. Initially, access to the global network made it possible for companies located in different parts of the world to communicate. Today, access to the Internet is more and more common and brings significant changes in the functioning of both enterprises and households. However, Poland features a relatively low level of Internet access compared to other European countries when it comes to both households and enterprises. With regard to households, according to GUS data, 82% declared that they had access to the Internet in 2017. Households from large cities were characterised by greater network accessibility. According to GUS data, in 2017, 95% of enterprises had access to the Internet. Access to the Internet directly translates into the use of electronic services. In 2017, the indicator of online buyers (obtained 3 months before the survey) in the EU countries amounted to an average of 48% of all respondents. However, the EU countries were characterised by a large diversification in the use of electronic commerce. By far the highest percentage of respondents made purchases over the Internet in Western and Northern Europe. The use of e-commerce in the countries of Southern and Central and Eastern Europe, including Poland, is much less common. However, whilst in the case of Southern European countries it results rather from the lifestyle and preference for direct contact, in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe it is the effect of technological backwardness. E-commerce is one of the most dynamically developing types of electronic service. According to Eurostat data, in recent years there has been a significant increase in the percentage of people shopping online in EU countries from 24% in 2008 to 48% in 2017. The share of online shopping users increased in the analysed period; in some EU countries it even increased by a factor of six or seven (Lithuania, Estonia). In Poland, between 2008 and 2017 there was an almost threefold increase in the percentage of people shopping online (from 12% in 2008 to 33% in 2017). The situation is similar with regard to enterprises.

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9.7 Conclusions The importance of the service sector in the structure of the Polish economy is relatively smaller than in most European Union countries. Differences are observed not only in the share of the service sector in the economic structure (measured by employment or other economic measures), but also, and perhaps primarily, in the structure of the service sector itself. Services in Poland, as in other countries in our region (Central and Eastern Europe), are characterised by an unfavourable structure from the perspective of building a competitive knowledge-based economy, with a predominance of traditional services and a relatively small share of modern ones. Historical conditions, related to the functioning of the centrally controlled economy until the 1980s, meant that the service sector in Poland was in the development phase, which was typical for the countries of Western and Northern Europe of the 1980s and 1990s. The development path of modern services in Poland and other countries of the region, despite the shift in time caused by the aforementioned historical circumstances, was similar to that of European countries characterised by a higher level of socio-economic development. In Poland, there is an increasing share of modern services in the structure of the service sector, which, in turn, should strengthen the development factors in the coming years and contribute to the construction of a modern knowledge-based economy. Despite the fact that changes in the classification of economic activities made it impossible to analyse a period longer than 10 years, even data over such a short time span indicate positive changes taking place in the structure of the service sector in Poland. The results of the analysis of the dynamics of this process carried out here indicate that the direction of these changes in Poland is correct. The development of new organisational forms of services—for example, shared service centres—represents a chance to close the gap that separates us from countries with a higher level of socio-economic development. Thanks to ever competitive labour costs and the presence of an educated professional workforce, Poland is an important location for service centres. Owing to the fact that service centres provide mainly innovation-prone business services, implemented largely with the use of electronic services, they can potentially be an important factor contributing to an increase in the level of innovation in the service sector in Poland. Despite the noticeable tendencies to stabilise the share of the service sector in the economic structure of Poland, in the socio-economic development scenarios, further development of the service sector is expected in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (which remain at a relatively lower development level in this respect) followed by the progressing reindustrialisation process forecast in the ‘old 15’ EU countries (Capello and Caragliu 2014).

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Chapter 10

Population Changes During the Demographic Transition Marzena Walaszek and Justyna Wilk

Abstract The aim of this chapter is to present the population changes during the demographic transition, which accompanied the social and economic transformations taking place in Poland since the 1990s. This chapter characterises the Polish demography in terms of changes in size of the population, natural movement and migration as well as the structure of the population. Furthermore, the spatial diversification of population growth and the changes in demographic age across 2477 Polish municipalities (it can be also translated as communes or gminas (Polish gmina) are identified. The situation facing Poland with regard to selected demographic indicators is compared with the other member states of the European Union. This chapter identifies a few demographic challenges across Poland such as a high concentration of the population in the most developed agglomerations accompanied with suburbanisation, depopulation of peripheral regions, population ageing in many rural areas as well as the biggest cities and the changes in the family model and life style resulting in a very low birth rate. Furthermore, Poland has a very low fertility rate compared to the other EU countries. Therefore, Poland follows negative natural increase, despite having a relatively low population decline and a demographically young population. Keywords Demographic changes · Depopulation · Population structure · Natural movement · Migration · Population ageing

10.1 Introduction After the fall of socialism, Poland, like many countries of Central and Eastern Europe, started along a path of dynamic social and economic development (Brainerd 2012). Since the 1990s, the political transformation of Poland has been accompanied by changes in the model of how Polish society functions and, above all, in the basic unit of that society, which is the family (cf. Such-Pyrgiel 2018). As Guja points out M. Walaszek (B) · J. Wilk Faculty of Human Geography and Planning, Adam Mickiewicz University, B. Krygowskiego 10, 61-680 Pozna´n, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Churski and T. Kaczmarek (eds.), Three Decades of Polish Socio-economic Transformations, Economic Geography, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06108-0_10

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(2016: 41), the demographic changes initiated in the 1990s in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe are, above all, the result of choices made by young people, for whom the priority at that time was to achieve a specific level of education and related financial stability, and only later, around the age of 30, to decide to start a family.1 As a result of this delayed age of marriage and the procreative decisions of Poles, the number of births and consequently the fertility rate have fallen significantly. This situation is primarily characteristic of highly developed countries and those currently at the development stage, whose rapid pace is due to previous, long-lasting and inconvenient conditions for socio-economic growth (cf. Adsera 2004; Morgan 2003; Billari and Kohler, 2004). The changes in population reproduction, from the initial period, i.e. high mortality, short life expectancy, high reproductive and fertility rates, to the modern period, which is characterised by low and stable mortality, long life expectancy, low and relatively stable reproductive and fertility rates, constitute the grounds for the theory of demographic transition (Pruszy´nski and Putz, 2016: 128). The objectives of the second demographic transition theory were formulated by Lesthaeghe and van de Kaa (1986) in order to explain the demographic situation of countries with low birth rates. As van de Kaa (1987) points out, the second demographic transition began immediately after World War II and was linked to an improvement in socio-economic conditions after the war, resulting in an increase in the fertility rate until the 1960s, but later, industrialised countries entered a new stage of demographic development characterised by full control of fertility. According to van de Kaa (1994), three factors have contributed to the decline in fertility rates: structural changes (e.g. industrialisation, urbanisation and development of the service sector), cultural changes (e.g. increased individual autonomy and defiance of traditional values) and technological developments (e.g. birth control methods and measures). According to Zygmunt (2017), the decreasing tendency to marry and have children and the postponement of both decisions appear to have set the main directions of the changes in the patterns of family formation in Poland after 1989; moreover, these phenomena are characteristic of the theory of the second demographic transition, and as a consequence of this, the development of the family in Poland is similar to the processes observed in other European countries. The effect of the falling birth rate and the increase in the average life expectancy of the Poles has caused a change in the population structure by age. Population ageing is a global phenomenon, and other Eastern European countries are also experiencing a rapid increase in their percentage of older people (Gavrilova and Gavrilov, 2009). The increase in the number of older people in Poland is a serious challenge for the social policies of the future, e.g. in terms of meeting healthcare needs and the functioning of the pension system. The ageing of the population is currently treated not only as a social problem, but also as a challenge, where “according to the principles of the 1

The differences between European countries in terms of cultural patterns of marriage became the basis for the establishment of the so-called Hajnal line (from Trieste to Saint Petersburg) as early as the 1970s (Hajnal 1965). The central feature of this behaviour is the requirement that newly married couples must form economically self-sufficient households (Alter 1991).

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silver economy, older people are seen as an active, productive and socially useful group” (Le´sna-Wierszołowicz 2018: 162; Magnus 2008). The aim of this chapter is to present the demographic situation of Poland in the years 1990–2019, with particular emphasis on spatial processes. The data presented in the paper were obtained from public statistics sources—Statistics Poland (GUS) and European Statistical Office (Eurostat). Depending on availability, the data refer to the years 1990–2019. Selected demographic features are presented in dynamic or static terms as of 2018 or 2019. The following methods were used in the study: descriptive statistics, ratio analysis, comparative analysis, structure and dynamics analysis, Webb’s typology and graphic methods (population pyramids, boxplot diagrams, cartograms); some of the results are presented in tabular form. The study consists of an introduction, three chapters and a summary. Chapter 2 presents the characteristics of the demographic changes in Poland, in terms of changes in population size, natural movement, migration and the population structure by gender and age. Chapter 3 characterises the depopulation processes and demographic ageing of the population in spatial terms (these are considered particularly interesting for further analysis, as depopulation processes are the result of changes in both natural increase and migration, while population ageing is directly related to declining birth rates and rising life expectancy). Chapter 4 presents the demographic situation of Poland against the background of the European Union countries, analysing selected demographic features, such as the birth rate, fertility rate, the age of birth of the first child and the average life expectancy. The chapter ends with a summary containing the main conclusions from the presented research.

10.2 Demographic Changes in Poland Since 1990 10.2.1 Population Size In the years 1990–2019, the population of Poland was characterised by minor variability (Fig. 10.1). In 2019, Poland was inhabited by 38,382,576 people (as of 31 December), i.e. by 0.5% (199,416) more than in 1990 (in 1990 the country had 38,183,160 inhabitants). In the years 1990–1998, the population increased by 483,823 people (the population change dynamic in that period was 101.3). In 1999, there was a rapid, and also the largest, decrease in the population after the 1990s (in 1999, low natural increase was observed, i.e. 587 (0.02‰), with a continued high intensity of foreign emigration). At that time in 1999, the population had decreased, when compared to 1998, by 403,680 people, i.e. by 1%. In the years 1999–2007, the country’s population continued to decrease (population change dynamic = 99.6); in the period between 2008 and 2011, it started to increase again (population change dynamic = 101.1), and since 2012, it has been decreasing again (population change dynamic in the period 2012–2019 was 99.6). The highest annual population growth in the analysed period in relation to the previous year occurred in 2010 and amounted

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40,000,000

30,000,000

20,000,000

10,000,000

0

urban population

rural population

Fig. 10.1 Urban and rural population in Poland according to place of residence in the years 1990– 2019. Source Own study based on the statistical data from the Local Data Bank of Statistics Poland

to 362,537 people (the annual population growth in relation to 2009 was 0.9% and resulted mainly from positive natural increase, resulting from the birth of children by the generation of women born in the early 1980s). Between 1990 and 2019, some changes in the population of towns and villages were observed. In 2019, cities were inhabited by 23,033,066 people, while 15,349,510 people resided in rural areas (Table 10.1). In comparison with the year 1990, the number of inhabitants of cities had decreased by 581,445 people, while in villages, it had increased by 780,861 people. The percentage of urban population in Table 10.1 Population in Poland according to place of residence in 1990 and 2019 Feature

1990

2019

Growth rate [1990–2019]

Total population

38,183,160

38,382,576

100.5

Urban population

23,614,511

23,033,066

97.6

Rural population

14,568,649

15,349,510

105.4

61.8

60.0

122

123

Share of urban population in total population (%) Population density

(person/km2 )

1.8 p.p 100.8

pp—percentage points Source Own study based on the statistical data from the Local Data Bank of Statistics Poland

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1990 was 61.8% and had decreased to 60% by 2019. The dynamic of the population changes in cities between 1990 and 2019 was 97.6, while in villages, it was 105.4. The decrease in the proportion of the urban population is a result of the suburbanisation process that has been taking place since the 1990s (Korcelli 1995; Kaczmarek and Walaszek, 2012) and is related to the decrease in the population of central urban agglomerations and its dynamic growth in the suburban zone. To sum up, Poland between 1990 and 2019 was characterised by slight population fluctuations. Urban areas in the analysed period were characterised by a decrease in population, with an increase in the number of inhabitants in rural areas, which was a result of the intensive suburbanisation processes taking place since the 1990s. This contributed to a decrease in the percentage of urban population from 61.8% in 1990 to 60.0% in 2019. The population density in Poland in the studied period increased slightly from 122 people per km2 to 123 people per km2 .

10.2.2 Natural Increase and Migration The elements of natural movement that affect the population are the levels of births and deaths, whose difference determines natural increase. Since 1990, a decrease in the number of births has been observed in Poland (Fig. 10.2). In 1990, the number 600,000

450,000

300,000

150,000

0 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 live births

deaths

Fig. 10.2 Live births and deaths in Poland in the years 1990–2019. Source Own study based on the statistical data from the Local Data Bank of Statistics Poland

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of live births was 545,817 (the birth rate per 1000 people was 14.3‰), and in 2019, this figure was 374,954 people (the birth rate per 1000 people was 9.77‰). The highest number of births after the 1990s occurred in 1991 (545,954 people, birth rate per 1000 people = 14.3‰) and the lowest in 2003 (351,072 people, birth rate per 1000 people = 9.2‰). The number of deaths in the years 1990–2019 remained at a similar level. The highest number of deaths after 1990 was observed in 2018 (414,200 people, death rate per 1000 people = 10.8‰), while the lowest was observed in 2002 (359,486 people, death rate per 1000 people = 9.4‰). In the years 1990–2001 and 2006–2012, the natural increase in Poland was positive, while in the years 2002–2005 and 2003–2019, it fell. The highest natural increase in the years 1990–2019 occurred in the year 1990 (the difference between births and deaths was 157,377 people, the natural increase rate per 1000 people = 4.1‰) and the lowest in 2019 (−34,755 people, birth rate per 1000 people = −0.9‰) (Table 10.2). From the demographic point of view, the negative natural increase rate in Poland since 2013 is a negative situation, and despite the implementation of a pro-family policy, the fertility rate in Poland remains at a very low level, which does not guarantee the simple replacement of generations (the rate in 2019 was 1.42). Among the main reasons for low fertility rates, Poles point out the following: difficult material conditions, lack of job and employment insecurity, inability to get pregnant and poor housing conditions (Kotowska 2014). Since 1990, the number of marriages in Poland has been decreasing while the number of divorces has been increasing (Fig. 10.3). The largest numbers of marriages were in 1990 (255,369) and 2008 (257,744). In the years 2007–2009, the larger number of marriages was related to the coming of age of the micro-baby-boom generation of the 1980s. Since 1990, it has been possible to observe a systematic increase in the number of divorces; the highest number of divorces in the studied period was granted in the year 2006 (71,912); and in turn, the lowest figure was Table 10.2 Live births, deaths and natural increase in Poland in 1990 and 2019

Feature

1990

2019

Live births

545,817 374,954

Live births per 1000 population

14.3

Deaths

388,440 409,709

9.77

Deaths per 1000 population

10.2

Natural increase

157,377 – 34,755

Natural increase per 1000 population

4.1

– 0.91

Total fertility ratio

1.99

1.42

Marriages concluded

255,369 183,371

Marriages concluded per 1000 population 6.7

10.67

4.8

Divorces

42,436

65,341

Divorces per 1000 population

1.1

1.7

Source Own study based on the statistical data from the Local Data Bank of Statistics Poland

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300,000

225,000

150,000

75,000

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

0

marriages concluded

divorces

Fig. 10.3 Marriages concluded and divorces in Poland in the years 1990–2019. Source Own study based on the statistical data from the Local Data Bank of Statistics Poland

observed in 1993 (27,891). The marriage rate decreased from 6.7‰ in 1990 to 4.8‰ in 2019, and the divorce rate increased from 1.1‰ in 1990 to 1.7‰ in 2019. Since 1990, the number of people registering in Poland from abroad has been gradually increasing (Table 10.3). At the beginning of the analysed period, i.e. in 1990, the number of people registered in Poland from abroad was only 2626, while the highest figures were in 2009 (17,424 persons) and 2019 (16,909 persons). The highest number of people de-registered abroad after the 1990s occurred in 2006, when 46,936 people left the country. This situation was a consequence of Poland’s accession to the European Union, the emergence of opportunities to work abroad, together with high unemployment (the unemployment rate in Poland in 2006 was 14.8%, and in 2019, it was only 5.2%) and relatively low wages in the country. Since 2016, the number of people de-registered abroad in the country has remained at its lowest level since 1990. In 2019, the number of people de-registered abroad Table 10.3 Registered internal and foreign migration in Poland in 1990 and 2019 Feature

1990

2019

Internal migrations

529,908

468,326

Immigrations from abroad

2626

16,909

Emigrations abroad

18,440

10,726

International net migration

−15,814

6183

International net migration per 1000 population

−0.4

0.16

Source Own study based on the statistical data from the Local Data Bank of Statistics Poland

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was “only” 10,726. The balance of foreign migration in the years 1990–2014 (except for 2002) remained negative; since 2016, the balance of foreign migration has been positive, so this means a surplus of immigrants over emigrants, which should be considered a positive factor from the demographic point of view.

10.2.3 Population Structure Since the 1990s, Polish society has been observed to be in a process of ageing (Szyma´nczak 2012). Since the year 1990, the Polish population has been characterised by a decreasing number of people of pre-working age (0–17 years), a decreasing number of people of working age (18–59 F, 18–64 M) and an increasing number of people of post-working age (60+ F, 65+ M). In 1990, the number of people of pre-working age was 11,318,712 and in 2019—6,948,706 people, i.e. it had decreased by 38.6%, while the number of people of post-working age in 1990 was 4,902,707, while in 2019, this figure was 8,407,943, i.e. it had increased by 71.5%. The number of people of working age in 2019 increased by 1,064,186 people, i.e. 5% more when compared to 1990. In the examined age groups, the increase in the percentage of the population of post-working age is particularly alarming (Fig. 10.4). Since the 1990s, the structure of the population according to economic age groups has changed; this has manifested itself in a reduction in the number and percentage of the young population and a dynamic increase in the number and percentage of 32,500,000

26,000,000

19,500,000

13,000,000

6,500,000

0 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 people of pre-working age

people of working age

people of post-working age

Fig. 10.4 Population according to economic age groups in the years 1990–2019. Source Own study based on the statistical data from the Local Data Bank of Statistics Poland

10 Population Changes During the Demographic Transition Table 10.4 Population according to economic age groups in 1990 and in 2019

Feature

1990

227 2019

Population by economic age groups pre-working

11,318,712

6,948,706

working

21,961,741

23,025,927

post-working

4,902,707

8,407,943

Share of population by economic age groups pre-working

29.6

18.1

working

57.5

60.0

post-working

12.8

21.9

Source Own study based on the statistical data from the Local Data Bank of Statistics Poland

elderly people in society (Table 10.4). In 1990, the percentage of people of preworking age was 29.6%, while in 2019, this was 18.1% (down by 11.5 p. p.); the percentage of people of working age was 57.5% and in 2019—60% (an increase by 2.5 p. p.), while the percentage of people of post-working age in 1990 was 12.8% and in 2019—21.9% (an increase by 9.1 p. p.). In comparison to the year 1990, the Polish population in 2019 was characterised by significant changes in the population according to five-year age groups (Fig. 10.5). Since 1990, the number of people in each of the 0–4 to 35–39 age groups has decreased, while it has increased in the 40–44 to 85+ age groups. The greatest population decline in 2019 compared to 1990 was observed in the 5–9 age group (−42%), while the greatest increase was observed in the 85+ age group (197%) and 70–74 (108%). Changes in the structure of the Polish population by gender and age confirm the rapid ageing process of the Polish population. The changes in the structure of the Polish population over the last 30 years are highlighted in Fig. 10.5. The base of the population pyramid, up to the age of 39, is characterised by a decrease in the population, while the “top” of the pyramid indicates an increase in the population. This situation, from the demographic point of view, is unfavourable, as it means a decrease in the young population in society and thus an increase in the demographic burden of an elderly population. To sum up, the Polish population in the years 1990–2019 was characterised by the greatest decrease in the size of the population of pre-working age (by 38.6%) and a significant increase in the size of the population of post-working age (by 71.5%). When comparing the structures of the Polish population by five-year age and gender groups from the year 1990 and the year 2019, a significant decrease in the young population, up to the age of 39, and an increase in the population in older age groups, i.e. over 64 years of age, should be noted. These changes in the age structures indicate a dynamic increase in the size of the population of the elderly (over 80 years of age) and thus a progressive process of population ageing.

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decrease in the number of people

increase in the number of people

Fig. 10.5 Changes in the population of Poland in the years 1990–2019 according to five-year age and gender groups. The dynamics of changes [1990–2019]. Source Own study based on the of statistical data from the Local Data Bank of Statistics Poland

10.3 Spatial Diversification of the Demographic Changes Across Poland 10.3.1 Depopulation The total population of Poland is relatively stable and has not fluctuated significantly over the last three decades. Nevertheless, there are a lot of areas across the country that are very well developed and have recorded successive increases in population while others have suffered from depopulation. This chapter diagnoses the spatial disproportions of the population across Poland with special attention on depopulation. Depopulation is the process of successive or incidental reduction in a human population, which leads, in the long term, to a population decline across a given location (country, region, city, etc.). This may be a result of many demographic, economic, social, political and/or environmental issues. These include migration for jobs to better developed regions or countries, lower procreation due to the changing family model, etc. (see Table 10.5). Depopulation, in the long perspective, has very serious social, economic and environmental consequences for an area. Depopulation is part of a vicious circle of

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Table 10.5 Reasons and consequences of depopulation Issue

Reasons

Consequences

Demographic issues

e.g. a change in the family model; procreation delay results in a reduction of the number of births, young people emigrate and the remaining population ages (fertility rates are low)

e.g. a lower number of inhabitants, negative disproportions in the age and gender structure of a population in a region, e.g. ageing population

Economic issues

e.g. unattractive working conditions (making potential inhabitants uninterested in settling), suburbanisation processes around well-developed cities, scarcity of jobs (employment tends to be concentrated in the primary sector or in the public sector, services are lacking)

e.g. lack of labour force resources, fall in demand for goods and services, withdrawal of local entrepreneurs and institutions, e.g. schools, lack of investors’ interest, lower incomes accompanied by higher maintenance costs for the local government unit

Social and cultural issues

e.g. pandemics, civil conflicts (e.g. racism), low standards of living, poor health care and famine, all may result in a lot of deaths

e.g. building, technical and transport infrastructure deterioration, family member isolation due to job emigration of young people

Political issues

e.g. legal provisions or local regulations may discourage people from immigration or procreation, wars result in a lot of deaths

e.g. development of special remedial programmes, reallocation of financial funds to ensure cohesive development across a country

Environmental issues

e.g. environmental pollution e.g. undeveloped potential of an may affect inhabitants’ health area, environmental destruction and escalate mortality, natural disasters, e.g. floods, result in a high number of deaths

Geographical and spatial issues

e.g. geographical isolation (e.g. e.g. accompanying depopulation far away from economic in the nearby locations, centres, deficiencies in transport overpopulation in other regions infrastructure), difficult physiographic features of an area may discourage potential immigrants from settling, investors building houses and plants for local people

Source Own study based on Martinez-Fernandez et al. (2012), Coleman (2011),McCann (2017)

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economic and social decline: economic activity decreases, the workforce emigrates, there is a shortage of young entrepreneurs, hence the development of new business is hampered, there is no critical mass of population for providing adequate services, and this, in turn, has a further negative impact on the attractiveness of an area as a place to live and work. Depopulation is then a spiralling decline of an area, which may result in urban and rural shrinkage, e.g. lack of labour force resources, dramatic fall in demand for goods and services, withdrawal of local entrepreneurs, building, technical and transport infrastructure deterioration, lack of investor interest, etc. Depopulation resulting from emigration may also cause overpopulation of other areas. It affects their social and economic situations, infrastructural and social problems (e.g. shortage of housing), excessive exploitation of the natural environment, etc. All of these factors result in higher expenditures incurred by the local government to cope with the intensive inflow of the new inhabitants (Martinez-Fernandez et al. 2012; Pallagst 2013; Coleman 2011; Hrynkiewicz et al. 2018). Depopulation results from a negative actual increase in the population2 affected by a high natural decrease in the population3 or a high negative total net migration4 or both. There is also an interaction between natural increase and net migration. A high migration outflow of people of working age results in a decrease in the number of births which, along with the constant mortality rate, reduces natural increase while a high migration inflow has the opposite effect. Depopulation is a long-term and increasingly intensive process which is happening across Poland. In the 1950s, depopulation occurred over approximately 15% of Poland’s territory, in the 1960s—30%, in the 1970s—60%, in the 1980s—50%, in the 1990s—60% and in the twenty-first century—70%; it is predicted that it will ´ cover an area of 85–90% by the year 2050 (Sleszy´ nski et al. 2017; Eberhardt 1989). This study diagnoses the population progress across Poland within almost the last three decades. We took into consideration 2477 Polish municipalities5 and their 2

The actual increase in the population (herein called actual increase) is the sum of the natural increase in the population and total net migration. 3 The natural increase in the population (herein called natural increase) is the difference between the number of live births and the number of deaths during the year. The natural increase is, therefore, negative (i.e. natural decrease) when the number of deaths exceeds the number of births, while it is positive when the number of live births exceeds the number of deaths. 4 Total net migration is the difference between immigration into and emigration from the area during the year. It includes the domestic (internal) as well as foreign (international) migration inflows and outflows. The total net migration is, therefore, negative when the number of emigrants exceeds the number of immigrants, and it is positive, when the number of immigrants exceeds the number of emigrants in the year. 5 A municipality (Polish gmina) is the lowest level unit of the administrative division of Poland, classified by Eurostat until 2016 as the lower LAU level (LAU level 2, formerly NUTS level 5). The number of municipalities in Poland has been relatively stable over the last three decades but has fluctuated between 2477 and 2489. This is a consequence of the merging of a couple of previously existing individual municipalities into one body (e.g. establishing a couple of neighbouring cities as a common municipality) or splitting of some areas into a couple of smaller ones (e.g. separating a city from a rural area across the territory of a municipality and then establishing two individual

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Fig. 10.6 Dispersion of the 2477 Polish municipalities in 1995–2019 according to Webb’s typology. Explanations GNIR—the generalised natural increase rate, GTNMR—the generalised total net migration rate. Source Own study based on the statistical data from the Local Data Bank of Statistics Poland

situations in 1995–2019.6 Our study results refer to the administrative territorial division of Poland in 2019. We collected the following data: the number of live births, the number of deaths, the number of domestic and foreign migration inflows and outflows and the population from the Local Data Bank of Statistics Poland. Then, for each municipality, we calculated the values of the generalised natural increase rate7 and the generalised total net migration rate.8 We followed Webb’s typology (1963) to see which areas of Poland showed population growth or stagnation and which of them suffered depopulation. Then, we indicated their relevant demographic determinants and discussed the reasons and consequences of the population changes across Poland. Figure 10.6 illustrates our study results on Webb’s graph. The X axis represents the generalised total net migration rate, while the Y axis shows the generalised natural increase rate. The increasing diagonal presents the situation when the generalised total net migration rate is equal to the generalised natural increase rate. municipalities). In this study, a benchmark division is the administrative division of Poland into 2477 municipalities in 2019. Therefore, some of the municipalities have been merged or split, respectively, to provide a comparison over time. 6 The statistical data before the year 1995 were unavailable. 7 The generalised natural increase rate is the sum of the natural increase in the years 1995–2019, divided into the sum of the population in the years 1995–2019 per 1000 inhabitants. 8 The generalised total net migration rate is the sum of total net migration in the years 1995–2019, divided into the sum of the population in 1995–2019 per 1000 inhabitants. We included registered migration according to the place of registration for permanent residence due to statistical data availability. We excluded the year 1995 due to the lack of statistical data for this year; however, this does not considerably affect our study results.

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The decreasing diagonal shows the nature of the population’s progress. Municipalities located on this diagonal present a generalised actual increase rate9 equal to 0. Therefore, their populations are stagnant. Municipalities located above the decreasing diagonal present a positive generalised actual increase rate, and so their populations are increasing. However, municipalities located under the decreasing diagonal manifest depopulation. The capital letters (A–H) indicate areas with different influences of net migration and natural increase in the population progress. Municipalities located at B and C have a positive generalised total net migration rate as well as generalised natural increase rate, while both of these are negative across the F and G areas. For A and E, the strongest factor of the population progress is natural increase. This denotes an improvement in the population’s growth despite negative net migration across the municipalities of A. However, natural decrease is the most depopulating factor for those units classified into E, for which it is not compensated even by positive net migration. However, for D and H, the critical factor is net migration. High migration inflows compensate for the migration outflows and natural decrease for the units of D, which results in population growth. But intensive emigration is the most depopulating factor for the municipalities of H despite some immigration and a positive natural increase. If we consider both Webb’s typology and the values of the generalised actual increase rate, we can diagnose the nature of the population’s progress across Poland. The generalised actual increase rate ranges between –22.63 and 47.65 for the 2477 Polish municipalities in the years 1995–2019. The positive values denote population growth, while the negative values mean population decline. Only 2 municipalities have values lower than –20, but 41 municipalities (1.65%) record values higher than 20. The median value of the generalised actual increase rate is negative (–1.27). This means that more than half of the Polish municipalities are being depopulated. Figure 10.7 presents boxplot graphs of the generalised actual increase rate for Webb’s typology of 2477 Polish municipalities in the years 1995–2019. Population growth is observed for 815 Polish municipalities (32.90%) because the values of the generalised actual increase rate are higher than 1. Most of these (502 municipalities) present a year-by-year positive generalised actual increase rate; therefore, there is a successive population increase. The highest generalised actual increase rate is presented by municipalities neighbouring the biggest cities as a result of suburbanisation. Dobra (Szczeci´nska) located near the city of Szczecin is the leader in this ranking. The yearly increase in this municipality is 47 people per one thousand inhabitants. This is because of the high positive net migration of people in the reproductive age which enhances the number of births. A very similar situation is presented by municipalities (Dopiewo, Komorniki, Rokietnica, Kleszczewo, Kórnik, Suchy Las located in the Pozna´nski county10 ) located near the city of Pozna´n. For all of these, the values of the generalised actual increase rate are higher than 30. 9

The generalised actual increase rate is the resultant of the generalised natural increase rate and the generalised total net migration rate. It is the sum of the natural increase and the total net migration in the years 1995–2019, divided into the sum of the population in 1995–2019 per 1000 inhabitants. 10 County can be also translated as poviat (Polish powiat).

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Fig. 10.7 Boxplots of the generalised actual increase rate for Webb’s typology of the 2477 Polish municipalities in 1995–2019. Source Own study based on the statistical data from the Local Data Bank of Statistics Poland

However, population stagnation is typical for 351 Polish municipalities (14.2%). The generalised actual increase rate takes its values close to 0, within the interval (–1, 1). A lot of municipalities belonging to this class are located across Wielkopolskie (15%) and Mazowieckie (10%) Voivodeships. Some of the biggest economic, educational, cultural and political centres of Poland such as the city of Wrocław (Dolno´sl˛askie Voivodeship), the city of Lublin (Lubelskie Voivodeship) and the cities of Gda´nsk and Gdynia (part of Tricity), located across Pomorskie Voivodeship, belong to this class as well. Unfortunately, more than half (52.9%) of the Polish municipalities (1311) are being depopulated. Their values of the generalised actual increase rate are lower than –1. Moreover, 19 of them present a successive population decline with a year-byyear negative generalised actual increase rate, e.g. the city of Sopot (a part of Tricity located in Pomorskie Voivodeship) and the city of Wałbrzych (Dolno´sl˛askie Voivodeship), formerly one of the most industrialised centres of southern Poland. Both of these recorded year-by-year negative total net migration as well as a year-by-year natural decrease in the years 1995–2019. Table 10.6 includes the most typical features

194 (7.8%)

219 (8.8%)

288 (11.6%)

A

B

C

Population growth

(continued)

• The highest median value of the generalised actual increase rate (9.06) is a result of the highest median of the generalised total net migration rate (6.58) and the positive median value of the generalised natural increase rate • 46% of the municipalities in this class had a population density lower than 100 in 2019 • 78% of the municipalities in this class are rural • Only one city with county rights: the city of Zielona Góra (Lubuskie Voivodeship) • 19% of the municipalities of the Wielkopolskie Voivodeship

• The positive median value of the generalised actual increase rate (4.42) is a result of a very high median value of the generalised natural increase rate (3.20) and the positive median value of the generalised total net migration rate • 70% of the municipalities in this class are of the rural type • 42% of the municipalities in this class had a population density lower than 100 in 2019 • 32% of the municipalities of Małopolskie, 21% of Pomorskie Voivodeships • Only three cities with county rights: Bialystok (Podlaskie Voivodeship), Olsztyn (Warmi´nsko-Mazurskie Voivodeship) and Rzeszow (Podkarpackie Voivodeship)

• The positive median value of the generalised actual increase rate (2.06) is a result of a very high median value of the generalised natural increase rate (3.17) despite the negative median value of the generalised total net migration rate • 63% of the municipalities in this class had a population density lower than 100 in 2019 • 24% of the municipalities of Pomorskie, 21% of Małopolskie Voivodeships • A large number of cities of Lubelskie (Biała Podlaska), Wielkopolskie (Leszno), Mazowieckie (Siedlce) and Podlaskie (Suwałki) Voivodeships

Webb’s typology Number of units Spatial, demographic, economic and political profile

Population progress

Table 10.6 Population progress across the 2477 Polish municipalities in 1995–2019 according to Webb’s typology

234 M. Walaszek and J. Wilk

D

Population decline

E

70 (2.8%)

349 (14.1%)

114 (4.6%)

• A negative median value of the generalised total net migration rate (–1.27) but positive median value of the generalised natural increase rate (1.12) • 36% of the H-type and 32% of the A-type municipalities (positive natural increase rate) • 70% of the municipalities in this class had a population density lower than 100 in 2019 • 24% of the municipalities of Wielkopolskie, 23% of Lubuskie (e.g. the city of Gorzów Wielkopolski) and 21% of Kujawsko-Pomorskie Voivodeships • Some cities with county rights: Wrocław (Dolno´sl˛askie Voivodeship), Skierniewice (Łódzkie Voivodeship), Lublin (Lubelskie Voivodeship), Nowy S˛acz (Małopolskie Voivodeship), Ostroł˛eka (Mazowieckie Voivodeship), Łom˙za (Podlaskie Voivodeship), Gdansk, Gdynia (Pomorskie Voivodeship), Mysłowice (the Silesian Voivodeship) and Koszalin (Zachodniopomorskie Voivodeship) • The negative median value of the generalised actual increase rate (–2.30) is a result of the very low median value of the generalised natural increase rate (–3.44) despite the positive median value of the generalised total net migration rate • 70% of the municipalities in this class had a population density lower than 100 in 2019 • 27% of the municipalities in this class are located across Łódzkie Voivodeship ´ scie • Only two cities with county rights: the cities of Szczecin and Swinouj´ (Zachodniopomorskie Voivodeship) (continued)

• The positive median value of the generalised actual increase rate (3.04) is a result of the very high median value of the generalised total net migration rate (4.81) despite the negative median value of the generalised natural increase rate • 56% of the municipalities in this class had a population density lower than 100 in 2019 • Warsaw (the capital city of Poland) with the largest population across Poland • Only two cities with county rights (Warsaw, Cracow) but two of the largest economic, educational, cultural and political centres of Poland

Webb’s typology Number of units Spatial, demographic, economic and political profile

Population stagnation A-H

Population progress

Table 10.6 (continued)

10 Population Changes During the Demographic Transition 235

Population progress

Table 10.6 (continued)

318 (12.8%)

504 (20.3%)

F

G

• The very low median value of the generalised actual increase rate (–5.17) is a result of the very low median value of the generalised total net migration rate (–3.65) and the negative median value of the generalised natural increase rate • 30% of the urban municipalities across Poland • 31% of the most urbanised municipalities of Poland with a population density higher than ´ etochłowice 2000 in 2019, e.g. the city of Pozna´n, the city of Swi˛ • 36% of the Polish municipalities with county rights, e.g. Bydgoszcz, Grudzi˛adz, Włocławek (Kujawsko-Pomorskie Voivodeship), Piotrków Trybunalski (Łódzkie Voivodeship), Tarnów (Małopolskie Voivodeship), Przemy´sl (Podkarpackie Voivodeship), Słupsk (Pomorskie Voivodeship), Elbl˛ag (Warmi´nsko-Mazurskie Voivodeship) and Kalisz (Wielkopolskie Voivodeship) ´ askie Voivodeship (Bielsko-Biała, Bytom, Gliwice, Jaworzno, • The biggest cities of Sl˛ ´ askie, Ruda Sl˛ ´ aska, Siemianowice Sl˛ ´ askie, Swi˛ ´ etochłowice and Zabrze) Katowice, Piekary Sl˛ • 58% of the municipalities of Opolskie Voivodeship (e.g. the city of Opole), 42% of municipalities of Podlaskie Voivodeship, 36% of Lubelskie Voivodeship (e.g. the city of ´ etokrzyskie Voivodeship (e.g. the city of Kielce) and 26% of Chełm), 27% of Swi˛ Dolno´sl˛askie Voivodeship (e.g. the city of Legnica) (continued)

• The lowest median value of the generalised actual increase rate (–5.93) is a result of the very low median value of the generalised natural increase rate (–3.83) and the negative median value of the generalised total net migration rate • A large number of the municipalities of central Poland, including 46% of the municipalities of ´ etokrzyskie and 37% of Łódzkie (e.g. the city of Łód´z) Voivodeships Swi˛ • A large number of the municipalities of eastern Poland (28% of the municipalities of Lubelskie Voivodeship, 24% of Podlaskie Voivodeship) • 21% of the municipalities of Dolno´sl˛askie Voivodeship (e.g. the cities of Jelenia Gora, Walbrzych) • 66% of the municipalities in this class are rural • Only 8 cities with county rights, e.g. Chorzów, Cz˛estochowa, D˛abrowa Górnicza, Sosnowiec ´ askie Voivodeship) and Sopot (Pomorskie Voivodeship) (Sl˛

Webb’s typology Number of units Spatial, demographic, economic and political profile

236 M. Walaszek and J. Wilk

H

419 (16.9%)

• The negative median value of the generalised actual increase rate (−2.43) is a result of the lowest median value of the generalised total net migration rate (−4.06) despite the positive median value of the generalised natural increase rate • 22% of these municipalities are of the urban type, and 22% are of the urban–rural type • 19% of the least urbanised Polish municipalities with a population density lower than 100 in 2019 • A large number of the rural type and economically underdeveloped areas of Poland • A large number of the municipalities across northern Poland: 51% of the municipalities of Warmi´nsko-Mazurskie Voivodeship, 44% of Zachodniopomorskie Voivodeship, 24% of Kujawsko-Pomorskie Voivodeship (e.g. the city of Torun) and 20% of Pomorskie Voivodeship • 28% of the municipalities of Podkarpackie Voivodeship and 27% of Lubuskie Voivodeship ˙ ´ askie (Jastrz˛ebie-Zdrój, Rybnik, Tychy, Zory), Podkarpackie (Krosno, • Some cities of Sl˛ Tarnobrzeg), Mazowieckie (Radom, Płock), Wielkopolskie (Konin) and Lubelskie (Zamo´sc´ ) Voivodeships

Webb’s typology Number of units Spatial, demographic, economic and political profile

Source Own study based on the statistical data from the Local Data Bank of Statistics Poland

Population progress

Table 10.6 (continued)

10 Population Changes During the Demographic Transition 237

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Fig. 10.8 Population progress across the 2477 Polish municipalities in 1995–2019. Source Own study based on the statistical data from the Local Data Bank of Statistics Poland

of the 2477 Polish municipalities in 1995–2019 according to Webb’s typology. Whenever a city name is mentioned in Table 10.6, it means a city which has been granted county rights.11 Figure 10.8 presents the spatial distribution of the population progress across the 2477 Polish municipalities in 1995–2019. The biggest spatial areas of population growth or population stagnation are seen across the most populous areas of Poland usually around the economic, education, cultural and political centres of Poland. The most solid spatial cluster includes Warsaw, the capital city of Poland, and a lot of the municipalities from its nearest neighbouring counties (such as the West Warsaw, Nowy Dwór, Otwock, Piaseczno, Pruszków counties) as well as their neighbours ˙ (the Grodzisk, Grójec and Zyrardów counties). This is a result of the large economic influence of the city of Warsaw on its surroundings. A significant spatial cluster ´ askie (apart occurs across south-eastern Poland and includes the municipalities of Sl˛ from the city of Katowice), Małopolskie (e.g. the city of Cracow) and Podkarpackie (e.g. the city of Rzeszów) Voivodeships. Therefore, it covers one of the well-known educational and cultural centres of Poland. The largest spatial cluster is seen across a part of western Poland. This includes nearly the whole area of Pomorskie (e.g. the cities of Gda´nsk and Gdynia), the western 11

There was a three-stage administrative territorial division of Poland: 16 voivodeships, 380 counties and 2477 municipalities in 2019. There are three categories of municipalities: 302 urban, 1537 rural and 638 urban–rural. Urban municipalities are independent cities, and, furthermore, 66 of them have county rights. Cities with county rights are then municipalities with city status performing county functions. The other cities (840) are located across urban–rural municipalities.

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part of Kujawsko-Pomorskie (apart from the city of Bydgoszcz), nearly the whole area of Wielkopolskie (except for the city of Pozna´n) and the north-eastern part of Dolno´sl˛askie Voivodeships (e.g. the city of Wrocław). This spatial cluster definitely results from the influence of large and well-developed Polish cities. A very similar situation can be seen in the following three smallest clusters. Two of them occur across the eastern part of Poland: the city of Białystok and its surroundings across Podlaskie Voivodeship and the city of Lublin and its surroundings across Lubelskie Voivodeship. The last cluster is seen across northern Poland and is composed of the city of Olsztyn and its surroundings (Warmi´nsko-Mazurskie Voivodeship). The smallest class of depopulation is E which includes only 70 municipalities (2.8%). The most serious problem of the depopulated E municipalities is having negative values of the generalised natural increase rate which are not compensated by positive values of the generalised total net migration rate. This may result from the population ageing process as a natural inhibitor of procreation and may finally reduce the number of births. The depopulated F and G municipalities suffer from both, a negative generalised total net migration rate and a negative generalised natural increase rate. These issues are certainly closely interrelated. Large emigration of young people to find a job may considerably reduce the number of births, presupposing a constant mortality rate; this results in a negative natural increase. This is a very serious socio-economic problem, because only better living and working conditions may inhibit the negative demographic processes occurring in these municipalities. Such a situation is typical of the municipalities located across central, central-eastern and south-western Poland. The biggest problem of the depopulated H municipalities is that the positive generalised natural increase rate do not compensate for the negative generalised total net migration rate. Therefore, their populations are probably still demographically young but are characterised by a large emigration of young people. This may result in a reallocation of some of them to the G type in the future. Large spatial clusters of these municipalities are also located in north-western Poland and in north-eastern Poland. Depopulation is not a marginal problem in Poland. Large areas of Poland suffer from a population decline whereas others struggle with overpopulation. Moreover, depopulation is no longer a phenomenon characteristic of rural areas exclusively. It has been expanding to small and medium-size towns and cities across regions characterised by migration outflow. A lot of formerly industrial, highly urbanised cities are now depopulating. Young people in these municipalities, mainly those with higher education, are more likely to emigrate to the more thriving metropolitan areas. Meanwhile, the polarisation of cities is worsening as a result of the processes of globalisation which tend to concentrate capital and activities of high added value in big cities and their areas of influence, thus marginalising the smaller urban and rural areas. Moreover, those areas with advanced population ageing are also vulnerable to depopulation. Population ageing that comes about with the emigration of young people and falling birth rates must lead to depopulation in the future. Depopulation entails very large social and economic consequences which may be irreversible or which may require huge expenditures and activities in the long

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perspective to reverse the population decline and economic marginalisation and to stimulate population growth and social and economic development. For the most depopulated areas, effective government-led policy interventions are needed, as well as European Union funds and regional authority activities. Public aid is crucial to identify or create the economic potential of an area which makes it more attractive to live and work in, to develop information and communication technology, to develop social services and infrastructure, to protect a region’s culture and environment and to promote this area in general. Very often, local authorities are the engine of development, and partnerships between public and private sectors become a core issue.

10.3.2 Population Ageing The previous chapter concerns the quantitative changes in the population within the last three decades which, in consequence, has resulted in the depopulation of some areas across Poland and, without relevant social and economic policy, may lead to urban or rural shrinkage. But this chapter discusses the structural changes in the population across Poland and concerns the impact of population ageing across Poland, which is likely to have been of major significance over the last three decades. We are going to see how the age structure across Poland has been evolving, how rapidly the populations of Polish regions have been ageing within the last thirty years and where this problem is the most serious. The socio-economic development of a country is inseparably intertwined with its population ageing. Population ageing relates to the disturbances in the age distribution which results in an increasing proportion of elderly people in a population. This is also due to a decrease in fertility and mortality which are both followed by reductions in the number of births and an increase in life expectancy (Uhlenberg 2009; Preston et al. 1989). It is mostly determined by social, economic, cultural, environmental and other factors. Some of these factors include changes to a family model, social norms, a value system and life priorities (e.g. the intentional delay of procreation in time, more and more childless marriages), better living and working conditions (e.g. leading a healthier lifestyle, progress in medicine and better health care), globalisation, e.g. international labour migration of young people, etc. These, firstly, have an influence on reproductive behaviour and, additionally, improve peoples’ longevity (Prskawetz and Lindh 2011; Lindh and Malmberg 2009; Martinez-Fernandez et al. 2012). Population ageing affects the situation of a country in terms of its financial, social and economic conditions. Without any long-term and comprehensive policy, it may disturb the retirement system, make social systems inefficient and lead to a supply–demand gap in the labour market, etc. (see Magnus 2008; Weil 1997; United Nations 2013; Légaré 2006). Martinez-Fernandez et al. (2012) see population ageing as one of the most substantial factors of global demographic change and the shrinkage of cities and regions. Figures 10.9 and 10.10 present two boxplot population pyramids13 for Poland in 2002 and 2019 to compare the difference in their shapes. These are followed up with explanations of their conditions and a discussion of their consequences. The

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Fig. 10.9 Boxplot population pyramid of the 2478 Polish municipalities in 2002 (%). Source Own study based on the statistical data from the Local Data Bank of Statistics Poland

Fig. 10.10 Boxplot population pyramid of 2477 Polish municipalities in 2019 (%). Source Own study based on the statistical data from the Local Data Bank of Statistics Poland

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population pyramid for the year 2002 is constrictive at the bottom and expands for the 10–22 and 40–54 age groups as a result of two baby-booms in the ‘60s and ‘80s. It is also very slim at the top for people aged 65 years or over. The top is similar in its shape to a copula. There is also a large disproportion of males in comparison to the female population within this age group. This is because of the high number of (especially male) victims during the Second World War (1939–1945). Consistently low birth rates and higher life expectancy are transforming the shape of Poland’s age pyramid. The population pyramid for 2019 is similar in its shape to a spindle in comparison to the population pyramid for 2002 whose shape resembles a Christmas tree. The proportions of the productive age and pre-productive age population have notably decreased while the proportion of retired people has increased. The shrinking population in the reproductive age together with certain social issues (e.g. the tendency to procreation delay and having fewer children) have resulted in a very low fertility rate and a decrease in the number of births in Poland within the last few decades. There is a disproportion of males in comparison to the female population within the oldest age groups as a consequence of the shorter life expectancy of males in comparison to females in Poland. The most important change is the marked transition towards a much older population structure, a development which is already apparent in some Polish municipalities. As a result, the proportion of people in the productive age in Poland is shrinking while the relative number of those retired is growing. The share of older persons in the total population will probably increase significantly in the coming decades, as a greater proportion of the post-war baby-boom generation reaches retirement. This will, in turn, lead to an increased burden on those of working age to provide for the social expenditure required by the ageing population for a range of related services. A comparison of the boxplot population pyramids for the years 2002 and 2019 proves a general tendency towards population ageing within the last three decades including some disparities of population structures across Poland. This study presents how the Polish municipalities are ageing (see also Bivand et al. 2017; Wilk 2014; Wilk ´ nski 2018: 100; Wi´sniewski et al. 2016). We concentrated and Pietrzak 2014; Sleszy´ on the spatial diversification of the population structure in Poland. Figure 10.11 illustrates the distribution of the 2477 Polish municipalities according to the share of the population aged 65 years or over in 201912 and its increase between the years 1990 and 2019.13 Most of these show an increasing share of elderly population over the last three decades (median value 3.7 perc. points) and a relatively high proportion of elderly people in the total population, mostly between 10 and 20%, with a median value of 16.7%. The proportion of elderly people (aged 65 years or over) in the population indicates the demographic age of the population. We can distinguish young (between 0 and 5%), semi-mature (between 5 and 10%), mature (between 10 and 15%), ageing 12

The share of the population aged 65 years or over is the proportion of people aged 65 years or over in the total population of a municipality in 2019 (%). 13 The increase in the share of the population aged 65 years or over is the difference between the proportions of people aged 65 years or over in 2019 and 1990 (percentage points).

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243

Fig. 10.11 Share of the population aged 65 years or over in 2019 and its increase between 1990 and 2019 across the 2477 Polish municipalities. Source Own study based on the statistical data from the Local Data Bank of the Statistics Poland

(between 15 and 20%), old (between 20 and 25%), aged (between 25 and 30%) and the oldest (30% or over) populations across the 2477 Polish municipalities in 2019. However, the increase in the share of the elderly population in the population indicates how quickly the population is ageing. We can distinguish between decreasing sharply (−5 p. p. or under), decreasing (between −5 and −1 p. p.), stagnant (between −1 and 1 p. p.), slowly increasing (between 1 and 5 p. p.), moderately increasing (between 5 and 10 p. p.) and rapidly increasing (10 p. p. or over) elderly population and a comparison of these for 2019 and 1990. Table 10.7 presents the share of the elderly population in 2019 and its increase in the last three decades. The population of only 13% of Polish municipalities (318) could be classified as old (18) or aged (300) in 2019. In the case of 58% of municipalities, the number of elderly people increased moderately (70) or rapidly (114) in between 1990 and 2019. An ageing population was typical of 60% of Polish municipalities (1494) in 2019, and in the case of 81% municipalities, the population of the elderly increased slowly (668) or moderately (549) in the period between 1990 and 2019. The rest of the Polish municipalities (27%) had moderate populations in 2019, and most of these (70%) have presented a slowly increasing elderly population over the last three decades. Figure 10.12 shows the spatial distribution of the population ageing across the 2477 Polish municipalities in 1990–2019 and corresponds to the classes distinguished with different colours across Table 10.7.

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Fig. 10.12 Population ageing across the 2477 Polish municipalities in the years 1990–2019. Source Own study based on the statistical data from the Local Data Bank of Statistics Poland Table 10.7 The share of the population aged 65 years or over in 2019 and its increase between the years 1990 and 2019 across the 2477 Polish municipalities Share of Increase in share of population aged 65 years or over in 1990–2019a (p. p.) population aged 65 years or over (– ∞, – 5] ( – 5, – 1] ( –1, 1) [1, 5) [5, 10) [10, 15) [15, ∞) in 2019 (%)

a

Total

[0, 5)

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

[5, 10)

–

1

3

3

1

–

–

8

[10, 15)

1

14

88

470

84

–

–

656

[15, 20)

–

26

177

668

549

73

1

1494

[20, 25)

–

7

38

81

63

106

5

300

[25, 30)

–

–

1

7

4

3

–

15

[30, ∞)

–

–

–

–

3

–

–

3

Total

1

48

307

1229

704

182

6

2477

The Urz˛edów municipality was established in 2019; therefore, the increase in the share of the population aged 65 years or over in 1990–2019 cannot be calculated. This municipality was then classified to the interval (−1, 1) Source Own study based on the statistical data from the Local Data Bank of Statistics Poland

10 Population Changes During the Demographic Transition

245

Table 10.8 distinguishes the demographic age of the populations across the 2477 Polish municipalities and their tendencies towards population ageing over the last three decades with some spatial, demographic, economic and political profiles. Most of Polish municipalities belong to one of the three largest groups. The populations of almost one fifth (19.1%) of Polish municipalities are mature and have experienced a slow increase in the elderly population over the last three decades. Therefore, there is no explicit perspective to think that they will attain “the ageing population” classification in the nearest future. This group mainly includes rural areas and towns of the northern and north-western Poland. More than one third (27%) of Polish municipalities had an ageing population in 1990, and there was a slow increase in the elderly population in 1990–2019. This is typical of rural areas across eastern, western and central Poland. However, a lot of Polish municipalities (25.2%) were relatively young in 1990 and recorded a rapid increase in the elderly population at that time. This is typical of highly urbanised areas across western, northern and southern Poland and a lot of large and economically well-developed cities. The most serious situation can be observed across those municipalities (11%) whose populations are old or aged with a successive increase in the elderly population. This is typical for a lot of Polish cities. Some of these have experienced a moderate or slow increase in the proportion of elderly people because of losing members of the young population due to suburbanisation (e.g. Warsaw—the capital city of Poland, the cities of Pozna´n, Wrocław, Cracow and Gda´nsk). Therefore, this is a natural process of city expansion rather than genuine population ageing. But a lot of Polish cities suffer from serious demographic problems due to the large labour migration outflow of young people, e.g. the city of Łód´z. The majority of industrial ´ askie Voivodeship are also and previously highly urbanised cities located across Sl˛ following this trend. Our study results do not leave any doubts that Poland’s population is demographically ageing, but there are some areas with very serious disturbances in their age structures. A direct consequence of population ageing is the overpopulation of elderly people in relation to the population of younger people. This results in changes in the structures of revenues and expenditures, an increase in demand for healthcare and social welfare services, a decrease in economic activity, changes in consumption across such areas, etc. Such a situation imposes the revision of public policies on national and local administrations, e.g. reform of the retirement and social security systems, improvement of the social infrastructure and healthcare services and expansion of social, educational and cultural services for the elderly people. However, some activities which stimulate the economic activity, attract investors, create new work places and develop social services and infrastructure have to be undertaken to prevent a subsequent migration outflow of young people and make such areas attractive for young people to live and immigrate.

Ageing population

Mature population

668 (27.0%)

Slowly increasing

85 (3.4%)

Moderately increasing

202 (8.2%)

473 (19.1%)

Slowly increasing

Decreasing or stagnant

107 (4.3%)

Decreasing or stagnant

(continued)

• 33% of the Polish municipalities of the rural type and 24% of the Polish municipalities of the urban–rural type • A large number of the municipalities of eastern Poland (46% of Podkarpackie, ´ etokrzyskie Voivodeship) 35% of Podlaskie, 32% of Lubelskie, 29% of the Swi˛ • A large number of the municipalities of central Poland (46% of the municipalities of Łódzkie, 33% of the Mazowieckie Voivodeships) • A large number of the municipalities of western Poland (31% of Kujawsko-Pomorskie, 30% of Dolno´sl˛askie, 28% of the Wielkopolskie Voivodeships)

• 21% of the municipalities of Lubelskie and 21% of Łódzkie Voivodeship • 8 applicants (less than 2 p. p. decrease in the elderly population) to “the mature population” group in the future, e.g. Boleslaw (rural municipality) with −4.2 p. p. (Małopolskie Voivodeship)

• Among the youngest populations (less than 10% of the elderly population) in ´ askie Voivodeship) Poland: rural municipality, i.e. Mied´zna 9.3% (Sl˛ • 11 applicants (7% of elderly population or over) to “the ageing population” group in the future, e.g. Manowo with 9.2% (Zachodniopomorskie Voivodeship), ´ askie Ł˛eczna with 8.2% (Lubelskie Voivodeship) and Wyry with 8.0% (Sl˛ Voivodeship)

• 26% of the Polish municipalities of the rural type • A large number of the municipalities of north-western Poland (40% of Wielkopolskie, 24% of Zachodniopomorskie, 27% of Lubuskie Voivodeship) • A large number of the municipalities of northern Poland (50% of the municipalities of Pomorskie, 37% of Kujawsko-Pomorskie, 33% of Warmi´nsko-Mazurskie Voivodeship) • 37% of the municipalities of Małopolskie Voivodeship (southern Poland) • Some of the youngest populations (less than 10% elderly population) across Poland: two rural municipalities, i.e. Kołbaskowo with 9.7% (Zachodniopomorskie Voivodeship) and Luzino with 9.0% (Pomorskie Voivodeship)

• The highest elderly population decrease across Polish municipalities: Kleszczów −6.4 p. p. (Łódzkie Voivodeship) • Some of the youngest populations (less than 10% of the elderly population) across Poland: three rural municipalities, i.e. Kleszczewo with 9.1%, Komorniki with 9.4%, Dopiewo with 9.7% (Wielkopolskie Voivodeship) and Słopnice with 9.7% (Małopolskie Voivodeship)

Demographic age of population in 2019 Increase in elderly population in 1990–2019 Number of units Spatial, demographic, economic and political profile

Table 10.8 Typology of population ageing across the 2477 Polish municipalities in the years 1990–2019

246 M. Walaszek and J. Wilk

Old or aged population

623 (25.2%)

46 (1.9%)

Rapidly or moderately increasing

Decreasing or stagnant

(continued)

• The highest decrease of the elderly population: rural municipalities, i.e. Sławatycze with −3.8 p. p. (Lubelskie Voivodeship) and Chotcza with −3.5 p. p. (Mazowieckie Voivodeship) • One of the oldest populations: Bielsk Podlaski with 29.0% (Podlaskie Voivodeship)

• 74 applicants (10 p. p. or more increase in the elderly population) to “the old population” in the future, e.g. Hel with 15 p. p. (Pomorskie Voivodeship), the ˙ ´ askie Voivodeship), Człuchów town with 13.2 p. p. city of Zory with 13.6 p. p. (Sl˛ (Pomorskie Voivodeship) and Lutowiska with 13.1 p. p. (Podkarpackie Voivodeship) • 53% of the Polish municipalities of the urban type and 48% of the Polish municipalities of the urban–rural type • 44% of Polish cities with county rights, e.g. Biała Podlaska, Zamo´sc´ (Lubelskie Voivodeship), Skierniewice (Łódzkie Voivodeship), Ostroł˛eka, Radom, Siedlce (Mazowieckie Voivodeship), Białystok, Łom˙za, Suwałki (Podlaskie Voivodeship), Leszno (Wielkopolskie Voivodeship) and Rzeszów (Podkarpackie Voivodeship) • A large number of municipalities of south-western Poland (69% of the municipalities of Opolskie, 26% of Dolno´sl˛askie Voivodeship) • A large number of the municipalities of north-western Poland: 57% of the municipalities of Zachodniopomorskie and 52% of Lubuskie (the cities of Gorzów Wielkopolski, Zielona Góra) Voivodeships • A large number of the municipalities of northern Poland: 44% of the municipalities of Warmi´nsko-Mazurskie (the cities of Elblag, Olsztyn), 24% of Pomorskie and 24% of Kujawsko-Pomorskie (the cities of Grudzi˛adz, Toru´n) Voivodeships • A large number of the municipalities of southern Poland: 47% of the ´ askie Voivodeship (the cities of Chorzów, Jaworzno, municipalities of Sl˛ ´ askie, Ruda Sl˛ ´ aska, Rybnik, Swietochłowice, ´ Mysłowice, Piekary Sl˛ Tychy, ˙ Zabrze, Zory) and 21% of Małopolskie (the cities of Cracow, Nowy Sacz) Voivodeships

Demographic age of population in 2019 Increase in elderly population in 1990–2019 Number of units Spatial, demographic, economic and political profile

Table 10.8 (continued)

10 Population Changes During the Demographic Transition 247

114 (4.6%)

Rapidly increasing

Source Own study based on the statistical data from the Local Data Bank of Statistics Poland

158 (6.4%)

Moderately or slowly increasing

• 111 municipalities from among 188 Polish municipalities with the highest elderly population increases: Głogów with 15.4 p. p. (Dolno´sl˛askie Voivodeship), Ustka with 15.8 p. p. (Pomorskie Voivodeship), Jastrz˛ebie Zdrój with 16.2 p. p. ´ askie Voivodeship) and Puławy with 16.7 p. p. (Lubelskie Voivodeship) (Sl˛ • The highest elderly population increase across Poland: Lubin with 17.9 p. p. (Dolno´sl˛askie Voivodeship) • Some of the oldest populations across the Polish municipalities: the city of Sopot with 27.7%, Ciechocinek with 26.5% (Pomorskie Voivodeship) and Polanica-Zdrój with 26.3% (Dolno´sl˛askie Voivodeship) • 33% of the Polish municipalities of the urban type • 47% of Polish cities with county rights: e.g. Legnica, Wałbrzych, Jelenia Góra (Dolno´sl˛askie Voivodeship), Chełm, Lublin (Lubelskie Voivodeship), ´ askie, Jastrz˛ebie-Zdrój, Bytom, Gliwice, D˛abrowa Górnicza, Siemianowice Sl˛ ´ askie Voivodeship), Płock Bielsko-Biała, Katowice, Cz˛estochowa, Sosnowiec (Sl˛ (Mazowieckie Voivodeship), Przemy´sl, Tarnobrzeg, Krosno (Podkarpackie Voivodeship), Włoclawek, Bydgoszcz (Kujawsko-Pomorskie Voivodeship), ´ Opole (Opolskie Voivodeship), Szczecin, Swinouj´ scie, Koszalin (Zachodniopomorskie Voivodeship), Słupsk, Gdynia (Pomorskie Voivodeship), Tarnów (Małopolskie Voivodeship), Kalisz, Konin (Wielkopolskie Voivodeship) ´ etokrzyskie Voivodeship) and Kielce (Swi˛

• 14 municipalities from among 18 municipalities with the oldest populations across Poland, e.g. Dubicze Cerkiewne with 36.3%, Orla with 35.9% and Czy˙ze with 33.6% (Podlaskie Voivodeship) ´ etokrzyskie Voivodeship • 25% of the municipalities of Swi˛ • Warsaw—the capital city of Poland with 20.7% (Mazowieckie Voivodeship) • The cities of Pozna´n (Wielkopolskie Voivodeship), Wrocław (Dolno´sl˛askie Voivodeship), Gda´nsk (Pomorskie Voivodeship), Piotrków Trybunalski and Łód´z (Łódzkie Voivodeship)

Demographic age of population in 2019 Increase in elderly population in 1990–2019 Number of units Spatial, demographic, economic and political profile

Table 10.8 (continued)

248 M. Walaszek and J. Wilk

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249

10.4 The Demographic Situation of Poland as Compared to that of Other EU Countries The post-socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe have experienced particularly dynamic demographic changes since the early 1990s, manifested, inter alia, by a decline in the number of marriages and births, an increase in the number of informal relationships and the number of children from extra-marital relationships and an increase in migration (Philipov and Dorbritz, 2003). The increase in women’s professional activities and the decrease in the number of their children have resulted in a low birth rate and, consequently, in a decrease in the population of many European Union countries. The process of the depopulation of European Union countries shows very strong inter-regional differences, both in rural areas (Labianca and Navarro, 2019) and in cities (Hospers 2014). According to studies, almost 42% of large European cities (population of 200,000 and more) are subject to the process of “shrinking” (Turok and Mykhnenko 2007). In Central and Eastern Europe, the shrinking cities now represent the overwhelming majority, as three out of four cities have seen their population decline (Haase et al. 2016). According to Eurostat data, in the years 2009–2020, the greatest population loss among the European Union countries was observed mainly in the Baltic States, i.e. Lithuania (dynamic of change = 87.8) and Latvia (88.2), as well as the countries of south-eastern Europe, i.e. Bulgaria (93.1), Croatia (94.2) and Romania (94.5). Poland in the years 2009–2020 was also characterised by a decrease in population size (dynamic ratio = 99.5), but not as significant as in the above-mentioned countries, which indicates that Poland’s situation in terms of depopulation is not as dramatic as that of other countries of this part of Europe. The countries with the highest population growth in the European Union in the years 2009–2020 included Luxembourg (population dynamics = 126.9) and Malta (population dynamics = 125.2). According to the European Union Report (Lutz et al. 2018), in 2015–2060, the population of the EU-28 countries would remain at a similar level, slightly increasing from 507.5 million to 507.7 million people, and the trajectory of change of the EU-28 population size will have a convex shape reaching its maximum around the year 2035. According to the EU report, the population would grow in the years 2015–2035 and reach 511.6 million, mainly as a result of immigration and increasing life expectancy, but after the year 2035, the population will start decreasing at an accelerating rate. The birth rate in Poland is quite high compared to the countries of the European Union. In 2019, it was at a level of 9.9‰. The rate was higher only in the Czech Republic, Denmark and Slovakia—10.5‰, Belgium—10.1‰ and Luxembourg— 10‰. The lowest birth rate in the year 2019 was observed in Italy—7‰. With regards to the death rate in 2019, Poland was ranked at a high second position among the EU countries (the death rate was 10.8‰; only in Portugal was this figure higher— 10.9‰). The lowest death rate in 2019 was found in Ireland—6.3‰. The natural increase in Poland in 2019 was negative and amounted to −0.9‰. The highest natural increase rate in 2019 among the European Union countries was in Ireland—5.8‰. The lowest values of the natural increase rate are characteristic of the countries of

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south-eastern Europe, i.e. Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Hungary and Croatia, as well as the Baltic Sea countries: Lithuania and Latvia (2019, Fig. 10.13). Poland is also characterised by a negative, but slightly higher natural increase than in the abovementioned countries, and this group of countries also includes Estonia, Portugal and Germany. High positive natural increase characterises highly developed countries, as well as typical immigration countries, such as Ireland, Sweden and France. Among the countries of the European Union, in 2018, Poland was characterised by a low, positive migration balance (the migration rate per 1000 people was 0.6‰). The lowest migration balance rates were characteristic of: Croatia (−3.3‰), Romania (−3.0‰), Latvia (−2.5‰), Lithuania (−1.2‰) and Bulgaria (−0.5‰), while the highest ones, in turn, were observed in Malta (36‰) and Luxembourg (17.7‰). As Rybak (2016) points out, Poland has a completely different situation with respect to immigration than most EU countries, as Poland is not among the countries with a very large number of immigrants, as it is not universally attractive enough to work and settle, for economic, social and cultural reasons (Rybak 2016: 23). Typical immigration countries in the European Union that are of particular interest to immigrants include post-colonial countries, i.e. France, Germany, Sweden, etc. which are open to receiving foreigners as they treat immigration as an important social, economic and cultural factor of the country’s development (cf. Geddens and Scholten, 2016).

Fig. 10.13 Natural increase in the countries of the European Union in 2019. Source Own study based on the statistical data from Eurostat

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In comparison with EU countries, Poland is characterised by a very low fertility rate, which does not guarantee the simple replacement of generations (i.e. 1.46 in 2018), after Malta (1.23), Spain (1.26), Italy (1.29), Cyprus (1.32), Greece (1.35), Luxembourg (1.38), Finland (1.41) and Portugal (1.42). Central and Eastern European countries have slightly higher fertility rates than Poland, e.g. for the Czech Republic, it is 1.71, for Slovakia 1.54, for Lithuania 1.63 and for Estonia 1.67. Croatia and Austria have fertility rates which approximate that of Poland in the closest possible manner (1.47 for both countries). With regards to the fertility rates, it is clearly possible to notice the concentration of countries with the lowest fertility rates in Southern and Central and Eastern European countries (Fig. 10.14). It is important to note that in none of the European Union countries does the fertility rate reach a level which would guarantee a simple replacement of generations (the rate should be at least 2.1). In Poland, the average age of a woman’s delivery of her first child is 29.6 years and is one of the lowest in the European Union countries (in 2018, according to Eurostat data, the average age of a woman giving birth to her first child was lower only in Bulgaria—27.7 years of age, Romania—28, Slovakia—28.8). A change in the family model related, among other things, to an increase in the birth rate from

Fig. 10.14 Fertility rate in the countries of the European Union in 2018. Source Own study based on the statistical data from Eurostat

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extra-marital relationships has been observed in the countries of the European Union. When compared to the EU countries, Poland has one of the lowest birth rates with regards to children born from extra-marital relationships—26.4% in 2018. The birth rate in Greece was only 11.1% and in Croatia 20.7%. By comparison, the country with the highest percentage of extra-marital births is France, with 60.4% in 2018. When compared to other European Union countries, Poland is a relatively young country (Fig. 10.15). The percentage of people over 65 years of age in Poland in 2019 was 17.7%; lower percentages were only characteristic of Ireland—14.1%, Luxembourg—14.4%, Slovakia—16% and Cyprus—16.1%. The oldest EU countries are Italy—22.8% and Greece—22%. Unfortunately, the life expectancy in Poland is among the lowest in the European Union, with an average of 77.7 years for both sexes in total. It is only lower in Bulgaria—75 years, Latvia—75.1 years, Romania—75.3 years, Lithuania—76 years, Hungary—76.2 years and Slovakia— 77.4 years. The citizens of the European Union who enjoy the most longevity are Spaniards—83.5 years and Italians—83.4 years. In comparison with the European Union member states, between 2009 and 2020, Poland’s population decreased by 5%, but this decrease was not as significant as in the case of the Baltic States (Lithuania and Latvia) or the countries of southeastern Europe (Romania and Bulgaria). The high birth rate, the early age of a

Fig. 10.15 Percentage of people above the age of 65 in the countries of the European Union in 2019. Source Own study based on the statistical data from Eurostat

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woman’s delivery of her first child and the relatively young population are positive factors from the demographic point of view when compared to other European Union countries. Unfortunately, these factors do not translate into an increase in fertility rates in Poland, which is one of the lowest in the countries of the European Union. In comparison with the countries of the European Union, Poles are some of the shortest living citizens of the European Union; statistically, they live about six years shorter than the Spaniards, who live the longest in the European Union.

10.5 Conclusions Poland is a country where, after the 1990s, changes typical of developing countries have been observed in the family model. They are expressed in a delayed age of marriage, a drop in fertility rate and an increase in the percentage of extra-marital births, i.e. the demographic phenomena and processes characteristic of the theory of the second demographic transition. Although, in comparison with the countries of the European Union, Poland is still characterised by a high birth rate and early age at which a woman gives birth to her first child, the fertility rate remains one of the lowest in the European Union, and the Polish population is demographically ageing rapidly. There are four basic groups of demographic processes in Poland: 1. 2.

3.

4.

depopulation of peripheral regions (mainly due to the migration outflow of the population), concentration of the population in the most economically developed agglomerations (mainly associated with increased migration flows) and at the same time internal de-concentration and spatial development of the agglomerations (suburbanisation), demographic ageing of the population (not only in rural areas, but also in urban agglomerations, including many cities with county rights) and increased life expectancy, changes in the family model, delaying the moment of procreation, a low birth rate that does not guarantee to maintain the current population size, a drop in the number of marriages in favour of informal unions and single households.

All of these demographic trends are a great motivation to revise and develop profamily policy, healthcare policy, fiscal and monetary policies, pension system, etc. Some bottom-up initiatives are also undertaken by local administrative units, public institutions (e.g. universities), private enterprises and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Such activities include financial support, the development of social services and some other facilities for people, organisations and regions. Special attention is paid to depopulation, particularly of underdeveloped, rural or peripheral areas. Some international and national programmes and local initiatives are undertaken to make such areas more attractive for people to live and work, for entrepreneurs to develop their businesses and for investors to support social

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and economic development. The Polish Strategy for Responsible Development 2030 includes a wider support for areas suffering from social and economic problems. The European Union offers the Operational Programme Infrastructure and Environment to support the investments in technical, transport and social infrastructure. Some regional programmes have also been launched. Moreover, people are encouraged to pay their income taxes in the municipality they live in rather than in the municipality where they work, or in the municipality they are formally registered. This is because almost 40% of personal income tax (PIT) and 7% of corporate income tax (CIT) revenues support a municipality budget. This is very important, particularly, for the suburbs to have their own financial funds for self-development. Population ageing is a natural demographic process for well-developed countries. This results from better living and working conditions, better access to healthcare services, the public awareness of how to live healthier, etc. Therefore, the proportion of elderly people in the population is increasing. Many initiatives are undertaken to prevent the social exclusion of the elderly and to provide the financial support, so that they remain physically and mentally active. This is why the retirement pension is successively uprated, and the lowest retirement pension is increased. Moreover, an extra retirement pension (so-called a thirteenth retirement pension) has been paid to each retirement pensioner since 2020. The elderly have support in their health care, e.g. health prophylaxis programmes which offer gratuitous medical diagnoses, gratuitous pharmaceuticals. Many local administrative units offer gratuitous public transport for the elderly. Some trainings to improve their computer and foreign language skills are offered, some social events (e.g. tourism excursions) for the elderly are organised, and help in daily affairs such as shopping is also offered. A relevant pro-family policy is very important to support Polish families in their living and working conditions. Since 2016, one of such measures has been the socalled Family 500+ government programme, which gives each family monthly an extra financial benefit for each underage child. Another government programme is the so-called School Starter Kit launched in 2019 which subsidises purchases of school books and education materials. The aim of “The National Housing Programme” launched in 2016 is to make housing more attainable for people and improve living conditions, e.g. financial subsidies for young people taking a home loan, renting a flat, etc. Moreover, maternity leave has been extended since 2016, e.g. from 20 to 32 weeks for giving birth to one baby. Maternity leave had been applied exclusively to women but, since 2010, it has been also given to men. The so-called Big Family Card gives some discounts and other entitlements for families with three children or more regarding food, fuel, bank, sport, tourism enterprises and institutions, etc. More and more bottom-up initiatives assist Polish families as well, e.g. many local government units offer gratuitous public transport for minors; private enterprises and public institutions may be given a financial public subsidy for organising a kindergarten and nursery for their employees’ children; and free dental care has been restored to public schools since 2019. Despite the relatively stable population of Poland between the years 1990 and 2019, the demographic future of the country is unfortunately not optimistic. According to the demographic forecast prepared by Statistics Poland (GUS), in 2050,

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the population of Poland will be about 34 million people, which means that it will decrease by about 4.5 million people when compared to the year 2019. It is predicted that such a situation, together with the ongoing process of population ageing and the prolongation of life expectancy, will have negative consequences in many areas related to the functioning of the state in terms of the labour market, health care and the pension system. In view of the negative demographic processes, it is important to shape the current development policy of the country in a forward-looking manner and to perceive the emerging problems as developmental challenges. As Lutz et al. (2006) point out, all populations with long life expectancies and low long-term population growth rates will be ageing, and the only way to avoid ageing is to improve the level of health care or to increase the population significantly and in a continuous manner.

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´ Sleszy´ nski P, Ba´nski J, Degórski M, Komornicki T (2017) Delimitacja obszarów strategicznej interwencji pa´nstwa: obszarów wzrostu i obszarów problemowych [Delimitation of areas of strategic state intervention: Areas of growth and problem areas]. Prace Geograficzne, 260, Instytut Geografii i Przestrzennego Zagospodarowania PAN, Warszawa Such-Pyrgiel M (2018) The socio-demographic changes in contemporary Polish society—selected issues. Politické vedy 21(4):162–177. (online) Szyma´nczak J (2012) Starzenie si˛e polskiego społecze´nstwa—wybrane aspekty demograficzne [Aging of Polish society - selected demographic aspects]. Studia BAS 2(30):9–28 Turok I, Mykhnenko V (2007) The trajectories of European cities, 1960–2005. Cities (London, England) 24(3):165–182 Uhlenberg P (2009) International handbook of population aging. Springer, Dordrecht. doi https:// doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8356-3 United Nations (2013) World population ageing 2013. ST/ESA/SER.A/34, Department of Economic and Social Affairs Van de Kaa DJ (1987) Europe’s second demographic transition. Population Reference Bureau, Washington Van de Kaa DJ (1994) The second demographic transition revisited: theories and expectations. In: Beets G (ed) Population and family in the low countries 1993: late fertility and other current issues. NIDI/CBGS Publication, no. 30, Swets and Zeitlinger, Berwyn, Pennsylvania/Amsterdam, pp 81–126 Webb JW (1963) The natural and migrational components of population changes in England and Wales, pp. 1921–1931. Econ Geogr 39(2):130–148 Weil DN (1997) The economics of population aging. In: Rosenzweig MR, Stark O (eds) Handbook of population and family economics. Elsevier, New York, pp 967–1014 Wilk J (2014) Application of classification trees in the analysis of the population ageing process. Arch Data Sci (Ser A) 1(1):57–76 Wilk J, Pietrzak MB (2014) The analysis of population aging phenomena in Poland in spatial perspective. Stat Transition New Ser 15(1):153–170 ´ Wi´sniewski P, Szejgiec-Kolenda B, Sleszy´ nski P (2016) Population changes and population ageing in Poland between 1960 and 2011. Geogr Pol 89:259–265 Zygmunt A (2017) Changes in family formation processes in Poland in the light of the concept of the second demographic transition. In: Juszczyk-Frelkiewicz K, Libor G (eds) Contemporary ´ askiego, Katowice, pp 28–39 family—comparative perspective. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Sl˛

Part III

Transformation of the Country’s Space

Chapter 11

Changes in the Spatial Planning System Łukasz Mikuła

Abstract The aim of this chapter is to identify the key elements that make up the general overhaul of the planning system after 1990 and to identify the effects they have had on the implementation of land use policies. The transformation of the system of spatial planning was one of the key factors shaping the contemporary urban and rural landscape of post-transition Poland. The shift from the authoritarian, hierarchical and omnipotent approach of the socialist period to the decentralised and democratised, but at the same time, voluntarist and uncoordinated planning of the transformation era has completely changed the function and socio-political role of planning. The explanation of the reasons for the course of the evolution and current status of planning in Poland should be sought in the practices of the socialist period, which provide the vital background for the liberal counteraction to planning after 1990. The most significant consequences of the systemic decisions taken during the period of the anti-regulatory reaction of the 1990s came to light with full force only after 1 January 2004 in connection with the entry into force of successive statutory changes. The changes in the system of spatial planning in Poland have left an indelible mark on the processes of spatial development. Unfortunately, this impact has been mostly negative and over the last 30 years has been one of the root causes of chaotic and uncoordinated urbanisation and suburbanisation. Keywords Local and regional planning · Socialism · Liberalisation · Land use · Local zoning plan · Spatial development

11.1 Introduction The transformation of the system of spatial planning was one of the key factors shaping the contemporary urban and rural landscape of post-transition Poland. The shift from the authoritarian, hierarchical and omnipotent approach of the socialist Ł. Mikuła (B) Faculty of Human Geography and Planning, Adam Mickiewicz University, B. Krygowskiego 10, 61-680 Pozna´n, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Churski and T. Kaczmarek (eds.), Three Decades of Polish Socio-economic Transformations, Economic Geography, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06108-0_11

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period to the decentralised and democratised, but at the same time, voluntarist and uncoordinated planning of the transformation era has completely changed the function and socio-political role of planning. The systemic changes to the planning model after 1990, although introduced in a few stages, subsequently proved deeply ingrained and largely resistant to attempts at reform, the need for which proved obvious after the identification of flawed legislative solutions. Although the need for a far-reaching reform of the planning system is now evident to all planning practitioners (local governments, officials, urban planners, architects, investors and social organisations), the current system displays a great deal of inertia and is one of the basic constraints to the implementation of the concept of sustainable development and integrated planning and the counteraction of urban sprawl. The aim of this chapter is to identify the key elements that make up the general overhaul of the planning system after 1990 and to identify the effects they have had on the implementation of land use policies. The point of reference for the analysis is the comparison of the processes taking place in Poland with the new trends in spatial development management in Western European countries since the 1980s: the neoliberal shift away from traditional regulatory planning and the subsequent renaissance of the idea of planning in the form of a strategic and collaborative approach as well as the concept of ‘soft spaces’ of planning and governance. However, the explanation of the reasons for the course of the evolution and current status of planning in Poland should be sought in the practices of the socialist period, which provide the vital background for the political and social reaction to planning after 1990.

11.2 The Starting Point: Planning Under Socialism The increase in the role of planning after World War II affected the whole of Europe, regardless of the political and socio-economic system. In Western Europe, in the post-war period until the 1970s, spatial planning was primarily focussed on managing growth processes by developing structural plans related to land use. Such an approach to planning was necessary in view of the rapid demographic and economic growth and the dynamic urbanisation processes occurring in Europe at that time (Healey et al. 1997). In the period of ‘spatial Keynesianism’ (Brenner 2004), spatial planning played an important role in correcting market failures by both striving for an equitable distribution of growth processes within the state and indicating the location of the public services needed to ensure an acceptable quality of life. The definition of fundamental economic, social and infrastructural policies remained the domain of the state and government administration, but the need to translate them into specific regional and local location arrangements resulted in the development of comprehensive spatial planning systems in most Western countries in the 1960s and 1970s; these systems were linked to different tiers of territorial division. Spatial planning in Poland in its initial period before WWII (1928–1939) was part of a similar trend of regulatory planning. It was born in the socio-economic and political context of the interwar period when the private sector dominated, despite

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the gradually increasing active role of the state in the economy, land ownership and the housing market. The planning system therefore focussed on the local scale of development and a very precise definition of the tasks and responsibilities of public administration and the rights and obligations of private owners. Spatial planning after 1945 was very strongly influenced by the radical political and socio-economic reconstruction of the state. It became part of a complex system of socio-economic planning, which was supposed to control practically every aspect of state development management, at all territorial levels (national, regional and local). Diversity of functions of particular planning levels was an important feature of the system (Gorzym-Wilkowski 2011). At the national level, spatial planning carried out by the government as part of long-term plans for the development of the national economy was to be complementary to economic planning. Furthermore, regional and local general plans were also significantly similar in terms of content and methodology to economic planning, involving not only decisions concerning the assumed spatial patterns but also indicating actions aimed at achieving it; it was only the detailed local plan that was a typical spatial regulation. Under socialism, spatial planning in Poland, although it exhibited some features consistent with the model of regulatory planning that prevailed at that time in Western European ‘welfare state’ model, was marked by three key distinguishing features: • the dominant role of the state both in the planning and implementation of spatial development; • the authoritarian nature of planning, lacking democratic and participatory elements; • the use of spatial planning as an instrument to limit private property, without respecting the principles of proportionality and transparency. Planning in Western countries, although strongly dominated in the age of the welfare state by the public authorities’ perspective, assumed that the implementation of plans was the result of a combination of public and private actors. The socialist state was supposed not only to plan, integrate and coordinate but also to primarily implement the plans, including areas dominated in the Western countries by the private sector (retail trade) or a mixed model (housing, industry). In multi-family housing, a monopolistic role was played by public entities (including strongly state-supported and party-controlled housing cooperatives), which at the end of the communist era also entered the area of organised single-family housing. Individual single-family housing functioned mainly in suburban and rural areas and the outskirts of large cities. It occupied a position on the margin of the system and had to comply with size norms and planning guidelines. Similarly, state-controlled entities played a major role in industry (state enterprises) and trade and services (cooperatives) or agricultural production (state farms, Polish: PGR). In view of the poor economic situation, especially in the 1980s, socio-economic planning became largely unfavourably associated with the state’s failure to meet the needs for infrastructure, public services and the provision of basic consumer goods. One more important factor contributed significantly to the unfavourable perception of planning amongst the general public. In Western countries, the planning

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process took place within the framework of local democracy, and extensive decisionmaking powers were vested in bodies directly elected by citizens. Spatial planning during the communist era did not have any democratic legitimacy and did not require social acceptance despite the existence of institutions of alleged civic representations (voivodeship1 and municipal ‘national councils’) and formal statutory provisions concerning the public scrutiny of draft projects and the possibility of submitting comments and proposals. Planning decisions were actually taken within the centralised hierarchical structure of state administration, intertwined with the politically dominant communist-party apparatus. The authoritarian nature of the state and its entire administrative structure was also visible in the planning sphere. In view of the abolition of local self-government after WWII, planning was fully subject to government administration in the system of a consolidated state authority. To a large extent, it was subordinate to public objectives, very broadly defined due to the equally wide range of state activities. The consequence of the omnipotent role of the state and its authoritarian approach to planning was that the spatial development plans took on the role of an instrument enabling massive and extensive expropriation of private land for spatial development purposes. Despite the systemic assumption that the state will take over all means of production and a significant reduction in the empowerment of citizens, private ownership of agricultural land (about 70%) and housing plots (COMMIN 2007) continued to exist in Poland under socialist rule. At the same time, arbitrarily fixed compensation for expropriations to private owners was much lower than the actual property value (additionally difficult to assess in the absence of a free real-estate market). The two more or less parallel post-war models of spatial development management in Europe, i.e. the democratic regulation of the Western welfare state and Eastern European authoritarianism under communist parties, were the starting point for further changes that took place in the last two decades of the twentieth century. In the 1980s, serious criticism of the existing models of spatial planning was voiced in both groups of countries. In Western countries, from a neoliberal perspective, planning was a constraint on economic growth and the free market, treated as an element of ‘big government’. The foundations of the post-war consensus around the welfare state model in Western Europe were challenged in the second half of the 1970s, and this had an impact on spatial planning (Haughton et al. 2013). Since the 1980s, neoliberalism developed into the domination of ‘common sense’, for which the creation of a business-friendly environment became an indispensable (and sometimes sole) value in the decision-making process (Purcell 2009; Olesen 2014). In the neoliberal vision of development, planning came to be largely regarded as a factor limiting economic growth and competitiveness. In the United Kingdom in particular, but also in many other developed European countries, the role of the state in planning was reduced,

1

Voivodeships: 17 regional administrative units in 1950–1975, 49 administrative units in 1975–1998 and since 1998, 16 regional administrative units.

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and planning tasks were increasingly entrusted to the private sector or various quasipublic or public–private organisations. Planning became more market and project oriented (Allmendinger 2011; Galland 2012; Olesen 2014). In the socialist countries, planning had, at least amongst the still numerous private landowners, an even worse image than in Western countries. In the former, it was seen as an instrument of economic oppression, restricting personal freedom to dispose of property and building rights, particularly on the outskirts of large cities. That is why in Central and Eastern Europe planning found itself in the midst of a political, administrative, social and economic revolution.

11.3 General Reconstruction of the Planning Model (1990–2003) Reflection on the distinction between socio-economic planning and spatial planning emerged in the wake of a critical debate on the state of spatial development in Poland, conducted as part of the general political revival after August 1980. It resulted in the Act of 1984 on spatial planning, which marked the beginning of the end of the system of spatial planning subordinated to economic plans (Kolipi´nski 2015). Furthermore, the first theoretical texts were written, defining spatial planning primarily or exclusively as planning only the desired spatial structure, also in relation to regional planning (J˛edraszko 1981). In the 1984 Act, the spatial plans of all types, apart from the detailed local plan, were formally defined as action plans. But, at the same time, the legally defined content of decisions concerning regional and local plans was clearly structural in nature (Gorzym-Wilkowski 2011). After the political breakthrough of 1989–1990, the system of spatial planning in Poland itself was not immediately transformed thoroughly from a legal point of view Decreasing confidence in comprehensive socio-economic planning Limiting the scope of local planning documents to land use structure Devolution of planning powers to municipalities Growing investment activity of private sector in housing, industry and services Decline of supra-local planning

Limited empowerment of regional planning

Reduction of legal binding power of general planning documents in municipalities Breaking up of planning continuity with pre-1995 period Liberalization of procedures fo obtaining development permission without local zoning plan Growing financial burden of local zoning plans for municipalities By-passing regular planning prcedures by ’special laws’ Attempts at introducing legal foundations for metropolitan planning General guidelines for rationalization of local land use policies 1980

1984

1990

1994

1999

2003

2014 2015

Fig. 11.1 Key changes in the spatial planning system in Poland in last decades

[year]

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and was still based on the legislative solutions of 1984 (Fig. 11.1). The key change, however, was the transfer of local planning powers from the national government administration into the hands of local government, reconstructed at the level of municipalities.2 The municipalisation of planning, carried out as early as 1990, meant a departure from the principle of hierarchical, top-down planning, characteristic of the socialist period (Table 11.1). Instead, the municipal planning powers began to play a fundamental role, and the vast majority of decisions concerning direct land use were transferred to local government bodies with a democratic electoral mandate. Municipal self-governments took over the competences of the former city and municipal national councils, along with the already existing plans (Kolipi´nski 2014). In contrast to later events, at the onset of the transformation period, the continuity of local spatial planning was retained. At the same time, the situation with regard to regional planning changed dramatically; as a result of the liquidation of voivodeship (provincial) national councils, it lost its previous, at least formal, subjectivity. The takeover of council functions by voivodes, as local representatives of government administration, ensured the continuity of planning only to a limited extent. The voivodes did not have the power to adopt new plans, and their jurisdiction was limited to drafting conceptual studies. In this way, the field of spatial planning was ‘dominated by the problems of local planning and its practitioners, representing mainly the architectural point of view. Such an incomplete approach to spatial planning, however, was supported by the lawyers, increasingly influential after 1989, who saw local planning as more of a comprehensible legislative issue than the other elements of the planning system’ (Kolipi´nski 2014: 110). The substantive changes and shifts of competences in the system of spatial planning were a prelude to a more comprehensive reform, introduced by the Act of 7 July 1994 on spatial development. Entering into force on 1 January 1995, this legal instrument clearly corresponded to the liberalisation tendency of the entire spatial development management model. The division into general and detailed local planning was replaced by a uniform type of planning document, i.e. the local zoning plan, which is the only act of local law in the whole system, binding the administrative authorities with regard to issuing particular decisions on development and land use. However, the local plan also became an optional planning act and therefore did not have to cover the entire municipality. The results of this significant systemic change, marking a departure from the existing rules of planned development, did not immediate become apparent. In the transitional period (extended several times later), the continued validity of plans adopted before the new act entered into force (until the end of 1994) was ensured. Therefore, the general local spatial development plans covering the entire municipality remained the grounds for issuing administrative decisions. These plans also retained their function as the basic document specifying the land use pattern and rules of development. The element of adjusting the spatial planning system in Poland to European social and political standards and altered economic and ownership realities was clearly 2

It can be also translated as communes or gminas (Polish gmina).

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visible in the new regulations concerning the procedure for drawing up a local plan and the effects of its entry into force. The introduced regulations required that planning activities be really made public and offered private property owners very strong instruments to protect their interests: the institution of objections to the draft plan (considered in the course of the planning procedure by municipal councils; their decisions could moreover be appealed to the administrative court) and compensation for preventing or restricting the existing use of the property, determined on the basis of an objective assessment of the land value. Both solutions were undoubtedly a response to the unfavourably perceived practices of spatial planning of the socialist period. However, they led to a relative limitation of planning activity after 1994; the drawing up of new plans was prone to high risk in terms of both the length of the procedure and the potential financial consequences for the municipality. The stock of newly adopted local plans grew very slowly, and the adoption of a single comprehensive plan for the entire municipality became an extremely difficult task. However, the awareness of the threat of unplanned development was latent in view of the continued validity of general and detailed local plans from before 1995. The confusion caused by the parallel application of the new legal order and the old local plans was further complicated by the introduction of a new type of document into the planning system by the 1994 act: a study of criteria and directions of spatial development. This document of spatial policy, which is obligatory for the entire municipality, was supposed to replace the old general local plans in terms of scale. The scope of the study’s decisions was outlined in an unambiguously ‘structural’ manner, as a presentation of the desired layout of the municipal space, especially the function of the designated areas, without indicating the instruments to implement this layout (Gorzym-Wilkowski 2011). Deprived of the status of a local act of law at the same time, the study could take on the character of a cartographic illustration of wishful thinking about the target structure of the city or municipality space, without making any real commitments in this respect. The 1994 reform substantially changed local planning yet failed to solve the problem of planning on a supra-local level. The new act assumed, however, that a voivode should prepare a study of the voivodeship’s spatial development, specifying the conditions, objectives and directions of the government’s spatial policy. The content of the voivodeship study was not further defined in the act. In reality, therefore, the whole 1990–1998 period should be considered critical for supra-local planning, which after the political transformation, lacking in democratic legitimacy and distinct legal form was in practice marginalised. As a result of the territorial and administrative reform of 1998 and the related amendment to the Spatial Development Act, a new entity tasked with regional planning emerged, i.e. regional self-government (16 ‘big’ or regional-type voivodeships replacing 49 ‘small’ or provincial-type voivodeships). However, the nature of planning arrangements at this level was defined in a rather general way, and the scope of relative discretion in decision-making was limited to public tasks directly in the hands of the regional self-government. In particular, the basic regional planning document, i.e. the regional spatial development plan, can to a limited extent only

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Table 11.1 Comparison of the spatial planning system in Poland in interwar, socialist and postsocialist periods Key features

Interwar period (1928–1939)

Socialist period (1945–1990)

Post-socialist period (since 1990)

Model of state

Authoritarian, with semi-autonomous local governments

Authoritarian, centralised

Democratic, decentralised

Planning authority

Local government under strong supervision of state administration

State administration and its territorial agents

Local and regional government

Scalar model of planning

Local regulatory Multilevel, with prospects of hierarchical introducing regional level

Multilevel, autonomised

Investment in housing, industry and services

Mainly private, with almost exclusively growing share of state/public state activity in economy

mainly private

Participation/transparency in planning

Limited to real-estate owners

Extended

Compensation for private landowners

At market value, but Arbitrary, usually with much lower than real value of real estates

At market value

Integration of structural planning and action planning

Limited to land subdivision

Spatial planning limited to structural land use designation

Limited (facade)

Spatial planning subordinated to socio-economic planning

interfere in spatial development processes on a local scale, which are mainly related to the distribution of basic investment functions: housing, production and services. The statutory regulations on regional planning leave out the notion of land use, even in the coordination rather than decision-making context, thus leaving the municipalities with exclusive competence in this field and far-reaching discretion. Furthermore, the newly appointed regional self-governments did not assume their spatial planning power too actively, preferring involvement in a broadly understood regional development policy, connected with a politically attractive instrument of EU fund management within regional operational programmes. As a result of the territorial and administrative reform and attendant changes in the spatial planning system between the level of a ‘big’ region and municipalities, a wide scalar planning gap emerged. It is all the more evident since, unlike other sectors of public policy, it does not involve an intermediate level of county (poviat) self-government.

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11.4 Development of the Current Planning System (2003–2020) An element of reflection on the territorial levels of the planning system appeared in a new comprehensive legal regulation: the Act of 26 March 2003 on spatial planning and development. It introduced a new level of planning, i.e. a metropolitan area. However, the solely declarative and non-binding character of the related legal regulation meant that for many years; it did not gain much practical significance. The 2003 act, still in force, has had a much stronger impact on the local planning level. The legislator’s apparent intentions were to streamline the procedure for drawing up a local zoning plan (e.g. by eliminating the possibility of blocking the procedure with complaints lodged with administrative courts) and to speed up investment activities by abandoning the requirement of an individual decision on development in the areas covered by the local zoning plan. At the same time, the position of the study of criteria and directions of spatial development, not fully defined before, was strengthened. The provisions of this study have since become binding for the preparation of local zoning plans. However, the most important direct effect of the Act was the termination as of the end of 2003 of all local plans (general and detailed) adopted before 1995. This meant that overnight a vast majority of Polish territory was left without any legally binding planning documents specifying the land use and development parameters. In these areas, an individual administrative decision (a decision on development conditions) became an alternative way of determining the development rules and parameters. Such a decision is based on the analysis of the existing development in the nearest vicinity (the so-called ‘good neighbourhood’ principle) and does not require compliance with the study. This in fact introduced a dualism in the planning system; apart from a relatively systematised set of planning documents adopted by democratically elected representative bodies, there is a completely separate administrative procedure for determining development conditions. In accordance with the declared intention of the authors of the 2003 planning act and the literal wording of the statutory regulation, the decision on development conditions was meant as an instrument to be used in special cases, mainly for ‘in-fill’ development in already built-up areas with a fixed spatial structure (including the public road network), a well-established dominant type of existing development and technical infrastructure adequate for the planned developments. In practice, however, these apparent restrictions were gradually relaxed, first through executive regulations and then on a wider scale through administrative decisions (by administrative appeal colleges) and the jurisprudence of administrative courts. In particular, the understanding of the continuation of the existing land use and development patterns in districts is treated broadly, ‘in accordance with a systemic interpretation, which requires the resolution of doubts in favour of the owner’s or investor’s rights to maintain the principle of freedom in land development, including constructions taking place there’ (Nowak 2018).

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The liberalisation of spatial development management rules after 1990 has significantly facilitated private investment activities. However, the tasks related to the appropriate infrastructure of the developed areas, especially those with a housing function, remained the responsibility of public authorities, mainly local government units. The statutory solutions of both 1994 and 2003 did not require new housing investments to be linked with appropriate technical and social infrastructure, either at the implementation level or even through planning provisions themselves. Another critical element of the planning system is the financial mechanism linked to the local zoning plans, which is difficult for many local government units to implement (Olbrysz and Kozi´nski 2011; Fundacja Rozwoju Demokracji Lokalnej (Foundation in Support of ´ nski 2018b). The current legal regulations set out Local Democracy) 2013; Sleszy´ the municipality’s responsibility for the purchase of land for public purposes and for compensation for constraints on the use of the land. However, they do not sufficiently define the standards, financing model and responsibility for the implementation of technical and social infrastructure necessary for the proper course of urbanisation processes. At the same time, private landowners and investors, taking advantage of development opportunities in new areas, are not obliged to bear most of the related cost. What is more, they may even receive additional income in the form of compensation for the land taken over by municipalities for future public investments. The mechanisms of refinancing public expenditure through public levies (planning and betterment ones) have proved to be completely inefficient in practice, and the income achieved is insufficient for the costs incurred by municipalities (Mikuła 2014). To sum up, as a result of legal changes since 2003, the system of spatial planning that has developed in Poland has come into scathing criticism since the beginning of the new regulations (J˛edraszko 2005; Billert 2006; Izdebski et al. 2007). Moreover, the latest literature on the subject emphasises the direct impact of faulty legal regulations on the generation of ‘spatial chaos’ (Kowalewski and Nowak 2018), highlighting the resulting economic, social and environmental costs (Kowalewski ´ nski 2018a) and the general inefficiency of public authorities in et al. 2018; Sleszy´ the spatial management system (Nowak 2017). One should therefore observe that the spatial planning system in Poland has not been liberalised but rather disintegrated. This disintegration is in fact threefold: • territorial—a huge scalar leap between the regional and the municipal level, an absence of a direct relation between them regarding fundamental development functions, • procedural—two divergent legal avenues of determining the criteria and parameters of spatial development: a local zoning plan and a decision on the conditions for land use and development, • as regards finances and implementation—a practical separation of plans and decisions on land development from the delivery of infrastructure and its financing. The attempts at rectifying the planning system, made repeatedly after 2003, have failed to solve the above issues. The legislative work carried out over many years on a

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new comprehensive legal regulation, known as the Urban Development and Construction Code, has not been concluded with the submission of the draft law to parliament. In the scalar-territorial dimension, attempts have been made to fill the gap between the regional and local planning levels by supplementing the Spatial Planning and Development Act with two new chapters on functional areas and metropolitan areas. To date, however, this has not brought any concrete, practical results. The existing dualism of procedure (local zoning plan and individual administrative decision) is becoming increasingly complex and disintegrated through numerous derogations related to the so-called ‘special laws’. This term includes laws setting out a specific procedure for the preparation and implementation of investments in a given scope (public roads, railway lines, airports, transmission grid and projects related to the Euro 2012 football tournament), usually due to the inefficiency of general planning regulations or administrative procedures in relation to investments of a given type. The so-called ‘special housing law’ (Act of 5 July 2018 on Facilitation of Preparation and Execution of Housing Investments and Accompanying Investments), in force since 2018, is another manifestation of this trend. Unrelated to large public infrastructure projects, unlike previous examples of ‘special laws’, it introduces a third procedural avenue with regard to housing, one of the basic investment functions, dominated by private projects. Direct amendments to existing legislation were only introduced in 2015 in respect of the general requirement to rationalise the stock of planned investment areas and to link their distribution to access to public infrastructure. The catalogue of general principles of the planning system includes guidelines for the location of new developments in areas with a fully developed compact functional and spatial structure as a priority. The indication of further development areas should be based on the criterion of appropriate infrastructural preparation, mainly in terms of underground utilities and access to the communication network. The statutory set of directional guidelines was also partially translated into regulations concerning the preparation of a study of the criteria and directions of spatial development of the municipality. For instance, demographic forecasts, the possibility of the municipality financing the infrastructure and the inventory of the areas intended for development were to be taken into account in this respect. Under the current method of formulating the new guidelines in the Act on Spatial Planning and Development, it is difficult to use them as a model for supervision over the municipality’s planning documents. Despite appearances of thoroughness, the provisions concerning the content and method of drawing up the study are, in fact, very general, leaving plenty of room for interpretation of their practical application. They, moreover, lack specific guidelines for the operationalisation of vague terms such as ‘demand for new buildings’ or ‘financing capacity’. Another legislative novelty is the instrument of the urban planning contract introduced under the Act of 9 October 2015 on Urban Regeneration and linked to a specific form of local zoning plan—the local revitalisation plan. The urban planning contract allows the municipal authorities to transfer some of the tasks related to the delivery of public infrastructure within the area covered by the plan onto a private investor implementing a development project. This type of instrument facilitates the use of

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a new strategic approach to planning and increases the role of cooperation between the public and private sectors already at the plan preparation stage. Unfortunately, the legislation on the urban planning contract is not free from flaws and ambiguities (Mikuła 2017), which makes this instrument ineffective in practice. All the changes introduced in 2015 could be interpreted as legislative steps towards rationalising and reintegrating the planning system. The measures taken, however, are only of a half-hearted nature and have not been continued in the following years. Besides, some new legislative initiatives (like the above ‘special housing law’) may raise serious doubts about the future of the planning system in Poland.

11.5 The Polish Planning System Versus European Systems The Polish model of local self-government refers in many respects, especially with regard to the territorial division at the municipal level, to solutions known from North-Western Europe. The European Commission’s Compendium on Spatial Planning Systems (CEC 1997) distinguishes two basic models in this part of the continent or two traditions of planning. The systems of Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Finland are characterised by a high degree of planning certainty and attachment to a formal hierarchy of planning levels. The plan is a strong political commitment and, especially at the local level, provides the basis for administrative decisions on land use in the form of local law. The United Kingdom, Ireland and Belgium, on the other hand, prefer an individual approach to urban projects by the planning authorities. This involves a greater margin of discretion and negotiation in the planning process and investor relations. This translates into a lower degree of compatibility between the planning and spatial development processes. However, it is up to the democratically elected representatives of the local community to decide on the permission for specific investment projects. The relevant decisions must include elements of civic participation and political responsibility to the voters. However, the contemporary statutory system of spatial planning in Poland does not correspond to either of the European models (see Izdebski et al. 2007). Selectively combining some elements taken from both, it lacks their overall advantages resulting from the internal cohesion of both traditions. The rigid and legally binding character of local plans in Poland, based on the German tradition, is not really embedded into the wider hierarchy of planning documents and planning levels, and the planning powers of the municipality are understood as full independence and practical freedom to designate areas for housing and production and service functions. On the other hand, the procedure of making individual administrative decisions on the development conditions, an alternative procedure to the local plan, shows flexibility and does not need to be fully in compliance with local planning documents. However, the administrative procedure limits the elements of public participation and democratic control. Moreover, in both procedures, it is striking that there is no requirement to link the implementation of private investments with public infrastructure, which is fundamental in both Western European planning models.

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The liberal nature of the formal planning system in Poland manifests itself in the fact that, on the one hand, it allows private investors to obtain the desired development rights outside the relevant planning procedures, and on the other hand, even in the case of the areas covered by the plan, it allows for exemption from the delivery of public infrastructure. However, this increased disintegration of the system means something completely contrary to the strategic spatial planning concept, which has stimulated the revival of the planning function in Western Europe for at least two decades. Its fundamental features are usually defined as follows: • spatial actions based on a long-term strategic development vision, • spatial integration and coordination of sectoral plans, • seeking equilibrium between economic, social and environmental aspects of spatial development, • focussing on place-making instead of the exhaustive zoning of the municipality’s area into different categories of land use, • seeking increased involvement of the stakeholders and the society in the planning process (Healey et al. 1997; Salet and Faludi 2000; Albrechts et al. 2003; Albrechts 2004; Healey 2009; Allmendinger and Haughton 2010; Albrechts and Balducci 2013). A key feature of strategic spatial planning is that it treats the planning process as a measure to build governance capacity, which with respect to spatial development management means the ability to: 1. 2. 3.

create an agreed spatial development strategy, based on the stakeholders’ consensus, manage the spatial distribution of development processes, ensure coordination of the spatial impact of other sectoral policies (Salet and Faludi 2000; Healey 2009).

Strategic spatial planning is therefore meant to integrate development processes, which are currently increasingly dispersed, fluid and multidirectional (Allmendinger and Haughton 2010). From this perspective, the only new quality introduced to the formal planning system in Poland after 1994 is the public participation mechanisms legally established in the procedure for drafting planning documents. They comply with the principles of a collaborative approach (Healey 1992, 1996), firmly rooted in the idea of strategic spatial planning, in which planners assume the role of moderators of public discussion on the desired directions of spatial development. Providing additional legitimacy for the adopted plans, however, public participation procedures may be simultaneously perceived and treated as an obstacle to the efficient execution of the investment process. In a disintegrated system of formal spatial planning in Poland, it is difficult, on any geographical scale, to exercise strategic control over all procedures related to spatial development, regardless of their legal form. However, the greatest planning problems are revealed within functional areas of various kinds, especially metropolitan areas, which are not really recognised by the formal planning system at all. In Poland,

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planning activities on this scale are practically possible only through ‘soft spaces’ of planning, which gradually emerge, most often as bottom-up initiatives in various areas of the country (Kaczmarek 2018; Mikuła 2019). The concept of soft spaces has been arousing more and more interest in the European planning theory for several years (Allmendinger and Haughton 2009; Faludi 2010; Waterhout 2010; Walsh et al. 2012; Allmendinger et al. 2015). Soft spaces stand out as new forms of creating and delivery of spatial development strategies and territorial integration of sectoral policies since they function simultaneously: • between legally defined territorial levels of planning that are most often linked to the units of administrative division of the state, • outside the formal system of planning procedures and documents. However, it seems that the descriptions and interpretations of soft planning spaces developed in Western Europe do not, for obvious reasons, take into account the ‘hybrid’, but in fact disintegrated, nature of the formal planning system that has developed in Poland. Soft spaces in Western European countries are interpreted as a manifestation of strategic spatial planning, which is supposed to overcome the limitations of a formal system of land use planning, which is blocking, at least in some cases, the desired development processes (Allmendinger and Haughton 2009; Olesen 2012). However, the apparent rigidity of the Polish planning system, based on assumptions on legally binding local plans, has been dealt with in a different, relatively simple way, i.e. through decisions on development criteria and special laws. In Poland, it is not development that is blocked by formal planning procedures; rather, it is strategic planning that is blocked by a very liberal approach to spatial development mechanisms. Local zoning plans and individual administrative decisions on development conditions are in fact legal-based promises of buildings permits issued for an indefinite period, setting aside the actual delivery of infrastructure. This eliminates one of the basic premises of strategic spatial planning: the need for concentration in time and space on selected optimal investment locations, for which the necessary infrastructure must be developed. In such a context, therefore, there is no rational justification for soft spaces to play a destabilising role and challenge the planning procedures, meant to be too rigid. Rather, they are an effort to rationalise the system and fill the most obvious gaps in its territorial aspect. In the absence of an effective state policy, which would ensure that planning instruments in terms of the metropolitan area are genuinely legally binding, the only possibility of coordinating spatial development on this scale can be provided by bottom-up voluntary integration mechanisms and action based on the general principles of the planning system. Creating such institutional structures in the form of soft spaces of planning without support from the state level is difficult, but possible. So far, however, they have not become commonplace; the adaptation of planning and governance structures in metropolitan areas to operate in this formula is not an automatic process.

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11.6 Conclusion A feature of planning in the socialist period was the combination of an integrated approach to the socio-economic realm with a very strong regulatory and restrictive component, interfering not only in the right of development but also in the right of property ownership and thus painfully felt by some of the population. Combined with the undemocratic nature of spatial development management, this resulted in a post-1990 liberal counteraction and a clear tilting of the planning process in the other direction. In contrast to Western European lessons, the trend of planning liberalisation in Poland was not so much linked to the imposition of a new ideology on the existing system but to its decisive remodelling or rather dismantling. The most significant consequences of the systemic decisions taken during the period of the anti-regulatory reaction of the 1990s only came to light with full force after 1 January 2004 in connection with the entry into force of successive statutory changes. Subsequent attempts to reform the system have failed to strengthen the strategic capacity of the key planning actors—government administration bodies and local government units—to manage spatial development. Liberalisation and decentralisation of the spatial planning system in Poland, as in other post-socialist countries, although in a sense analogous to the processes taking place almost simultaneously in Western Europe, have nevertheless taken place: 1. 2.

delayed by more or less a decade as to deregulation and regionalisation, far greater as to the empowerment of local self-government it the field of planning; in a more rapid and radical manner, as an element of a broader process of a ‘condensed evolution’ (Stanilov 2007), taking place in the post-socialist countries primarily in urban areas.

Considering the changes in the system of spatial planning in Poland, together with the accompanying political and economic transformation and institutional and organisational reforms, one must admit that they have left an indelible mark on the processes of spatial development. Unfortunately, this impact has been mostly negative and over the last 30 years has been one of the root causes of chaotic and uncoordinated urbanisation and suburbanisation. Acknowledgements The research was funded by National Science Centre, Poland within project No. 2016/23/D/HS5/00202

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Chapter 12

Transformation of the Urban and Rural System Tomasz Kaczmarek, Anna Kołodziejczak, and Łukasz Mikuła

Abstract The aim of the study is to determine the changes in the Polish urban and rural system over the past 30 years of political and economic changes. The main drivers of these changes are as follows: the development of the market economy (especially in the housing sector), the processes of economic globalisation, the reintroduction of local government, international and internal migrations, as well as EU and national policies targeting urban and rural areas. The study of urban and rural system was conducted with regard to four subgroups: large cities (metropolises), their functional areas, medium and small towns, and rural areas. These subsystems are subject to various functional and spatial processes, the most important of which are metropolisation and suburbanisation in relation to large cities, deindustrialisation and changes in administrative functions in medium-sized cities, and finally depopulation, deagrarianisation and multifunctional development in small towns and rural areas. Keywords Poland · Urban system · Large cities · Suburban zones · Medium-sized cities · Rural areas

12.1 Introduction The aim of this study is to determine the changes in the Polish urban and rural system over the past 30 years of political and economic changes. The study was conducted with regard to four subgroups: large cities (metropolises), their functional areas, medium and small towns, and rural areas. T. Kaczmarek (B) · A. Kołodziejczak · Ł. Mikuła Faculty of Human Geography and Planning, Adam Mickiewicz University, B. Krygowskiego 10, 61-608 Pozna´n, Poland e-mail: [email protected] A. Kołodziejczak e-mail: [email protected] Ł. Mikuła e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Churski and T. Kaczmarek (eds.), Three Decades of Polish Socio-economic Transformations, Economic Geography, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06108-0_12

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The present-day Polish urban and rural system, like that of most European countries, can be called ‘mature’, marked by polycentricity and a stable hierarchical order of urban and rural settlement units (Dziewo´nski 1964; Bourne et al. 1984Pumain 2000). As Korcelli (2018) points out, the maturity of the urban and rural system does not mean that there are no significant changes in the functions and morphology of cities and rural areas due to technological progress, economic development and the attendant social and political changes. In this sense, we can speak of the strong dynamics of Poland’s urban and rural system, which in the early 1990s was under the combined pressure of a globalised market economy and the resulting competition between cities, as well as the process of metropolitanisation of space, with subsequent intensified international and internal population migration. Thus, over the last three decades Poland has seen major changes in the urban and rural system, related to its internal structure and hierarchy. The processes of social and economic transformation after 1989, a new administrative division introduced in 1999, Poland’s accession to the European Union in 2004 (and the consequent opening of different types of markets and capital flows), and a reversal of favourable demographic trends from before the transformation, contribute to a diverse socio-economic potential of individual cities associated with the location of businesses and the attractiveness of jobs and housing. The main claim made in this study is that the Polish urban and rural system after 1990 has been very dynamic as the marketisation and globalisation of the economy have differently affected individual urban and rural subsystems, differentiating their development and shifts in mutual relations and influences.

12.2 Historical Conditions: The Character of Post-war Urbanisation In the socialist period (1945–1989), cities and rural areas in Poland experienced development processes which were very dynamic in terms of demographics, functional shift and urban planning. The basic growth factors were the rapidly developing industrial sector, collectivisation of agriculture and the development and relocation of public services as part of administrative reforms. Throughout the period after the Second World War, the reconstruction and expansion of cities in Poland took place under strong planning control, covering both the social and economic sphere and the subordinated spatial development sphere. Centralised public entities were responsible for the implementation of plans in practically all areas (housing, agriculture, industry, services). In the field of housing, they formally had the status of housing cooperatives, playing a practically monopolistic role in multi-family housing. The dominant form of their activity was large housing estates—sets of free-standing blocks of flats made of prefabricated elements. They were most often built in greenfield areas on the outskirts of the established urban fabric, although almost always within the administrative boundaries of the city. In some cases, these new urban developments replaced earlier urban structures, either destroyed during the war or relics

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of the former rural systems. Particularly in the post-war period, and later practically until the end of socialism, Poland faced a severe shortage of housing stock in relation to the rapidly growing needs generated by dynamic demographic development and the massive migration of people from rural to urban areas. A real increase in the number of newly completed flats began after 1956, reaching its peak in 1972–1980, when more than 200,000 new flats were completed each year (as many as 283,000 in the record year 1978). Even in the economically difficult decade of the 1980s, these numbers remained within the range of 180,000–200,000 new flats per year. Although this partially satisfied the demand for housing, due to the rapid demographic development and the modest size of new flats, the living conditions in Poland were a far cry from Western European standards. It was only at the end of the socialist period, and on a relatively small scale, that housing cooperatives also began to gradually get involved in organised single-family housing. Individual self-built single-family housing at that time operated only on the margins of the system, due to high costs and administrative barriers. It developed mainly in suburban and rural areas and on the outskirts of large cities and was constrained by maximum floor limits and planning guidelines (Kaczmarek and Mikuła 2019). Inner city buildings, most often in the form of historic tenement houses, were decapitalised for lack of renovation funds, regardless of whether they were municipal property or in the hands of private owners, whose management powers and rental income were subject to administrative restrictions. The living conditions in central parts of cities were usually poor due to overcrowding (frequently several families lived in a single flat). Other stumbling blocks included the legal right to the premises, which was most often uncertain and resulted from administrative decisions, even in formally private buildings. In the socialist period, the practice of urbanisation, especially in large and mediumsized cities, was to a large extent shaped by the hierarchy of the investment priorities of state authorities. Within this hierarchy, industry was the highest priority, followed by housing construction; social services for the population were at the very bottom of the list. The development of multi-family housing districts (large blocks of flats of prefabricated elements) was not matched (for lack of funds) by investments in transport infrastructure (e.g. new tram lines, the metro system in Warsaw and the fast tram network in Pozna´n were built only after the transformation) and in particular by social infrastructure (schools, kindergartens, crèches, healthcare facilities and culture centres) (Kaczmarek and Mikula, 2017). However, the poor infrastructure and connectivity of new housing estates were counterbalanced by a better standard of housing compared to the city centre, which made living in a block of flats, a desirable commodity and a driver of migration from countryside to city. The housing shortage in large cities, however, was largely compensated for by the high volume of commuting, especially to large industrial plants, where the railway played a major role. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the road network was also significantly expanded, primarily through the construction of dual carriageways leading out of large cities, at least in some directions. Due to the low level of private car ownership at the beginning of the transformation period, the road network still had considerable capacity reserves.

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The development of medium-sized cities was a distinctive feature of the postwar urbanisation of the country. Industrialisation, based on the extraction of mineral resources, energy, heavy and electrical machinery, chemical and textile industries, was the principal development driver in those medium-sized cities as of the 1950s. New industrial districts (e.g. Lubin-Głogów, Bełchatów, Lublin, Konin, Wałbrzych, etc.) formed regional production clusters, activating the development of mediumsized cities, their labour markets and housing. However, the development of industrial capacities was not matched by the corresponding development of higher-rank services, making those cities monofunctional centres which, as it turned out subsequently, were subject to crises caused by deindustrialisation due to the transformation. The effect of developing the service functions of medium-sized towns and cities was briefly achieved through the administrative reform of the country (see Kaczmarek’s study in this volume). As a result, 32 cities with a population of less than 100,000 acquired the status of voivodeship capitals, becoming regional growth centres until the economic crisis (Kaczmarek 2008). In the short period of 1975– 1985, their population in many cases as much as doubled and the functional structure of these cities was significantly expanded to include public service institutions (government offices of territorial administration, voivodeship courts, prosecutor’s offices, hospitals, libraries, cultural institutions, statistical offices, etc.). One of the premises of the 1975 regional reform was to strengthen the polycentricity of the urban system. Paradoxically, despite the achievements in those 32 cities, the basic functions of smaller cities were weakened. They lost their functions as county seats as a result of the voivodeship reform—in 1975–1998 counties (poviats) ceased to exist as administrative units. In nearly 250 cities with a population of 10,000–50,000, many public services of the county level disappeared. In the socialist period, the nationalisation and socialisation of economic activity strongly affected rural areas. The establishment of collective agriculture in the 1950s, i.e. State Farms (in 1970 there were 6110 of them), Agricultural Production Cooperatives and Farmers’ Cooperative Associations, took place in almost every one of more than 2000 communes (gminas) in Poland. Such farms were created mainly on the basis of previous private land assets, especially in former German areas in the western and northern part of the country. Their operation defined not only the economic base of rural areas, i.e. agriculture and the agri-food sector. The majority of state-owned agricultural enterprises performed a number of social functions which could not generate any monetary profit. Such activities included running day care centres, residents’ clubs, kindergartens, schools, fire brigades, supplementary meals and transportation for children, meeting housing needs, maintaining local roads and carrying out drainage activities in rural areas. Their role in modernising rural areas that were lagging behind in the pre-war period was strong, although their profitability and effectiveness were severely limited as it the rules of a market economy were not followed. Until 1988, State Farms absorbed over 50% of the funds allocated to investment in agriculture. The collapse and dissolution of state-owned production units in rural areas, in the absence of external investment, was a source of huge unemployment in rural areas since the onset of the transformation, in some regions topping 40% of the workforce in the first decade of the 1990s. The monofunctional, i.e.

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solely agricultural, character of Polish rural areas for many years determined their backwardness and lack of progress in the transformation processes in Poland. Liquidation of State Farms after 1990 was often associated with the reduction or complete abandonment of animal husbandry, reduction of plant production and a change of cultivation methods. This entailed a significant decline in jobs and triggered a whole range of problems in regions where State Farms were the only employers. After the restructuring, the new private owners of formerly state-owned land significantly reduced employment, social entitlements and social activity. State Farms were very often pivots of social life and, in theory, provided for virtually all employee needs. Their liquidation and other factors (e.g. scrapping of bus services, closure of railway lines, liquidation of schools) often caused damage to the structure of local communities, which did not adapt to the new economic situation. This led to the spread of alcoholism, social inertia and helplessness (U. Kaczmarek in this volume). The assets of former State Farms were also devastated due to theft, absence of elementary security and, last but not least, embezzlement. Since the early 1980s, Polish cities and villages were hit by the structural crisis and both functional and spatial stagnation due to the housing underdevelopment, outdated industry and agriculture, underdeveloped services and cessation of new investments. Rapid transformation reforms were the primary challenge for the urban and rural system; of major significance for local development were market and decentralisation reforms, related to the establishment of municipal self-government. The main determinants of the directions of development and transformation of the Polish urban and rural system in functional and spatial terms were as follows: the market economy (especially in the housing market), population flows related to housing, labour market and education sector changes in the economy, liberal spatial planning, local and regional management (self-government reform of municipalities in 1990 and at the level of poviats and voivodeships in 1998), and with time, especially after 2004, processes of globalisation of the economy and development of transport and municipal infrastructure with Poland’s accession to the EU and absorption of European funds. However, the differences in the development of urban and rural subsystems during the socialist period continued to be the main marker of the pace of change in Poland.

12.3 Large Cities: Problems of Functional and Spatial Development The socio-economic structures of large cities forged during the socialist period had a significant impact on further developmental trajectories in the first years of the transformation and beyond. Cities with a diversified industrial structure with a large share of relatively modern branches and strong academic functions (Warsaw, Krakow, Wrocław, Pozna´n, Gda´nsk) had fewer problems finding themselves in the new posttransformation reality than centres based on the domination of one branch of industry

284

T. Kaczmarek et al.

and with a less developed service base (Łód´z, cities of the Upper Silesian Industrial District). Although the administrative status of large cities formally weakened after the 1975 reform (a change of the territorial division from 17 large voivodeships to 49 much smaller ones), they actually retained their administrative importance, mainly due to being seats of regional institutions in many areas of special administration and judiciary. Throughout the socialist period, the administrative boundaries of large cities were also gradually widening, thanks to which they had land reserves for the development of, e.g. housing; this made urban sprawl still relatively unnoticed in the 1990s. After 1990, as a result of the municipal reform and the empowerment of suburban communes, the mechanisms of planning and managing urbanisation processes changed significantly both in political and functional terms. By the late 1980s, Polish cities, like all socialist cities in general, clearly stood out from cities of Western Europe. They exhibited spatial compactness, higher population density, a greater share of industrial areas and poorly developed suburban areas (Hirt 2008). As of the time of the political and economic transformation, large cities and metropolitan areas in Central and Eastern European countries displayed very dynamic functional and spatial changes (Hamilton et al. 2005; Stanilov 2007; Hirt 2013). The principal drivers of the changes are as follows: • privatisation of public property stock (including the return of plots of land and buildings taken over forcibly during the socialist period to the previous owners and the sale of housing to tenants) and industrial assets (often to foreign investors), • liberalisation of economic activity and admission of private entities to sectors previously dominated by the state administration and state-dependent entities (housing, industry, retail and commercial services), • decentralisation and liberalisation of the spatial planning system—devolution of planning powers to municipal authorities and a departure from plan-based development (see the chapter by Mikuła in this volume) (Stanilov and Sykora 2014). Furthermore, indirectly influencing changes in urban and suburban zones were social processes linked to the increase in the level of education of the population, the development of the urban middle class and increased social and economic polarisation. The synergies of all those phenomena led to the dismantling of the existing mechanisms of spatial management of large cities and the creation of a completely new reality for urbanisation processes. One of the important areas of privatisation was the housing market, where flats were privatised in old municipal and cooperative buildings. At the same time, the market forces were released and the housing market was liberalised (Steening et al. 2010). The disappearance of the paternalistic function of the state after 1989 caused a clear collapse of the housing sector. While in the first years after the transformation it was not yet as severe and the construction projects commenced under the old system were still being completed, the crisis became clear as of 1993. The number of new flats fell permanently, mainly as a result of the halting of investments in the cooperative sector, which had lost its previous strong support of the state. The restoration of

12 Transformation of the Urban and Rural System

285

construction dynamics, although already in a completely changed ownership structure, took place only in the first decade of the twenty-first century. The housing market was significantly affected by changes in the construction sector structure. The role of the individual sector, which dominated the construction industry in the suburban area, marginalised in the socialist period, increased significantly. The shares of the cooperative, municipal and company housing sectors shrank rapidly. A new sector created after 1990, being at the same time the first clear manifestation of the state’s conscious housing policy in that period, was the so-called social building associations, created as a new form of combining contributions from the state, the municipalities and future tenants themselves. After the initial period of development in 1999–2007, the suspension of state support at a later stage translated into a significant weakening of its dynamics. The biggest ‘winner’ of the transformation in the Polish housing market after 1990 was the private development sector, achieving practically total dominance in central cities (90%) and entering more and more suburban zones. Paradoxically, the driving force behind developers’ construction was the credit policy of the state and its indirect support through the housing programmes known as ‘Family on Their Own’ and ‘Flats for the Young’ (Kaczmarek and Mikuła 2019). The expansion of the private sector was equally evident in the manufacturing industry and services. Large industrial plants, which were the engine of urban development in the socialist period, were largely privatised (often with the participation of foreign investors). An alternative for them was most often bankruptcy, which particularly affected certain sectors (heavy industry, textiles) and cities (Łód´z, cities of the Upper Silesian Industry District). The extensive industrial zones in cities were therefore either thoroughly modernised or fell into disrepair, especially in inner-city areas, where the industrial infrastructure was the most obsolete and decapitalised in terms of continuing operations (often remaining valuable in terms of the cultural heritage of industrial architecture). However, the influx of foreign investment and the development of domestic capital created a high demand for new greenfield locations for industrial development. In the commercial services sector, the first investment impetus in the 1990s was largely directed towards the expansion of the retail trade network, which was relatively underdeveloped mainly in large housing estates established in the socialist era. Functionally and architecturally unsophisticated constructions from the onset of the transformation period (hypermarkets) were gradually replaced by shopping malls, multifunctional and more embedded in the urban fabric; over time, thanks to a liberal planning system, shopping malls started to appear in downtown areas too (Kaczmarek 2010). Gradually, modern office buildings and hotels, often belonging to international chains, also started to appear in Polish cities (especially in cities of the Great Five, i.e. Warsaw, Krakow, Wrocław, Gda´nsk and Pozna´n). The dynamic economic processes during the three decades of transformation had a very strong impact on the spatial and social structure of large Polish cities, although their consequences varied for individual functional zones. Downtown districts experienced high depopulation due to the decline in importance of their housing function. This was due to the following three basic factors:

286

T. Kaczmarek et al.

• objectively high density of inhabitants in individual flats (a legacy of the policy of forcefully accommodating a few families in initially large flats), • expansion of alternative functions, more profitable (especially in view of the regulation of rents for existing tenants in the first dozen or so years of the administrative transformation) for building owners: office, commercial, restaurants, student and short-term rental, • sluggish rehabilitation of the housing stock in tenement houses (also in terms of heating infrastructure causing air pollution), caused mainly by legal and financial problems in relation to ownership (lack of funds on the part of communes and owners, impoverished in the socialist period, long-term processes of restitution of real estate for former owners, unregulated inheritance issues). The problems mentioned above primarily caused the outflow of middle-class residents, and therefore, the depopulation was largely selective. Poor housing conditions in inner-city districts also occurred in the socialist period, but at that time they were to some extent compensated for by significant advantages in other areas: proximity to jobs and good availability of services, both basic and higher-end varieties. The development of service infrastructure in housing estates, peripheries and suburbs, together with a dynamic increase in car mobility (rapid growth in motorisation), led to an increase in the comparative attractiveness of residential locations outside the inner city. It was only after 2000 that more complex investment projects began to appear in downtown areas, most often related to the regeneration of abandoned industrial areas. These took the form of either expanded new-generation shopping centres (e.g. Manufaktura in Łód´z, Stary Browar in Pozna´n) or housing and office projects. However, large retail centres have posed a considerable threat to the existing networks of shops on major downtown streets. The process of renovation of historical tenement houses, based on self-government or private funds (sometimes, but not always, as part of more comprehensive district revitalisation processes), has also picked up speed. However, despite clear investment activity and capital inflows to the inner-city area over the last dozen or so years, depopulation trends have not been reversed, at least given the official statistics on permanent residents. The decrease in the number of inhabitants also affects large housing estates built during the socialist period, where, due to the modest size of the housing provided and the socio-demographic changes, the originally high population density has decreased. As mentioned above, after 1990 housing estates have experienced very dynamic investment activity, especially in the commercial sphere. At the same time, its infrastructure and transport accessibility has improved considerably. Thus, they have also become very attractive to private developers, whose projects in many cases try to fill in the post-socialist gaps in the spatial structure of the districts. In many cases, this results in social conflicts with residents of older housing estates, who consider their districts and estates to be finite structures and oppose attempts to develop free spaces, previously mainly used for recreation purposes. However, private investors are backed up by property rights (often returned after the socialist period), which in most cases are not balanced by the planning authority of the city council, relatively

12 Transformation of the Urban and Rural System

287

weak after the far-reaching liberalisation of the urban planning system in 1994 and 2003 (see Chap. 16).

12.4 Suburbanisation Processes Around Big Cities The effects of the weakness of the spatial planning system in Poland are most evident in the most dynamically developing urban areas, i.e. the peripheries and the suburban zone. The key factor in this case has become the decentralisation of planning powers and the discounting of existing development plans. Before 1990, possible larger investment plans in the suburban zone were part of the central city’s spatial development plan. The devolution of spatial planning to the level of communes assigned planning jurisdiction more strictly to formal territorial-administrative units. In practice, the central city authorities democratically elected in 1990 focussed their policies on the area within their administrative limits only. The suburban communes which acquired powers in this area have also adopted their own spatial policies. In this situation, the spatial planning after 1990 became an element of active competition for investments between communes (mostly won by the suburban zone). In turn, the gradual phasing out of the binding force of earlier comprehensive planning documents made the spatial development processes in the peripheral and suburban zones spontaneous and chaotic, based on individual administrative decisions or ad-hoc small development plans drawn up for a given undertaking rather than on comprehensive planning visions. The structure of investment activity divided into peripheries (weakly developed semirural areas yet within the limits of the central city) and the suburban zone (communes adjacent to the central city, with separate administrative and planning jurisdiction) varied from city to city and was in particular linked to the size and nature of the stock of undeveloped areas incorporated into the city limits during the socialist period. Cities which had such reserves were able to maintain a large part of their housing investments within their borders (e.g. Warsaw—districts of Białoł˛eka and Wilanów), while in other cases (e.g. Pozna´n, Bydgoszcz) the main investments have shifted to suburban municipalities, with a very strong impact on the decrease in the total number of inhabitants of the central city (Table 12.1, Fig. 12.1). The process of suburbanisation affected all metropolitan areas in Poland practically without exception (Chmielewski 2005). Even where, thanks to investments in the peripheral zone, central cities managed to stabilise or even moderately increase their population (Warsaw, Krakow, Wrocław), the dynamics of urbanisation and population growth in suburban areas were many times greater. In pointing out the factors which have led to such a strong dynamics of postsocialist suburbanisation, it is necessary to refer to the context of overall socioeconomic changes in Poland. The inflow of foreign investment, a direct result of Poland’s inclusion in the global economic system, was one of the basic factors driving urbanisation, above all in relation to the industrial and service sector. The

779,115

534,813

470,907

744,987

641,974

581,171

463,019

Kraków

Wrocław

Pozna´n

Gda´nsk

437,417

−8.0 1.7

7,888

491,585

0.1

−46,358

524,726

632,376

375,634

981,737

895

4.6

−17.4

−143,274 34,128

9.5

155,546

Source own calculation based on Statistics Poland (GUS) data

642,869

679,941

823,215

1,790,658

1,635,112

Warszawa

597,996

671,065

603,125

734,873

388,416

1,294,909

2019

160,579

179,480

78,399

102,497

12,782

313,172

Change

1995

Percentage

Suburban NUTS 3 subregion Change

1995

2019

core city

Łód´z

Metropolitan area

Table 12.1 Population change 1995–2019 in major metropolitan areas of Poland

36.7

36.5

14.9

16.2

3.4

31.9

Percentage

168,467

133,122

79,294

136,625

−130,492

468,718

Change

MA total

18.7

12.4

6.8

9.9

−10.9

17.9

Percentage

288 T. Kaczmarek et al.

12 Transformation of the Urban and Rural System

289

Fig. 12.1 Population change 2010–2018 in municipalities of Pozna´n metropolitan area. Source Authors’ elaboration based on GUS data

location of new investments in the suburbs was in many cases in line with the strategies of large international corporations (retail chains, industrial concerns, freight forwarders), looking for an appropriate combination of advantageous location and low price of purchased property. Some of the suburban communes were able to take advantage of their convenient location from the point of view of connectivity and direct access to the road network developed in the last decades of socialism, preparing real estate for quick and efficient new investments (e.g. the case of Tarnowo Podgórne near Pozna´n and Kobierzyce near Wrocław). While the suburbanisation of economic functions was significantly related to the processes of globalisation through the inflow of foreign investments (although they were not the sole cause of it as some of the relocation from the city to the suburbs concerned domestic enterprises), the suburbanisation of housing functions was, and still is, of an endogenous nature, hardly related to international macroprocesses. It is first and foremost contingent on socio-cultural factors (a vision of living in ‘a house with a garden’) (Wi˛ecław-Michniewska 2006; Ra´zniak and Winiarczyk 2014) and demographic ones (the baby boom generation of the 1980s entering the housing market). To use the Hamel and Keil classification (2016), in the first stage the suburbanisation of housing functions was far more individual (self-built) than public (state-led) or market-driven (capital-led). An increase in the role of organised privately developed construction has been observed more in recent years (Kaczmarek and Mikuła 2019), but these are primarily local investors, whose activities are often limited to one commune. Large

290

T. Kaczmarek et al.

residential and office development projects involving international real estate players are still located almost exclusively in the central city. When identifying additional factors that have contributed to driving the dynamics of residential suburbanisation, a few that can be classified as indirectly related to the impact of external macroeconomic processes and phenomena should be indicated: 1.

2.

3.

increasing the availability of individual motorisation, related to the entry of large car corporations into the domestic market and the liberalisation of the rules for importing vehicles from abroad, development of the mortgage/residential market, resulting from the strategy of the banking and financial sector, operating in a network of international connections, road investments in the suburban zone, financed by European funds. While in the first phase of suburbanisation in the 1990s, new investments made use of the road infrastructure created during the communist era (radiating from the city, which offered an initial competitive edge to some communes), new road connections of a peripheral nature (motorways, expressways) also contributed to the strengthening of the suburbanisation trend.

All the above factors enhanced the physical and financial accessibility of new residential locations in the suburban zone. However, they would not in themselves be able to trigger the intensity and spontaneity of the suburbanisation process as it actually took place. The strengthening of the suburbanisation trend was largely due to the actual deregulation of the Polish planning system, which took place on 1 January 2004 (see chapter by Mikuła), which was very impactful for metropolitan areas. Local government officials and planners were initially unaware of all the consequences of the new legal solutions. These would gradually become apparent as practice and case law developed. After all the earlier general spatial planning and development plans had been extinguished by means of the Spatial Planning and Development Act, the communes adopted different approaches to spatial policy. This was most often the result of the vision adopted by the then ruling mayor (head of the commune or a town or city) and political and social pressure, as well as legal actions on the part of landowners and future investors. The communes which were very dynamic in adopting new local spatial development plans to a large extent generated an oversupply of land for investment purposes, and at the same time, there were still applications to establish, by means of an administrative decision, development conditions in areas not included in the plans. However, in the areas where the master plans were used, the development processes took place in a relatively orderly manner. The communes which followed the option of rapid development based mostly on administrative decisions were the most affected by the problems of spatial chaos, but at the same time experienced the greatest development dynamics. Only some of the communes in the second ring, which did not experience as much investor pressure as those directly adjacent to the central city, were able to implement the more balanced policy in practice. The protective option of preserving certain areas from unwanted development was applied to the greatest extent (although not always consistently) in large cities.

12 Transformation of the Urban and Rural System

291

The scale and dynamics of suburbanisation, as well as the extent to which the local-government authorities’ control over this process was limited, exceeded expectations of the time and surprised the authorities (Mikuła 2019). Dysfunctions of posttransformation spatial development of metropolitan areas, characteristic of most of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (Rebernik 2005; Stanilov 2007), which began to manifest themselves in conditions of uncoordinated growth of new housing areas, often without adequate infrastructure and vehicular traffic congestion and pressure on the natural environment, have gradually begun to raise awareness of the need for spatial planning and management on a supra-local scale. The development of a new formula for the coordination of planning and governance at the metropolitan level proved to be a long and still ongoing process (see Kaczmarek in this volume).

12.5 Medium-Sized Cities: Problems of Shrinkage The purpose for the analysis of a subsystem of medium-sized towns with a population of between 20,000 and 200,000 inhabitants, while not being the most numerous group of cities in Poland, was due to the fact that such cities play a vital stabilising role in the polycentric urban system. Proper development and operation of this subsystem should have a positive impact on territorial cohesion, bridging developmental gaps and eliminating the tendency for excessive concentration of economic potential in metropolises, cost-cutting, a bigger probability of synergies, softening negative feedback and complementary network cooperation. Settlement systems of the polycentric type are more competitive and efficient (Doma´nski 1980). The political, social and economic transformation after 1989 has resulted in a strong deindustrialisation of most cities and problems in maintaining their economic base. Many centres, especially medium-sized and smaller ones, based on monofunctional industries, fell into serious socio-economic decline. In turn, the administrative reform of 1999 brought about further changes in the location of various city-forming activities and in the case of many cities exacerbated the problems arising from differences in location in the administrative and settlement hierarchy, including washing out functions. The observed and growing depopulation of the country has further exacerbated the socio-economic problems in the case of most medium-sized urban centres (Runge 2013). Table 12.2 represents changes in the population of 32 mediumsized cities which in 1999 lost the status of voivodeship capital cities, which they had held for the past 25 years. The actual scale of the population decline is probably even greater than the official one due to an overestimation due to unregistered foreign emigration, and in the case of some cities (e.g. Tarnów, Ostroł˛eka), it may be as much ´ as 10–20% of the current state (Sleszy´ nski 2018). The result of the transformation is a clear development of geographical (territorial) concentration of medium-sized urban centres, where the intensity of the problems of ‘demographic and economic contraction’ is particularly pronounced and has persisted over the last three decades. In Poland, at least two such regions can be ´ distinguished (Sleszy´ nski 2018):

292

T. Kaczmarek et al.

Table 12.2 Changes in the population between 1975 and 2019 of 32 medium-sized cities which in 1999 lost their status of voivodeship central cities Cities

Population in the years 1975

1999

Population dynamics in the years

2000

2019

1975–1999 (1975 = 100%)

2000–2019 (2000 = 100%)

Biała Podlaska

31,765

57,542

57,901

57,170

181.1

98.7

Bielsko-Biała

120,907

178,936

178,611

170,663

148.0

95.6

45,479

68,963

69,012

61,932

151.6

89.7

Chełm Ciechanów

27,349

46,545

46,564

44,138

170.2

94.8

200,324

254,071

253,133

220,433

126.8

87.1

Elbl˛ag

97,338

128,159

128,305

119,317

131.7

93.0

Jelenia Góra

58,780

90,573

90,130

79,061

154.1

87.7

Kalisz

87,302

108,583

110,104

100,246

124.4

91.0

Konin

49,792

82,585

82,640

73,522

165.9

89.0

Koszalin

77,620

109,941

108,899

107,048

141.6

98.3

Krosno

33,113

48,836

48,531

46,291

147.5

95.4

Legnica

82,070

107,507

107,416

99,350

131.0

92.5

Leszno

37,529

62,844

63,084

63,505

167.5

100.7

Łom˙za

29,006

63,608

63,805

62,945

219.3

98.7

Nowy S˛acz

48,643

83,899

84,370

83,794

172.5

99.3

Ostroł˛eka

28,040

54,008

54,315

52,055

192.6

95.8

Piła

49,345

75,001

74,900

73,139

152.0

97.6

Piotrków Tryb

64,190

81,639

81,238

73,090

127.2

90.0

Płock

87,827

128,654

128,580

119,425

146.5

92.9

Przemy´sl

57,392

68,558

68,220

60,689

119.5

89.0

Radom

175,274

230,704

230,492

211,371

131.6

91.7

Siedlce

44,285

76,056

76,454

78,185

171.7

102.3

Sieradz

21,795

44,652

44,546

41,953

204.9

94.2

Skierniewice

26,922

48,077

48,434

48,089

178.6

99.3

Słupsk

77,611

100,318

100,386

90,681

129.3

90.3

Suwałki

30,558

68,612

68,889

69,758

224.5

101.3

Tarnobrzeg

26,819

50,425

50,310

46,745

188.0

92.9

Cz˛estochowa

Tarnów

97,805

120,433

120,822

108,470

123.1

89.8

Wałbrzych

128,064

132,688

131,675

111,356

103.6

84.6

Włocławek

90,555

121,923

121,833

109,883

134.6

90.2

Zamo´sc´

39,143

67,099

67,134

63,437

171.4

94.5

Source Authors’ elaboration based on GUS data

12 Transformation of the Urban and Rural System

293

• the southern part of the Lower Silesian Voivodship, especially the area of the Central Sudetes and the Wałbrzych agglomeration. It is currently the most problematic urban region in Poland. The total population of the 16 problematic towns located there is about 650,000; • the area of the Upper Silesian conurbation and its extension to the south (Jastrz˛ebie-Zdrój), although more concentrated, but important because of its demographic and economic potential (9 cities, about 900,000 inhabitants, e.g. ´ askie, Siemianowice Sl˛ ´ askie, Zawiercie). Bytom, Piekary Sl˛ Other groups of cities are much less geographically concentrated, but they have some common features. These are, for example, medium-sized cities in Warmi´nskoMazurskie, Podlaskie, Lubelskie and Podkarpackie Voivodeships (e.g. Hajnówka, Przemy´sl, Zambrów). In solving the problems of medium-sized cities, the effectiveness of the development policies applied to date is still insufficient. Instruments of financial support often depend on the selective activity and competence of the local authorities concerned and their capacity to implement development projects, the ability to obtain funds and attract investors, to build social harmony around strategic issues beyond political divisions and, finally, management skills. The above factors strongly justify undertaking an individualised development policy, including public intervention, for medium-sized cities. The overriding aim here should be to restore the stabilising and pro-developmental local and regional role of those centres which have lost or are losing their socio-economic potential and functions in the country’s settlement system. It is necessary to support the functions of medium-sized towns and cities in order to activate their resources and potentials, which can effectively oppose polarisation processes. In this context, it can be assumed that the specific objectives of a place-based development policy for selected medium-sized towns and cities which are marginalised and are losing their socio-economic functions stem from the need to: • • • • • •

stabilise and restore their roles in the polycentric settlement system, create efficient functional links in various hierarchical setups and networks, restructure and re-industrialise (esp. in major centres from this group), create conditions for the growth of enterprise (esp. linked to innovation), enhance the activity and mobility of their inhabitants (not increasing commuting), improve the quality of life of the residents by development and easier access to public services (optimising accessibility in various settlement and spatial levels), • rationalise spatial planning, e.g. via limiting dispersed development and processes of business de-concentration. This problem was aptly commented on by the authors of one opinion of the Land ´ Management Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences (Sleszy´ nski 2018): ‘In a new, post-industrial era, infrastructure and large-scale investment in its expansion are drivers of development as long as they remove barriers to development where the latter already takes place’.

294

T. Kaczmarek et al.

12.6 Small Towns and Rural Areas: Between Challenges of Decline and Multifunctional Bottom-Up Development The basic feature of rural areas in Poland is their strong diversity, which often concerns even adjacent areas. This is a result of their geographical location, natural and historical conditions and, above all, of the path of political, social and economic development that the area has taken. In Poland, we can still experience the consequences of the partitions and agricultural reforms (enfranchisement, integration, etc.) carried out at different times. The same impact is evident in the division resulting from the shift of state borders to the west in 1945. In the western territories, there was a triple breakdown of continuity: historical, ethnic and politico-socio-economic. These divisions are still the main factor in the diversity of rural areas in Poland, which have not been obliterated by the forced collectivisation and nationalisation of farms (see introduction). The collapse of many agricultural enterprises and the loss of the economic base established over many centuries, as well as the shrinkage of the labour market for the agricultural population, invariably resulted not only in profound restructuring but above all in a shift in the functional structure of rural areas. In the 1990s, a paradigm of multifunctional rural development was formed in Poland. In practice, it boiled down to so-called diversification of rural areas in terms of economic activity and subordinating the activity of local authorities to attracting investors and building technical infrastructure (see more Ba´nski 2019). Thus, social development is on the backburner. This paradigm has not been changed by the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, although it has emphasised environmental protection and the recognition of social aspects. According to the administrative criterion, rural areas account for 93% of Poland’s area. In this respect, rural areas are a very broad and internally diverse category. The second basic criterion for distinguishing rural areas is population density. According to the criterion proposed by the OECD, rural areas include those with a population density (calculated at the commune level) of less than 150 people per km2 . Thus, delimited rural areas account for 91.7% of Poland’s land. In the European Union, the indicator of 100 persons/km2 is used as the basis for the delimitation of rural areas. In this respect, rural areas cover 83% of Poland. The notion of rurality is gradable inasmuch as areas with different degrees of rural and urban characteristics are distinguished. We are therefore faced with a city-village continuum, which can be used to classify areas characterised by a different mixture of features typical of the countryside and the city. Small towns are an integral part of rural areas. They are closely linked to the functioning of rural areas: administratively, economically and socially. If we include small towns, for example, which are the seats of urban–rural communes, rural areas would occupy more than 93% of Poland’s territory (Stanny 2013). By virtue of the extent and strength of the links of rural areas with the environment, and especially the relationship between the countryside and the city, it is possible

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to distinguish core areas and concentric zones with different degrees of impact and accessibility. In comparison with EU countries, Poland, apart from the Upper Silesia and Zagł˛ebie Metropolis and the Warsaw agglomeration, which are predominantly urban regions, almost three quarters of the regions are predominantly rural and close to large cities (the northern and central part of the country), while the south-western regions are transitory regions located close to large cities. The EU core document (Rural Developments. European Commission, July 1997, p. 9) identifies three problems occurring in rural areas: the pressures of modern life, the collapse of the rural economy and peripheralism. Based on these issues, the following categories of rural areas have been identified: integrated, intermediate and remote.1 Poland has all the above categories of rural areas. Rural towns and cities are being developed around large and medium-sized towns, where the majority of the inhabitants make a living working in the city; they are the housing and recreation facilities of people coming from urban agglomerations or migrating from remote agricultural areas. This is the nature of rural areas within a belt of approximately 30 km around Warsaw, Pozna´n, Wrocław, Krakow, Tricity, Białystok and other major cities. Intermediate rural areas are found in all regions of the country. The most typical example is the majority of western Polish voivodeships: Wielkopolskie, Opolskie, Dolno´sl˛askie and Kujawsko-Pomorskie. Most of the areas that have the characteristics of rural peripheral areas are located in eastern Poland (Podlaskie, Lubelskie, ´ etokrzyskie Podkarpackie Voivodeships) and on the borderline of Mazowieckie, Swi˛ and Łódzkie Voivodeships. The number of people living in rural areas in Poland has been growing systematically since the beginning of the 21st c., unlike in the 1990s. Taking into account data by place of residence from rural and urban–rural communes and taking into account the period of Poland’s transformation and accession to the EU, in the years 1995– 2019 the population of rural areas increased by 3.7%. Rural areas are already home to 40% of the country’s population, with a simultaneous decrease in the country’s population from 38,609,000 to 38,383,000. The increase in the total number of inhabitants of rural areas was proportionally higher than the decrease in the total population, and the share of rural residents in Poland’s overall population grew from 38.2 to 40% (Table 12.3). The highest population growth is recorded in rural communes located near large cities. These are usually so-called functional areas of voivodeship cities (Fig. 12.2). The increase in the number and share of the rural population is achieved despite 1

• integrated rural areas are located near major urban centres, Agriculture plays a minor role in these areas, most of the income of the people living there comes from non-agricultural sources, the unemployment rate in these areas is relatively low, these areas have strong functional links to cities and their population is growing; • intermediate rural areas are characterised by a high importance of agriculture, incl. largesized farming; they are less dense than areas in the preceding category, small towns, which act as administrative, service and supply bases for agricultural activities, are an integral part of these areas; • remote rural areas are marked by a very low and decreasing population density, the percentage of elderly people in these areas is high, small farms of limited economic power prevail, there is generally a high unemployment rate and a significant degree of poverty and social exclusion; technical, economic and social infrastructure is underdeveloped (Rural … 1997).

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Table 12.3 Population changes in rural areas in Poland between 1995 and 2019 Area

Population in thousands 1995

2005

2015

Share in the overall population 2019

Countryside 14,733 14,733 15,271 15,350 Poland

Changes 1995–2019

1995

2005

2015

2019

38.2

38.6

39.7

40.0

1995 = 100 + 3.7

38,609 38,157 38,437 38,383 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 −0.6

+ increase; − decrease Source Own calculations on the basis of data from BDL GUS

Fig. 12.2 Diversification of population dynamics in rural and urban–rural areas in Poland in 1995– 2019. Source own elaboration on the basis of data from Bank Danych Lokalnych GUS

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the enlargement of cities at the expense of rural areas and despite the administrative transformation of some villages into units with city status. Between 1995 and 2019, 41% of communes increased the number of rural residents, while a decrease was recorded in 53% of such territorial units. A strong depopulation of up to 20% occurred especially in eastern Poland, mainly in Podlaskie and Lubelskie Voivodships; here, economic emigration to Western European countries contributed greatly. The trend of changes in the rural population is proceeding with divergent intensity in different regions of the country. The regional differences are subject to two distinguishing criteria, one of which is historical in nature, and the other is related to the location in relation to the voivodeship cities and determines their continuum of centre-periphery. The described increase in the number of people living in administratively rural areas heralds a process of deurbanisation. However, the observed spatial distribution of the rural population loss indicates that it is basically a process of peri-urbanisation, which is a kind of contemporary expansion of urbanised areas beyond the borders of the agglomeration into farther rural areas. It is connected, among other things, with the development of individual transport and leads to the coexistence and interpenetration of urban and rural areas. As a result, the range of rural communes with a steady increase in population (in relation to voivodeship cities) goes beyond the so-called ring of communes in the suburban zone. Increasing the number of inhabitants of rural areas takes place not only within the range of influence of attractiveness factors of voivodeship cities, but also around cities of supra-local importance in a given region. This is a trend that more often characterises the cities of western rather than eastern Poland, determined by factors of a historical nature. The greatest increase in the rural population is observed in the gminas of Pomorskie, Podkarpackie and Wielkopolskie Voivodships. In general, within thirty years, 41% of the communes have increased the number of rural residents, while a drop was observed in as many as 53% of the units. The communes with the deepest, permanent depopulation are located on the so-called eastern wall. The shrinkage of the number of countryside inhabitants by nearly 20% over 30 years has been observed in 10% of the discussed territorial units in the country, mostly concentrated in the eastern voivodeships: Podlaskie and Lubelskie. The remaining ones are ‘scattered’ along the regional borders of central Poland. The phenomenon of deep depopulation also enters the areas formerly owned by large State Farms (in Zachodniopomorskie and Warmi´nsko-Mazurskie Voivodships). The emigration trend in Opolskie Voivodeship (emigration to Germany) also qualifies this region as depopulated. Due to the administrative criterion adopted in Polish statistics for the division of population into towns and countryside, modifications to this division are one of the factors influencing changes in the rural population. For almost all the years after the Second World War, administrative changes have contributed to the reduction of this population. In the years 1990–2019, as many as 303,000 rural population decreased due to administrative changes (Table 12.4). Rural areas, despite significant changes in the economic, social and cultural spheres, have continued to experience positive population growth (except in 2015 and 2019) throughout the period of political transformation. In the twenty-first century,

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Table 12.4 Balance of the population in rural areas in Poland between 1990 and 2019 Years

Population growth in thous

Per 1000 people

Total

Natural growth

Natural growth

Migration balance

Migration balance

Balance of administrative changesa

1990

27.2

88.7

−115.9

6.1

−8.0

−27.1

1991–1995

0

327.4

−327.4\

4.1

−2.0

−41.5

1996–2000

75.0

129.9

−53.9

1.8

−0.7

−61.5

2001–2005

150.7

36.4

114.3

0.5

0.7

−33.1

2006–2010

269.3

81.1

188.2

1.1

2.5

−69.8

2011–2015

187.3

36.9

150.3

0.5

2.0

−44.2

2015

19.3

−0.9

20.2

−0.1

1,3

−17.5

2016

30.5

4.7

25.8

0.3

1.7

−4.8

2017

37.0

10.3

26.6

0.7

1.7

−19.4

2018

30.2

0.5

29.7

0.0

1.9

−5.8

2019

29.7

−1.9

31.6

−0.1

2.1

−20.6

a

Population increase or loss in the commune due to shifts in administrative borders Source Rocznik Demograficzny 2020. GUS

the actual changes in the rural population are mainly influenced by the favourable balance of migration, which not only has been positive for rural areas since 2000 but as of 2002 has been nominally higher than the natural growth. Until 2000, the rural–urban balance was negative for rural areas, and since 2001 it has developed into a small positive balance. The migration balance for rural areas in 1990 indicated that statistically, for every 1000 inhabitants, 8 people leave the countryside and move to town. In 2019, for every 1000 inhabitants, 2.1 people were new residents of rural areas who moved out of town. However, the process of increasing the share of the rural population takes place under specific conditions. On the one hand, there is an increase in migration from cities to rural suburban areas (peri-urbanisation), and on the other hand, the character of these areas is changing from rural to urban (also due to the aforementioned administrative changes). In conclusion, it is worth noting that the changes in rural areas have a dual nature: in the wider surroundings of urban agglomerations, the number of inhabitants is growing significantly, while in many peripheral zones, less well-connected, less attractive in terms of landscape, the rural population is decreasing. Both processes are mostly of a spontaneous nature (Heffner 2014). In the period preceding the political transformation, Poland pursued an agricultural rather than rural development policy. For at least two decades, the rural development policy has focussed on challenges related to the need to diversify economic functions, in particular the possibility of introducing non-agricultural functions, promotion of new forms of employment outside agriculture and implementation of facilities related to access to services for people living in rural areas. This multifunctional management of rural areas prevents depopulation and makes it possible to eliminate

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agrarian overpopulation. Many studies have shown that, on a regional scale, we witness an advanced transition to the multifunctionality of rural areas, which is a desirable form of their existence (Heffner 2014). At the same time, it is worth noting that the frequent transformation of the socio-economic structure of small towns and villages results in functional differentiation of rural areas, which does not necessarily imply achieving multifunctionality (Czarnecki 2008; Stanny et al. 2018). The relationship between the functions and the level of development is a result of some local systems being able to take advantage of their location in the vicinity of central centres on a supra-local or regional scale. This location increases the variety of directions of local development by those which are particularly attractive and take advantage of the proximity of the agglomeration. Localities far away from such centres must look for other ways of development, not based on these links to the urban economy. Their direction of development is additionally connected with the nature of local structures related to the settlement network and tourist values (Rosner and Stanny 2014). The diversity of types of rural areas according to the structures of social and economic development resulted from history, i.e. the division of the current area of Poland by the former state borders. The structural types that prevail in the east differ from those prevalent in the west of the country, while others still can be found in the south-east of Poland. In 2010, in Poland’s rural areas, the agricultural function prevailed, which consisted of 4 types, i.e. dominance of traditional agriculture, dominance of large-scale agriculture, predominance of the agricultural function and fragmented agriculture (Fig. 12.3). The multifunctional type and balance of economic function prevailed in the western and south-western part of Poland, i.e. Lubuskie, Wielkopolskie, Dolno´sl˛askie and Opolskie Voivodships. Urbanised types (strong and suburban) were found around large cities. Changes in the types of socio-economic structures in 2010–2018 were very slow and showed little spatial diversity (Table 12.5). The number of multifunctional communes is increasing, especially in the western and central part of the country. The spatial zone of rural areas is expanding around towns and cities; the development of this zone occurs through the function of housing and access to the labour market and services in the city. The shorter the distance to the city, the stronger the relationship with the city, and this relationship is modified by the transportation network. A significant decrease in the number of Type IV communes has been noted, where multi-income households are common (often involving economic migration abroad). This happens with an unfavourable agrarian structure of agriculture (Stanny et al. 2018).

12.7 Conclusion The Polish settlement system after 1990 has witnessed intense transformation. The marketisation and globalisation of the economy affected the settlement subsystems in

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Fig. 12.3 Types of rural areas by structures of socio-economic development in Poland in 2010. Source Stanny et al. (2018)

Table 12.5 Changes in the number of communes in particular types of socio-economic development structures in Poland in 2010–2018 Type

Type name

No. of communes 2010

2018

I II III IV V VI VII

Traditional agriculture dominant Large-area agriculture dominant Advantage of agricultural function (intermediate) Multiple income, fragmented agriculture Multifunctional, balance of sectors Suburban urbanised Strongly urbanised

490 389 466 187 383 196 52

474 381 449 161 433 227 48

Change −16 −8 −17 −26 +50 +29 −4

− decrease, + increase Source Stanny et al. (2018)

various ways, differentiating the development of metropolises, medium-sized towns, small towns and rural areas (see Fig. 12.4). Metropolitan areas, especially their suburban areas, have developed the most rapidly. However, the population of large cities within their administrative boundaries is stagnating or declining (in some cases, quite dramatically). Medium-sized cities affected by processes of deindustrialisation,

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Fig. 12.4 Population changes in the settlement subsystems of Poland in 1995–2019. Source Authors’ elaboration based on GUS data

the disappearance of administrative functions and depopulation display the strongest symptoms of shrinkage, especially in cities that lost their regional (voivodeship) administrative functions in 1999. Small towns and rural areas are deeply affected by spatial polarisation due to various effects of deagrarianisation and depopulation processes. Large cities and metropolitan areas can be clearly divided into three groups according to their functional rank and development dynamics. The first is Warsaw itself—the definite leader of the urban system in Poland and the only city with highly developed functions on an international scale (Korcelli-Olejniczak 2004; Korcelli 2007). The second group consists of dynamic centres such as Kraków, Wrocław, Pozna´n and Gda´nsk (Tricity), characterised by a high pace of economic development and strong suburbanisation pressure. These two groups together (the ‘Big Five’) concentrate very high investment and construction activity. With regard to these metropolitan areas, the state’s development policy should focus primarily on creating an appropriate legal, financial and political framework for the integrated management of spatial and economic development. Due to rapid development dynamics, these areas need not so much external impulses to stimulate development, but greater autonomy of management and financing, if they are to continue to function as engines of the country’s growth. However, the challenge is to achieve spatial and social cohesion in each of these areas in this process. The third group of large cities and metropolitan areas looks slightly different, lagging behind the leaders in terms of development dynamics, mainly due to their industrial past (Łód´z, Katowice and Upper Silesia), peripheral locations (Szczecin) or insufficiently developed higher

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order functions (Bydgoszcz, Lublin, Białystok). Although they also experience problems of suburbanisation, the basic challenge is still the reconstruction of the economic base and functional development of a service-based economy. Strong state support in this process may be necessary, if the urban system of Poland is supposed to achieve effective polycentricity. The problem facing medium-sized and small towns in Poland in terms of loss of function and significance in the settlement hierarchy requires a new regional policy. Until recently, these centres were undervalued in development policy, yet they are the ones who are most responsible for stabilising the polycentric settlement system and balancing development in places not affected, for natural reasons, by development impulses from the largest metropolitan areas. Medium-sized towns in areas beyond the influence of the largest agglomerations, i.e. voivodeship capitals, are the main centres of socio-economic life. Their position directly impacts the development of the outlying areas and rural areas, including marginalised problem areas. Strengthening the network of cities and their enhanced connection with places of social and economic degradation should contribute positively to ensuring a more stable development basis for the urban centres themselves, complementarity of functions in various systems, as well as diffusion of growth stimuli and ‘lifting’ declining areas out of crisis traps. Changes taking place in rural areas involve the expansion of the spatial zone of rural areas around large cities. The development of these zones is taking place as a result of access to labour markets and social services located in the city. The shorter the distance to the city, the stronger the relationship with the city, a relationship that is modified through the transport network. There is a slow development of monofunctional communes (agricultural function) towards multifunctional (industrial, tourist). The spatial distribution manifests itself in an increase in the number of communes with a multifunctional economic structure in the west of the country, while in the east there is a tendency for more and more multifunctional farmers’ households to appear, i.e. those that combine work on and off the farm. It can be assumed that this is a period before the local economy becomes deagrarianised, but it may not be the case in certain ‘demographically advanced’ areas, where there is a reduction in the share of work in agriculture as the primary source of livelihood in favour of an increase in the role of not-for-profit sources of livelihood. Since 1989, the social potential unleashed (local self-government), subsequently strengthened by EU-funded so-called ‘soft’ programmes, have been decisive for the development of rural infrastructure and the improvement of living conditions. The economic changes are slower and more permanently tied with the endogenous resources of individual regions of the country (Wilczy´nski 2015). The character of the changes is determined by the location related to the centre-periphery and north-west/south-east continuum, which has its roots in history (partitions). In the above context, many academic and expert studies have for quite a long time pointed out the threats associated with the destabilisation of the Polish polycentric settlement system, such as the hypertrophy of the functions of large cities—metropolises, occupying higher levels of the settlement hierarchy and with numerous international links (Taylor and Ciecha´nski 2015), undesirable changes

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in the economic base, including excessive deindustrialisation (Rachwał 2015) and the ‘leaching’ of functions, disruptions in the links and relations between cities, lack of synergy effects with even favourable gravitation, unbalanced settlement and regional system (Zaborowski 2019, Korcelli-Olejniczak and Korcelli 2015), especially in terms of labour market demand and supply. Despite the favourable historical formation of a full network of cities of different sizes and quite even geographical distribution, the Polish settlement system has therefore remained in a state of increasing imbalance after 1990. This is due to polarisation tendencies, especially in the concentration of resources and potentials in the largest centres, including Warsaw, and reorganisation, including the destruction of functional links between centres of different types. There is an increasing divergence of capital and human resources, exacerbating demographic, social and economic problems, especially in the peripheries (Sm˛etkowski 2015). So far, these processes are the biggest challenge for the national urban and rural policy.

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Korcelli-Olejniczak E (2004) Funkcje metropolitalne Berlina i Warszawy w latach 1990–2002. ´ Współzale˙zno´sc´ pozycji w systemie miast Europy Srodkowej. Prace Geograficzne, IGiPZ PAN, 198 Korcelli-Olejniczak E, Korcelli P (2015) On European metropolisation scenarios and the future course of metropolitan development in Poland. Geogr Pol 88(1):107–121 Mikuła Ł (2019) Zarz˛adzanie rozwojem przestrzennym obszarów metropolitalnych w s´wietle koncepcji mi˛ekkich przestrzeni planowania. Bogucki Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Pozna´n (Management of spatial development of metropolitan areas in light of the ‘soft spaces of planning’ concept) Rachwał T (2015) Structural changes in Polish industry after 1989. Geogr Pol 88(4):575–606 Ra´zniak P, Winiarczyk A (2014) Warunki mieszkaniowe jako wymiar procesów suburbanizacji w wybranych obszarach metropolitalnych w Polsce (Housing conditions as a dimension of suburbanization processes in selected metropolitan areas in Poland), Acta Geographica Silesiana, ´ Sosnowiec, pp 73–82 WNoZ US, Rebernik D (2005) Urbanization trends and processes of population change in the Lubljana Urban Region in the 1990s. Geografia Polonica 78(1):67–78 Rosner A, Stanny M (2014) Monitoring rozwoju obszarów wiejskich (Monitoring of rural development). Etap I. Przestrzenne zró˙znicowanie poziomu rozwoju społeczno-gospodarczego obszarów wiejskich w 2010 roku, Fundacja Europejski Fundusz Rozwoju Wsi Polskiej, Instytut Rozwoju Wsi i Rolnictwa PAN, Warszawa Runge A (2013) Rola miast s´rednich w kształtowaniu systemu osadniczego Polski (The role of ´ askiego, medium-sized cities in shaping the urban system of Poland). Wyd. Uniwersytetu Sl˛ Katowice ´ Sleszy´ nski P (2018) Polska s´rednich miast. Zało˙zenia i koncepcja deglomeracji w Polsce (Poland of medium-sized cities. Assumptions and the concept of deglomeration in Poland). Klub Jagiello´nski, Warszawa Sm˛etkowski M (2015) Spatial patterns of regional economic development in Central and Eastern European countries. Geogr Pol 88(4):539–556 Stanilov K (ed) (2007) The post-socialist city urban form and space transformations in Central and Eastern Europe after socialism. Geo J Library 92 Stanilov K, Sýkora L (2014) Managing suburbanization in post socialist Europe. In: Stanilov K, Sýkora L (red) Confronting suburbanization: urban decentralization in postsocialist Central and Eastern Europe. Wiley, London, pp 296–320 Stanny M (2013) Przestrzenne zró˙znicowanie obszarów wiejskich w Polsce (Spatial differentiation of rural areas in Poland). IRWiR PAN Warszawa Stanny M, Rosner A, Komorowski Ł (2018) Monitoring rozwoju obszarów wiejskich (Monitoring of rural development). Etap III. Struktury społeczno-gospodarcze, ich przestrzenne zró˙znicowanie i dynamika. Fundacja Europejski Fundusz Rozwoju Wsi Polskiej, IRWiR PAN Warszawa ´ Steening A, Smith A, Rochovska A, Swiatek D (2010) Domesticating neo-liberalism. Spaces of economic practice and social reproduction in post-socialist cities. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford Taylor Z, Ciecha´nski A (2015) Control functions within large cities and foreign direct investment in the transport sector: empirical evidence from Poland. Geogr Pol 88(4):557–573 Wi˛ecław-Michniewska J (2006) Krakowskie suburbia i ich społeczno´sci (Krakow suburbia and their communities): Instytut Geografii i Gospodarki Przestrzennej Uniwersytetu Jagiello´nskiego, Kraków Wilczy´nski R (2015) Podej´scia top-down i bottom-up w rozwoju obszarów wiejskich w Polsce (The top-down and the bottom-up Approach in Rural Development in Poland). Studia KPZK PAN 154:72–82 Zaborowski Ł (2019) Deglomeracja czy degradacja? Potencjał rozwoju s´rednich miast w Polsce (Deglomeration or degradation? The development potential of medium-sized cities in Poland). Klub Jagiello´nski, Warszawa

Chapter 13

Modernisation of Transport Infrastructure and Changes in Spatial Accessibility J˛edrzej Gadzinski ´ and Radosław Bul

Abstract The aim of this chapter is to present the spatial changes which occurred in Poland in the years 1990–2020 in the context of the development of the transport infrastructure. The study will present, amongst other things, information on the development of road, rail, and air transport infrastructures in Poland. An important aim of the study is also to determine the spatial accessibility of selected locations in the country, in diverse scales and to determine the impact of the infrastructural investments on its changes. In the last 30 years, the transport infrastructure in Poland has changed considerably. After years of infrastructural delays, owing to the social and economic development of the country, accession to the European Union, and the possibility of using additional sources of financing, the technical condition and parameters of roads, railway lines, and airports have improved significantly. This has translated directly into improvements of spatial accessibility in all spatial scales from local ones through to regional, national, and international ones. Keywords Transport infrastructure · Spatial accessibility · Poland · Modernisation of infrastructure · Road transport · Rail transport · Air transport

13.1 Introduction One trend which is clearly noticeable in recent years in the context of movement is an increase in the mobility of the population. This is evidenced by both the growing number of vehicles and the growing business of transport in almost all branches of transport (both passenger transport and freight transport), not only in Poland but in the entire European Union. According to estimates made by the European Commission, the mobility rate in the perspective of the years 2000–2030 will increase by as much as 170% in the countries of the “new” EU. Thus, the European Commission forecasts J. Gadzi´nski · R. Bul (B) Faculty of Human Geography and Planning, Adam Mickiewicz University, B. Krygowskiego 10, 61-608 Pozna´n, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Churski and T. Kaczmarek (eds.), Three Decades of Polish Socio-economic Transformations, Economic Geography, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06108-0_13

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that by the end of the current decade, there will be an almost threefold increase in the number of trips taken on average by 1 person (Tendencje w sektorach …, 2006). The intensification of movement is clearly noticeable in the EU member states, including above all, countries such as Poland, which until 1989 had operated in a centrally controlled economy. This increase in movement is, above all, possible owing to the transport infrastructure, the expansion, and modernisation of which has clearly accelerated over the last 15 years. The above-mentioned intensification of movement is particularly noticeable in metropolitan areas, which are poles of social-economic growth. Large cities are the main junctions in national and regional transport networks. It is also in the cities that the main issues related to transport activities are concentrated. Travel sources and destinations focus on relatively small areas, and also as a consequence of this, the streams of passenger and freight traffic intersect (Gadzinski 2019). The reason for the increase in mobility in large urban complexes, in addition to the development of means of transport, is the spatial diversification of individual functions between the centre and the peripheral areas and the dynamic population growth in the municipalities surrounding the cities (Bul 2015). Mobility on a national (especially the scale of movement between large agglomerations) and international scale is also increasing significantly. At the same time, in recent years, we have witnessed a clear modal shift in transport tasks; long-distance movement (exceeding 500 km) is becoming the domain of air transport, whilst the importance of rail transport in the context of these relations is decreasing. The main reason for the changes in the division of transport tasks in Poland is changes in the transport infrastructure which have taken place across the country in the years 1990–2020. In view of infrastructural delays in Poland, activities in the context of expansion of the transport system were some of the major challenges for the respective Polish governments. Changes in the social and economic system, which were initiated in the year 1989, have a positive impact on the possibility of developing the road network, modernisation of the airport infrastructure, and modernisation of the railway infrastructure. These were both changes of quantitative nature (e.g. increasing the lengths of roads, expansion of air terminals), as well as a qualitative nature (e.g. an increase in the parameters of railway lines, improvements in the technical condition of the airport infrastructure). The above-mentioned changes in the infrastructure were also reflected in the shaping of the transport preferences of the inhabitants and resulted in economic (multiplier effect of the investment) and spatial (spill-over of buildings, especially in the vicinity of large cities) changes. All the most important studies of strategic national and international importance (including; Strategies for Transport Development in Poland and EU documents including the White Book: Roadmap to a single European transport area—Towards a competitive and resource-efficient transport system) have, over the years, pointed to the necessity of implementing infrastructural investments in order to improve the competitiveness and accessibility of the transport system in all spatial scales, from local ones to international ones. From the point of view of the EU, it was (and still is) also important to create a balanced transport system in Poland and in the entire Community, which is aimed at maintaining the appropriate balance (both currently

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and in the future) between the quality of the natural environment and the economic rationality of the transport activity, as well as the expectations and needs of society (cf. Jaarsma 1997; Schwaab and Thielmann 2001; Stegg and Gifford 2005; Goldman and Gorham 2006). Taking into account the aforementioned conditions, in view of the infrastructural delays in Poland, a number of investment activities have been conducted over the last 30 years, aimed at the improvement of the technical condition and parameters of transport networks (roads, railway lines, and airports). A particularly clear intensification of activities took place after the year 2004, from which Poland was able to benefit from financial support schemes provided by the European Union. The aim of this chapter is to present the spatial changes which occurred in Poland in the years 1990–2020 in the context of the development of the transport infrastructure. The study will present, amongst other things, information on the development of road, rail, and air transport infrastructures in Poland. An important aim of the study is also to determine the spatial accessibility of selected locations in the country, in diverse scales (from local ones through to the regional, national, and international ones) and to determine the impact of the infrastructural investments on its changes. In the chapter, use is made of information coming from secondary sources, including, above all, institutions established to gather statistical data (e.g. Statistics Poland). Statistical information was also obtained from those units which manage the respective road, rail, and air infrastructure systems, including the General Directorate of National Roads and Motorways, PKP PLK (Polish National Railways), the Civil Aviation Authority, and PPL (State Airports). The data used in the study come from the years 1990–2020. In the case of some analyses, in view of the lack of data for the year 2020, statistical information for the year 2019 or older was used. In the case of selected analysis, statistical information for the year 2005 was used.

13.2 Terminology and Research Methods The basic terms used in the chapter include transport infrastructure and accessibility. Transport infrastructure (according to Kristiansen 1993) includes the means and conditions required to enable the physical flow of people and goods, therefore, its function is to ensure the general conditions for production and services. In particular, this is the set of conditions for transport services divided into technical and institutional ones. The notion of transport accessibility is defined in many ways. One of the first definitions of accessibility was proposed by Hansen (1959), who described accessibility as the potential for the occurrence of interaction. Ingram (1971) defines accessibility as a property of a place associated with some form of overcoming the resistance of space. On the other hand, Dalvi and Martin (1976) defined accessibility as the ease with which it is possible to get from one point to another using a selected means of transport.

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Transport accessibility is a frequently discussed research problem both by the circles of geographers and economists (including Chojnicki 1966; Taylor 1999; Ratajczak 1999, 2011; Wendt 2000; Komornicki et al. 2008; Rosik 2012 or Gadzi´nski 2013). Research on transport accessibility is conducted locally, nationally, and internationally. In many strategic studies on a local or regional level, the improvement of accessibility is one of the main developmental objectives. Transport accessibility has an important application dimension, because not only do accessibility analyses result in a diagnosis of problems in the movement of people and goods, but they are also an indication on which to conduct a proper transport policy aimed at territorial cohesion (Rosik 2012). There are also numerous scientific and expert studies, in which the authors analyse the accessibility of respective cities (e.g. Wi´sniewski 2014), regions ´ nski (e.g. Grzelakowski 2003), categories of facilities (e.g. Komornicki and Sleszy´ 2009), or services (e.g. Taylor 1999). At the same time, however, this is still not an unambiguous term, whereby it is used on many occasions in improper contexts (e.g. it is often mistaken for mobility—cf. El-Geneidy and Levinson 2006).There are many methods of researching transport accessibility, however, the existence of three to five of the most fundamental ones are indicated in the majority of studies (Rosik 2012): 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Distance-based accessibility—in the case of this method, distance is defined as the physical (Euclidean) distance, the physical real distance (e.g. road distance), economic distance (cost of travel), or time distance (time of travel) between the indicated source of travel and the planned destination, set of destinations (e.g. average time of travel from the place of residence to the city centre using an individual means of transport). Infrastructure-based accessibility—this accessibility is determined using infrastructural equipment indices in the given area (e.g. the provision of a bus stop with electronic information boards). Cumulative accessibility, alternatively referred to as isochronic accessibility— based on this method, accessibility is measured by the estimation of the set of travel destinations which are available at a specific time, at a specific expense or travel effort (e.g. the number of public transport stops available within 15 min). Potential accessibility—in this method, accessibility is measured by the chance of interaction between the source of travel and the set of its destination places, assuming that the attractiveness of the travel destination decreases with the prolongation of in journey time or increase in its costs, which is represented by the distance decay function (e.g. the shorter the road to a bus stop, the more attractive this bus stop becomes). Person-based accessibility—based on the so-called time geography and Hägerstrand’s concepts (1970) associated with the personal social and economic characteristics of a road user in space–time. In the context of this method, accessibility is measured by means of the so-called daily life paths. Amongst the methods representing this group, there are also models of maximising usability amongst different transport possibilities (utility-based accessibility).

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The chapter also covers analysis of the transport offer and the level of accessibility using road, rail, and air transport. An assumption was made in the study that the basic measure of accessibility is the accessibility measured by time distance. Road accessibility was expressed by the time spent in a car to reach a given destination place. The travel destinations in car traffic included 18 cities which were the capitals of provinces (in the context of analyses of the time spent in order to arrive in Warsaw) and selected cities European capitals. In order to represent the level of road accessibility, a model of time accessibility has been developed in which geostatistical methods are used. Based on the method developed by Juliao (1998) and used, amongst others, by Gadzi´nski (2013), a raster map, which contains information about the time of travel to individual airports in Poland, was created. In these analyses, a fixed pixel size was taken into account as the basis (with a side of 500 m).These were assigned speed values depending on the analysed type of traffic and location—pixels superimposed on road lines were assigned values equal to the permissible speed depending on the type of road and restrictions (motorways— 140 km/h, expressways—120 km/h, national and provincial roads—90 km/h, district roads—70 km/h, other hardened roads—50 km/h, non-hardened roads—20 km/h); and those outside the roads—a value of 4 km/h (the possibility of reaching a vehicle parked on a road by foot) (Gadzi´nski 2013). Another stage was to convert the values expressed in km/h into time values. A simple calculation was used for this purpose, based on the following formula: T p [min] =

R[m] ∗ 60  km  V h ∗ 1000

Tp—time needed to travel through a pixel, R—length of pixel (500 m), V—speed of travel through a pixel. As a consequence of this, rasters with time values in minutes, assigned to the respective pixels, were achieved. In the next stage, a raster file which presented the time distance of the analysed cities was created. For this purpose, the cost distance tool available in the ArcGis 10.4 software was used. Based on this tool, the consecutive values of pixels were summed up as the distance from the analysed object increased (selecting the minimum values). The effect was a picture, in which the pixels in the most accessible areas had the lowest values (expressed in minutes). On the other hand, the lower the accessibility, the higher the value assigned to the pixels (Gadzi´nski 2013). The last stage was the preparation of maps which presented the level of accessibility of the respective cities and the differences in accessibility for the year 1990 and 2020. The time accessibility of airports was calculated in a similar manner. As part of the study, analyses of the accessibility of all the airports in the country were carried out for the years 1990 and 2020, and additionally, for airports serving over 1 million passengers per year, as particularly attractive points of access to air transport services. Just as was the case with the analyses of the road accessibility, maps which presented

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differences in the accessibility level were created. For this purpose, the Map Algebra tool available as part of the Arc GIS 10.4 software was used. In view of the lack of any data which would present parameters of the railway network in the year 1990, as part of analysis of railway accessibility, information regarding travel time between the respective cities for the years 1990 and 2020 was used. In order to present the results of analyses, cartographic methods of data presentation were used. In order to illustrate the current technical condition of individual fragments of the railway network, a map which presented the maximum speeds on respective railway routes was created.

13.3 The Transformation of the Infrastructure and the Changes in Transport Offers in the Road, Rail, and Air Transport Over the last 30 years, the transport infrastructure in Poland has changed considerably. This refers to all the forms of transport which are most significant from the point of view of people and goods. This chapter includes analyses of changes in spatial accessibility in road, rail, and air transport in Poland between 1990 and 2020.

13.3.1 Road Transport One of the key forms of transport which shapes the accessibility of the respective locations in the country is road transport. Analysis of the accessibility of this form of transport during the analysed time indicates a clear improvement in the accessibility of various destinations within the country, which is a consequence of developments within the road infrastructure. Of great importance in the context of this form of movement are the quantitative (expansion of the road network) and qualitative changes (an increase in network parameters). The development of the road network is due to an increase in the number of vehicles, which has been significant in scale since 1990. As the data presented in Table 13.1 indicate, over the last 30 years, the number of passenger vehicles in Poland increased from almost 5 million in 1990 to as many as 23.5 million in 2018. This means an increase in the number of vehicles by almost 5 times. On the other hand, the Table 13.1 Number of cars in Poland (in various types) in 1990, 2005, and 2018 No.

Type of vehicles

1990

2005

2018

1990–2018

1

Passenger cars

4.9 million

12.3 million

23.4 million

+18.5 million

2

Trucks

1.0 million

2.2 million

3.3 million

+2.3 million

Source Statistics Poland (2018)

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number of trucks in the country in the analysed period has increased by over 3 times, from 1 million in 1990 to 3.3 million in 2018. It must be remembered that Poland is an important transit country through the territory of which numerous international routes are (TEN-T corridor) run. This means that a significant percentage of vehicles on the roads are those registered abroad. The increase in the number of vehicles is reflected in an increase in the traffic intensity on the roads. Owing to the expansion of the road system, it is possible to limit the negative effects of the increase in traffic intensity; additionally, the construction of a new infrastructure affects the improvement of spatial accessibility using the road network. In accordance with the information presented in Fig. 13.1, an improvement in the spatial accessibility in Poland has been observed since 1990 in almost all spatial scales, from the local scale through to the regional, national, and international ones. Particularly, important changes are noticeable in the context of movement on a national scale. This is due to the expansion of the high-speed road network, which in Poland includes motorways and expressways. In 1990, there were only 381 km of motorways and expressways in Poland, which did not allow for comfortable travel through its territory in view of the country’s size. Over the last 30 years, almost 3500 km of expressways have been put into service, of which more than 1500 km were motorways, i.e. • A1 Gdansk—Lodz—Gliwice—Gorzyczki (CZ), 487 km (86% of the total route) • A2 Swiecko (D)—Poznan—Lodz—Warszawa—Terespol (BY), 475 km (76% of the total route) • A4 Jedrzychowice (D)—Wroclaw—Katowice—Cracow—Korczowa (UA), 673 km (100% of the route) • A6, A8, A18, and A50—short connecting routes which mainly include bypasses of large cities The above-mentioned network is complemented by the following expressways: • S1 Pyrzowice—Katowice—Zwardon (SK), 60 km (42% of the total route) • S3 Swinouj´scie—Szczecin—Gorzów Wlkp.- Zielona Gora—Lubawka (CZ), 368 km (78% of the total route) • S5 Ostroda—Bydgoszcz—Poznan—Wroclaw—Bolkow, 275 km, (67% of the total route), • S6 Kolbaskowo (D)—Szczecin—Gdansk, 175 km, (41% of the total route) • S7 Gdynia—Warsaw—Kielce—Cracow—Rabka, 457 km, (65% of the total route) • S8 Klodzko—Wroclaw—Lodz—Warsaw—Bialystok—Choroszcz, 541 km, (88% of the total route) • S11 Koszalin—Poznan—Piekary Slaskie, 77 km, (14% of the total route) • S17 Warsaw—Lublin—Hrebenne, 155 km (50% of the total route) • S2, S10, S12, S14, S16, S19, S22, S50, S51, S61, S74, S79, S86—routes which are city bypasses or main routes at the planning phase. The most important thing in the context of the modernisation of the country’s road network, was to ensure the financing of the road infrastructure. It is estimated that

312

J. Gadzi´nski and R. Bul

Fig. 13.1 Road network in 1990 and 2020. Source Own study based on OSM (2020)

between 2004 and 2015, expenditures related to the modernisation and expansion of the roads amounted to over 161 billion PLN. Additionally, the National Road Construction Scheme provides for the financing of tasks which consist in the expansion of the road network by the year 2023, for an amount of 142 billion PLN, which means that the financial outlays intended for the construction of the network have significantly exceeded the amount of 300 billion PLN in the analysed period.

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Table 13.2 Length of motorways and expressways in Poland in 1990, 2005, and 2018 No.

Type of road

1990

2005

2018

1990–2018

1

Motorways

242 km

552 km

1,637 km

+1395 km

2

Expressways

139 km

258 km

2,077 km

+1938 km

3

Sum

381 km

809 km

3,714 km

+3333 km

Source Statistics Poland (2018)

In accordance with the information presented in Table 13.2, over 3300 km of motorways and expressways were built in Poland over the last 30 years. At present, the Polish road network covers over 3700 km of motorways and expressways, which classifies our country in 6th place in the European Union. In view of the almost completed basic structure of the road network, which consists of motorways, the construction of expressways is mainly planned for the upcoming years. The total length of the motorway and expressway network in Poland is to be almost 8200 km. The expansion of the network of motorways and expressways was obviously important in the context of movement, on a local scale (above all, within large urban agglomerations), a regional scale (ensuring good accessibility of regions’ capitals), and an international scale (in view of the fact that the majority of them form fragments of corridors of continental significance). The clear improvement in accessibility on a regional and national scale is indicated by the analyses presented in Figs. 13.2 and 13.3, which show the level of accessibility (measured by time distance) to the nearest city which is the capital city of the region. The analyses indicate a clear improvement in the accessibility of the most important cities in the country, which are especially noticeable in the peripheral areas of the respective regions, which, thanks to the extension of the road network, have much better time accessibility than in 1990. The greatest improvements in time accessibility were observed in the following provinces: Lodz, Mazovia, Silesia, Greater Poland, Lublin, Pomerania, and Lower Silesia. Towns located near motorway junctions, owing to the expansion of the road system, are characterised by an almost double improvement in the time accessibility of the provincial town. On the other hand, the poorest time accessibility figures of the capital cities of their regions are observed in the territories of Central Pomerania, Roztocze, Bieszczady, and the Suwalki region. A comparison of the level of road accessibility presented in Fig. 13.4 indicates a lack of changes in accessibility or its worsening (due to an increase in congestion within the road network) mainly in those areas which were not connected with the rest of the country using the network of motorways and expressways even by the year 2020. This phenomenon is particularly noticeable in the territory of Central and Western Pomerania, the southern part of Lower Silesia, Varmia, and Podhale. Owing to expansion of the network of motorways and expressways, the accessibility of many cities in the national and international system has clearly improved. Table 13.3 presents the average times of travel from Warsaw to the largest cities in Poland and the selected capital cities of the countries which neighbour with Poland.

314

J. Gadzi´nski and R. Bul

Fig. 13.2 Accessibility of regional centres in 1990 and 2020. Source Own study based on OSM (2020)

It appears that expansion of the network has affected improvements in the time accessibility of all the analysed cities. In the case of cities, which gained a fast connection with the capital city of Poland after the year 1990, the change is particularly clear. The construction of motorway A2 allowed for the shortening of travel to Poznan by almost 2 h and to Berlin by over 3 h. On the other hand, the time of travel to Prague

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315

Fig. 13.3 Change in the spatial accessibility in the road network in the years 1990–2020. Source Own study based on OSM (2020)

was improved by almost 3 h, which was affected by the construction of expressway S8 and motorways in the territory of the Czech Republic. The relatively smallest change in accessibility took place in reference to cities which are not connected to the capital city by motorways or expressways (including Katowice, Rzeszow, Vilnius, and Minsk). Obviously, these improvements did not only take place in reference to the capital city of Poland and all the other large cities in it. A particularly great improvement in spatial accessibility, on a local scale and then regional, national, and international scales, also characterised Poznan, Wroclaw, and Katowice.

13.3.2 Rail Transport Significant changes in accessibility in the years 1990 and 2020 were also observed in the case of railway connections. Polish railways in the year 1990 were in a state of deep financial and organisational crisis, which became even worse in the following years. Despite this fact, the railways in the year 1990 transported almost 790 million people; it is estimated that in this period, the share of railways in the transport of people in Poland was probably the highest—30.5%. The crisis related to the management of such a huge enterprise as the national railway system ended with the

316

J. Gadzi´nski and R. Bul

Fig. 13.4 Railway network in the years 1990 and 2020. Source Own study based on OSM (2020)

division of the entity into several companies—units which perform selected tasks in the context of the entire enterprise. One of the visible symptoms of the crisis was the liquidation of a significant part of the railway network. It is worth emphasising that the Polish railway network was built at the end of the nineteenth century, i.e. to a great extent, in times, when Poland was under the rule of partitioning states. Hence, due to the very different policies of

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Table 13.3 Time of journey by car from Warsaw in 1990 and 2020 No.

City

1990

2020

1990–2020

1

Cracow

4:42

03:20

−1:22

2

Lodz

02:13

01:24

−00:49

3

Wroclaw

05:19

03:25

−01:54

4

Poznan

04:41

02:57

−01:44

5

Gdansk

05:48

03:48

−02:00

6

Szczecin

08:00

05:14

−02:46

7

Katowice

04:26

03:31

−00:55

8

Rzeszow

04:44

03:56

−00:48

9

Bialystok

03:12

02:21

−00:51

10

Berlin

08:40

05:22

−03:18

11

Prague

09:33

06:43

−02:50

12

Vienna

10:03

07:14

−02:49

13

Kiev

11:32

09:49

−01:43

14

Minsk

07:52

06:27

−01:25

15

Vilnius

06:47

05:54

−00:53

Source Own study based on Google Maps (2020)

the respective partitioning states in the context of use of the railways, the density of the railway network in the country was highly varied in the year 1990. Since the year 1990, as a consequence of the above-mentioned crisis, mainly local lines located, above all, in the Prussian partition, in the western part of the country were subject to liquidation. As is indicated in the data presented in Table 13.4, in the course of 26 years from 1990 to 2016, the length of the railway network in Poland was reduced by over 7000 km. The length of the railway network in Poland in the year 2020 was approx. 19,000 km, which means that in comparison with the year 1990, the network shrank by over 27%. In particular, large cuts were introduced into the network until the year 2005. These affected, above all, single-track lines of a complementary nature Table 13.4 Types of rail lines in Poland in 1990, 2005, and 2016 Rail lines No.

Type of rail lines

1990

2005

2016

1990 –2016

1

Operational

26,228

20,253

19,132

−7096

2

Standard-gauge

23,993

19,843

No data

−

3

Electrical

11,387

11,884

11,874

+487

4

Monorail

15,000

11,096

10,451

−4549

5

Narrow-gauge

2,235

No data

395

−1840

Source Zbiorowy.info (2016)

318

J. Gadzi´nski and R. Bul

in the network and narrow-gauge railways. Both types fulfilled important roles in the context of creating accessibility for district and regional centres. It is only since 2010 that we can talk about real activities in the context of maintaining the existing and reactivating the already excluded railway lines of local importance. This refers, above all, to all the lines located in the agglomerations of large cities, for which railways have become the most advantageous means of transport from the point of view of time accessibility. The Fast Urban Railway in the Tricity, operating since the post-war period, has been joined by urban railway systems and regional and agglomeration railways (Mazovian Railways, Silesian Railways, Wielkopolska Railways and Poznan Metropolitan Railways, Lower Silesian Railways, Lesser Poland Railways, Lodz Agglomeration Railways, Pomeranian Metropolitan Railways, Szczecin Metropolitan Railways, and others). It is estimated that in the year 2019, Polish railways provided transport for 335 million passengers (in the year 2010, this was 262 million passengers). Significant changes in the last 30 years have been observed in the context of the functioning of long-distance railways. As a consequence of the modernisation of railway lines, financed mainly from EU funds, the time of travel between the respective cities in Poland and abroad has been shortened significantly. However, it must be emphasised that the changes have not been as significant as in the case of road transport. In view of the specifics of the Polish railway network (its topology and accessibility), the decision has been made that the existing railway lines must, above all, be modernised at the expense of construction of new routes. The largest number of railway lines of national and international importance were modernised to a speed of 160 km/h, which is the highest lawfully allowed speed at which collision crossroads may function (this is of great importance from the point of view of the cost of the entire investment). An exception in this respect is the Warsaw—Gdansk line, which was modernised at the cost of 9 billion PLN and adapted to the speed of 200 km/h. Also, some lines of local significance located mainly in large urban agglomerations were subjected to modernisations. Figure 13.5 presents the maximum speeds on the respective railway routes in the country. The railway line modernisation scheme in Poland is being implemented on a continuous basis. Table 13.5 and Figs. 13.6 and 13.7 present the times of travel between the largest cities in the country using rail. It appears that, in the great majority of cases, the time of travel has improved since 1990. An exception to this is the railway lines on which modernisation work is currently being conducted, amongst others, the routes connecting Poznan and Szczecin, Poznan and Wroclaw, Szczecin and Gdansk, Warsaw and Lublin, and Cracow and Katowice. It is estimated that by the year 2023, all the most important railway routes in Poland will be modernised. Another challenge planned by the state authorities is the modernisation of the railway network in the context of the planned construction of a Central Transport Port, as part of which a new airport with an interchange function for the whole country is to be built. The Polish rail network is still struggling with serious problems. Despite the fact that it has seen numerous infrastructure upgrades, unfortunately, the railway is still a clearly slower means of transport than a car on certain analysed routes. The problem of the Polish railways is the lack of the overall concept of operation of the

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Fig. 13.5 Maximum speeds on the railway network in the year 2020. Source Own study based on PKP PLK (2020) Table 13.5 Travel times between selected cities in Poland in 1990 and 2020 No.

Departure

Destination

1990

2020

1990–2020

1

Warszawa Centralna

Kraków Główny

02:55

02:17

−00:18

2

Warszawa Centralna

Łód´z Fabryczna

01:29

01:19

−00:10

3

Warszawa Centralna

Wrocław Główny

04:54

03:45

−01:09

4

Warszawa Centralna

Pozna´n Główny

03:02

02:36

−00:26

5

Warszawa Centralna

Gda´nsk Główny

03:35

02:46

−00:49

6

Warszawa Centralna

Katowice

02:45

02:20

−00:25

7

Warszawa Centralna

Bialystok

02:19

02:02

−00:17

8

Kraków Główny

Katowice

01:10

01:39

+0:29

9

Kraków Główny

Łód´z Kaliska

02:45

02:45

+00:00

10

Wrocław Główny

Pozna´n Główny

01:44

02:18

+00:34

11

Wrocław Główny

Katowice

02:20

02:09

−00:11

12

Pozna´n Główny

Szczecin Główny

02:30

03:32

+01:02

13

Pozna´n Główny

Berlin Ostbahnhof

03:06

02:40

−00:26

14

Pozna´n Główny

Bydgoszcz Główna

02:00

01:29

−00:31

15

Gda´nsk Główny

Bydgoszcz Główna

02:05

01:26

−00:39

320

J. Gadzi´nski and R. Bul

Fig. 13.6 Travel times by train between selected cities in Poland in the year 1990 and 2020. Source Own study based on OSM (2020)

network of connections and a decrease in the number of connections between cities both domestically and abroad in comparison with the year 1990. A particularly clear disadvantageous change took place in the context of the operation of the network of international connections, when those functions were taken over by the air and road transport.

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Fig. 13.7 Comparison of travel times by train between selected cities in Poland in the year 1990 and 2020. Source Own study based on OSM, 2020

13.3.3 Air Transport The greatest changes in spatial accessibility in Poland in the analysed 30-year period can be observed in the context of the functioning of air transport. Data published by the Civil Aviation Authority for the year 2019 show that Polish airports served almost 49 million passengers during the analysed year (in 1990, this was less than 3 million). The largest airport, which is one of the main interchange hubs in the region at the same time, is Chopin Airport in Warsaw (Okecie). It offers the possibility of travelling to more than 100 destinations in regular traffic and almost 100 destinations in charter traffic. In 2019, the airport served almost 19 million passengers, which gave, in total, over 38% of passengers of all the airports in Poland. Other airports of regional importance, which serve over 2 million passengers, include Cracow Balice, Gdansk R˛ebiechowo, Katowice Pyrzowice, Wroclaw Strachowice, Warszawa Modlin, and Poznan Ławica. All the aforementioned airports offer over 70 destinations in regular and charter traffic in total, which makes their offer attractive. The significance of other airports is much lower, as they offer, above all, the possibility of daily arrival to the airport in Warsaw and movement to selected destinations offered by low-cost air carriers (Table 13.6). Results of analyses indicate clear improvements in the accessibility of airports and their transport offer as compared to the year 1990. In the year 1990, only one airport in Poland served over 1 million passengers (Warszawa Ok˛ecie). Thus, a significant improvement in the transport offer of Polish airports in the analysed period of time

322 Table 13.6 Number of passengers in Polish airports in 1990 and 2019

J. Gadzi´nski and R. Bul No

Airport

Number of passengers in 1990

Number of passengers in 2019

1

Warszawa Ok˛ecie

2,675,920

18,844,591

2

Kraków Balice

75,020

8,402,859

3

Gda´nsk R˛ebiechowo

107,300

5,361,134

4

Katowice Pyrzowice

3511

4,843,650

5

Wrocław Strachowice

62,524

3,496,898

6

Warszawa Modlin

–

3,104,277

7

Pozna´n Ławica

11,167

2,372,184

8

Rzeszów Jasionka

20,160

769,252

9

Szczecin Goleniów

18,959

580,479

10

Bydgoszcz Szwederowo ´ Lublin Swidnik

–

413,472

–

356,011

11 12

Łód´z Lublinek

–

241,707

13

Olsztyn Szymany

-

147,446

14

Zielona Góra Babimost

168

33,078

15

Radom Sadków

–

0

16

Total

2,974,729

48,967,038

Source Civil Aviation Authority (2019)

must be emphasised. This refers to connections from the legacy segment and the lowcost segment which has developed dynamically since 2004, as well as the growing market of charter connections (Fig. 13.8). It is also worth emphasising the changes in the accessibility of airports as compared with the year 1990; the transport network in 1990 was characterised by much lower capacity and lower technical parameters. Figure 13.9 presents a comparison of accessibility to all airports across the country in 1990 (at that time, there were 9 operating airports—Warszawa Ok˛ecie, Kraków Balice, Gdansk R˛ebiechowo, Katowice Pyrzowice, Wroclaw Strachowice, Poznan Ławica, Szczecin Goleniów, Rzeszow Jasionka, and Zielona Góra Babimost) and 2020. Furthermore, Fig. 13.10 presents the comparison of the accessibility of airports which served over 1 million passengers per year in 1990 and 2020. It seems that from the point of view of the possibility

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Fig. 13.8 Airports in 1990 and 2020. Source Own study based on OSM (2020)

of using air transport services, of key significance is the accessibility to the 7 most important airports in the country, whilst the accessibility of such airports as Radom or Babimost, which served less than 100 000 passengers per year seems not to be so important in view of the very limited possibilities of movement from these airports. The aforementioned analyses indicate a much lower level of accessibility of airports offering the service of over 1 million passengers, particularly from the area of the

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Fig. 13.9 Accessibility of airports in 1990 and 2020. Source Own study based on OSM (2020)

West-Pomeranian province (here, the situation is partly improved by the possibility of travelling from airports serving Berlin), and the eastern part of the country—the regions of Suwalki, Podlasie, Polesie, Roztocze, and Bieszczady. On the other hand, a comparison of the accessibility of airports serving over 1 million passengers in the years 1990 and 2020 (Fig. 13.10) indicates the greatest improvement of accessibility in the cases of those cities and their regions, whose

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Fig. 13.10 Accessibility of airports serving over 1 million of passengers in Poland in 1990 and 2020. Source Own study based on OSM (2020)

airports in the year 2020 serve more than 1 million passengers, i.e. Cracow, Katowice, Gdansk, Wroclaw, and Poznan. Taking into account the time of travel to the airport in certain locations, the level of time accessibility is even 30-times higher than in the year 1990. Therefore, it can be pointed out that, from the point of view of improving accessibility to the airports themselves and their offer, the biggest beneficiaries of

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Fig. 13.11 Comparison of accessibility of airports in Poland in 1990 and 2020. Source Own study based on OSM (2020)

the changes are the inhabitants of almost the whole country, including, above all, the people living in the largest urban agglomerations and cities located in the immediate vicinity of the motorway and expressway network. A clear improvement of accessibility also took place in the context of movement from the airports using the means of public transport. In the year 2020, 7 out of 15

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Table 13.7 Important infrastructural investments of WAW—year 2007–2012 and regional ports— years 2010–2012 and started investments Port

Sum of investments in millions of PLN

Scope of investment

WAW

1020.2 in the years 2007–2012 395.0—started

Expansion of a terminal. Renovation of an apron. Renovation of a taxiway. A started investment is the reconstruction of terminal A

KRK

Total—763

New taxiway. Plan of expansion of the terminal, reconstruction of the taxiway

GDN

396

Construction of a new terminal—completed

KTW

600

Airport spaces. Completed upgrade of the terminal. Started construction of the runway

WRO

457

New terminal. Apron

POZ

311

Expanded terminal. New taxiway and expansion of the apron

RZE

360

Expanded terminal. Apron including a de-icing station

WMI

370

New commercial airport

SZZ

143

Started: construction of the taxiway, expansion of the apron, and upgrade of the runway

Total

4815.2

Source PPL (2012)

Polish airports (Warsaw, Cracow, Gdansk, Szczecin, Rzeszow, Lublin, and Olsztyn) were connected to the city centre using railways. For comparison, in the year 1990, none of the airports offered such possibilities. In the case of other airports, public transport functions based on bus connections which, in certain cases (e.g. Poznan), are characterised by good time accessibility of the city centre and high frequency. These improvements in the accessibility and the offer of airports in Poland were possible owing to the implementation of a number of infrastructural investments completed within the airports. It is estimated that only in the years 2007–2012, the investment outlays for regional ports and Chopin Airport amounted to 5 billion PLN. As part of investment activities, terminals were expanded, and aprons, taxiways, and other elements of hard and soft infrastructure were upgraded and built. The most important investments in airports in the years 2007–2012 are presented in Table 13.7.

13.4 Summary In the last 30 years, the transport infrastructure in Poland has changed considerably. After years of infrastructural delays, owing to the social and economic development

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of the country, accession to the European Union and the possibility of using additional sources of financing, the technical condition and parameters of roads, railway lines, and airports have improved significantly. This has translated directly into improvements of spatial accessibility in all spatial scales from local ones through to regional, national, and international ones. This chapter presented analysis of infrastructural changes as well as changes in the transport accessibility related to them in the context of road, rail, and air transport. The results of the analyses indicate the fact of quantitative and above all, qualitative development of the transport infrastructure of all transport branches under analysis, which translated into improvements of the levels of transport accessibility on a local and supralocal scale. Particularly, noticeable changes took place in the context of the road and air transport, whose significance in reference to all forms of movement has increased. In the case of rail transport, the improvement of the condition of the transport infrastructure also took place, and this translated into improvements in accessibility, however, it did not result in an increase in the number of people using this form of movement. In comparison with the year 1990, the number of passengers using air transport increased from 3 to 49 million; a significant increase in movement was also observed in car transport. On the other hand, the number of passengers in the year 2020 was less than half when compared to the year 1990, though it is necessary to emphasise a clear increase in the number of people travelling by train since the year 2010. In the context of transport accessibility, in addition to air transport, a clear improvement was noted in the case of movement by car. The time accessibility of both the capital city and regional centres has clearly improved; a significant improvement was also observed in the context of international movements (this was also the result of improvements in the transport infrastructure of the neighbouring countries.) It is pointed out that in the upcoming years, in view of further plans to develop the infrastructure whose expansion is the objective of the transport policy implemented in the country as well as the transport policy conducted in the European Union, the significance of low-emission forms of transport should increase. Of particular importance seems to be the development of public transport (including rail transport), above all in urbanised areas. Great importance in the context of environment protection may also be given to the development of the so-called electro-mobility (an increase in the percentage of electrical vehicles, development of electrical bus systems, and use of various means of transport in travelling through cities). It is hard to predict unambiguously the consequences which the COVID-19 pandemic will have for the development of mobility. It seems that until the end of the pandemic, the importance of individual transport, especially road transport will grow rapidly. The plans of the General Directorate of National Roads and Motorways (GDDKiA) involve the further construction of almost 4000 km of motorways and expressways, which will translate into improvements in accessibility and an increase in the significance of this form of movement. In the case of air transport, the issue of overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic will be decisive. It seems that in the next 2–3 years, it will be hard to expect improvements in the transport offer due to the lower demand for movement using air transport. The limited transport offer may

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be a consequence of the economic situation of the carriers. On the other hand, it is very probable that a degree of accessibility of airports per se will increase; this is indicated by plans to ensure connection of a certain number of selected airports (including those in Poznan, Katowice, or Wroclaw) with the city centre using railways. Expansion of the road network should also translate into improvements in the accessibility of airports per se, using road transport. In the case of rail transport, it is necessary to expect a clear increase in its use, above all, in local traffic and along those routes which connect the largest agglomerations in the country. A particularly visible increase in the accessibility and competitiveness of this form of movement is predicted in large urban complexes, in the area of which the construction of systems of railway connections serving the entire urbanised area is planned. The above-mentioned activities should translate into improvements in the accessibility of railways both in the spatial dimension (more stops, easier access to the railway station) and time dimension (higher frequency of running of trains and faster access to the centre). Significant changes in rail transport are planned in connection with the construction of the Solidarity Transport Hub, that is, the transport hub which connects air transport with road and rail transport.

References Bul R (2015) Dojazdy do pracy w aglomeracji pozna´nskiej 2011r. (Commuting in the Poznan agglomeration in 2011). Rozwój Regionalny i Polityka Regionalna 32:147–170 Chojnicki Z (1966) Zastosowanie modeli grawitacji i potencjału w badaniach przestrzennoekonomicznych (Application of gravity and potentialmodels in spatial and economic research). Studia Komitetu Przestrzennego Zagospodarowania Kraju PAN, Warszawa, 14 Dalvi MQ, Martin KM (1976) The measurement of accessibility: some preliminary results, Transportation, 5, s. 17–42. El-Geneidy AM, Levinson DM (2006) Access to destinations: development of accessibility measures. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis Gadzi´nski J, Bul R (2017) Planowanie przebiegu linii transportu zbiorowego w oparciu o kryterium dost˛epno´sci (Planning the route of public transport lines based on the accessibility criterion).Przegl˛ad Komunikacyjny, 4-2017, 2-7, Stowarzyszenie In˙zynierów i Techników Komunikacji Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej, Wroclaw Gadzi´nski J (2013) Funkcjonowanie lokalnego system transportowego na tle współczesnych procesów urbanizacyjnych. Przykład aglomeracji pozna´nskiej (Functioning of the local transport system on the background of contemporary urbanization processes. An example of the Poznan agglomeration). Bogucki Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Poznan. ISBN:978-83-7986-004-0 Gadzi´nski J (2019) Wnioski i rekomendacje, [W:] Raport o stanie polskich miast Transport i mobilno´sc´ miejska (Report on the state of Polish cities. Transport and urban mobility). In: Gadzi´nski J, Goras E (Red.) Instytut Rozwoju Miast i Regionów, Warszawa 2018 Goldman T, Gorham R (2006) Sustainable urban transport: four innovative directions. Technol Soci 28, s. 261–273 Grzelakowski AS (2003) Dost˛epno´sc´ transportowa regionów jako element ich potencjału rozwojowego (Transport accessibility of regions as an element of their development potential), Przegl˛ad Komunikacyjny, 4, s. 11–16 Hansen WG (1959) How accessibility shapes land-use. J Am Inst Plann 25, s. 73–76

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Ingram DR (1971) The concept of accessibility: a search for an operational form. Reg Stud 5:s. 101–107 Jaarsma C (1997) Approaches for the planning of rural road networks according to sustainable land use planning. Landsc Urban Plann 39:s. 47–54 Juliao RP (1998) Measuring accessibility: a GIS based methodology for accessibility evaluation. In: GIS PlaNET’98 Proceedings, edycja CD, USIG ´ Komornicki T, Sleszy´ nski P (2009) Typologia obszarów wiejskich pod wzgl˛edem powi˛aza´n funkcjonalnych i relacji miasto-wie´s (Typology of rural areas in terms of functional connections and town-village relations), [w:]. In: Ba´nski J (red.) Analiza zró˙znicowania i perspektyw rozwoju obszarów wiejskich w Polsce do 2015 roku, Studia Obszarów Wiejskich, 16, Warszawa, s. 9–37 ´ Komornicki T., Sleszy´ nski P, Pomianowski W, Rosik P, Siłka P (2008) Opracowanie metodologii liczenia wska´znika mi˛edzygał˛eziowej dost˛epno´sci transportowej terytorium polski oraz jego oszacowanie (Development of a methodology for calculating the inter-sector transport accessibility indicator of the Polish territory and its estimation), PAN IGiPZ, Warszawa, 54 s Kristiansen J (1993) Regional transport infrastructure policies. In: [w:]Banister D, Berechman J (eds) Transport in a unified Europe—policies and challenges. Elsevier Science Publishers B.V Ratajczak W (1999) Modelowanie sieci transportowych (Modeling of transport networks). Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM, Poznan Ratajczak W (2011) Potencjał a dost˛epno´sc´ przestrzenna (Potencial vs. spatial accessibility). In: [W:]Model potencjału. Podstawy teoretyczne i zastosowania w badaniach przestrzenno – ekonomicznych oraz regionalnych, Chojnicki Z., Czy˙z T., Ratajczak W., Bogucki Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Poznan Rosik P (2012) Dost˛epno´sc´ l˛adowa przestrzeni Polski w wymiarze europejskim (Land accessibility of Polish space in the European dimension). Prace Geograficzne nr 233, IGiPZ PAN, Warszawa Schwaab J, Thielmann S (2001) Economic instruments for sustainable road transport. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit, Eschborn Stegg L, Gifford R (2005) Sustainable transportation and quality of life. J Transp Geogr 13:s. 59–69 Taylor Z (1999) Przestrzenna dost˛epno´sc´ miejsc zatrudnienia, kształcenia I usług a codzienna ruchliwo´sc´ ludno´sci wiejskiej (Spatial accessibility of jobs, education and services versus everyday mobility of the rural population).Prace Geograficzne nr 171, IGiPZ PAN, Warszawa Tendencje w sektorach Energii I Transportu w Europie do roku 2030 (Trends in the Energy and Transport sectors in Europe until 2030), 2006, Komisja Europejska Wendt J (2000) Dost˛epno´sc´ komunikacyjna o´srodków władzy wojewódzkiej (Transport accessibility of voivodeship authorities’ centers), Prace Komisji Geografii Komunikacji PTG, 183–204 Wi´sniewski S (2014) Dost˛epno´sc´ transportowa Szadku (Transport accessibility of Szadek). Biuletyn Szadkowski, t.14:s. 5–23, ISSN:1643-0700

Chapter 14

Development of Tourism: Growth and Evolution of the Leisure Industry Ewa Kacprzak, Urszula Kaczmarek, and Barbara Ma´ckiewicz

Abstract The study presents changes in the development of tourism in a postcommunist Central European country against the background of tourism trends. The aim of the research is to show the dynamics of the profound structural and spatial transformations that affected the tourism sector in Poland after 1989. It is carried out by identifying the factors behind these changes and defining the contemporary level of tourism services and traffic. Particular attention is paid to Polish tourist brand products which determine the country’s competitiveness on the global and European markets of tourist destinations. The study reveals that tourism development in Poland follows a sustainable path. Poland’s tourist attractiveness is gradually increasing. However, despite the growing tourist traffic and the gradual expansion of the accommodation base, Poland is still not an important tourist destination in Europe, and the economic importance of tourism is relatively small. Keywords Tourism development · Market transition · Tourism sector · Tourism management · Polish tourist products · Post-communist Central Europe · Poland

14.1 Introduction Tourism as a phenomenon of mobility of people and as a forming process of tourist reception areas (destinations) that is based on the unique natural and cultural values has a spatial dimension and is therefore the subject of research in tourism geography. The geographical approach is only one of the many research approaches to tourism which is a complex, interdisciplinary, and multidimensional phenomenon. Due to the multidimensional nature of tourism, tourism geography is based on a variety of research concepts derived from social, economic, and environmental sciences. Modern analyses of tourism development concern not only the relationship between E. Kacprzak · U. Kaczmarek (B) · B. Ma´ckiewicz Faculty of Human Geography and Planning, Adam Mickiewicz University, B. Krygowskiego 10, 61-608 Pozna´n, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Churski and T. Kaczmarek (eds.), Three Decades of Polish Socio-economic Transformations, Economic Geography, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06108-0_14

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tourism and nature, but also the connection between tourism and innovation (technological and social), and the role of tourism in regional and local development as a modern stimulator of the economic and social development. The economic approach to tourism, in terms of tourism demand (tourist flows) and tourism supply (tourist accommodation and services), applies the following research concepts: life cycle of tourism destinations, path dependence, customer variety, specialisation, or integrative diversification of tourism products (Romão and Nijkamp 2017). Scientific achievements of Polish tourism geography are discussed in the works of Kowalczyk (2000) and Duda-Seifert et al. (2017), in which attention is drawn to the main currents of spatial analyses such as factors related to tourism development, tourism-related environment evaluation methods, Poland’s tourism asset types, tourism space development, city tourism, the demarcation of tourist regions, as well as directions and volume of tourist flows. The nature of tourism has changed from elite to egalitarian. Tourist travel worldwide grew rapidly from 25 million in 1950 to 1.5 billion in 2019 (UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO)). The multidimensional impact of mass tourism on the environment, economy, culture, and people has demonstrated that tourism’s functions are positive, but affected by strong dysfunctions. As a result, in view of the awareness of various threats to tourism and a simultaneous need to protect the nature and many spheres of life against tourism, contemporary concepts of tourism development have been based on sustainability models. The role of tourism in the social and economic development policy of Poland is presented in the strategic document entitled “Tourism Development Programme for Poland until 2020”. Tourism is considered a modern branch of the economy, based on intelligent specialisations, open to innovation and contributing to the enhancement of the competitiveness of Poland, whilst at the same time being one of the key factors in the country’s regional development. The aim hereof is to describe how the tourism sector in Poland has changed since 1989 and what the circumstances of these changes have been, as well as to give details of the contemporary tourism services and tourist flows in Poland. Particular attention is paid to the characteristics of Poland’s branded tourism products, which determine its competitiveness on the global and European tourist destination markets. In a broader context, the study shows how tourism has developed in a post-socialist country through the prism of dynamic changes in the tourism sector worldwide.

14.2 Characteristics of Tourism Services in Poland Before 1989 The history of Polish tourism before 1918 was interrelated with the development policy of the three invaders of Poland, i.e. Russia, Germany, and Austria. The interest in tourism increased in Poland, as well as in the rest of Europe, in the second half of the nineteenth century. In the region under Austrian rule, work began on the development of the Tatra Mountains for tourism, and the first mountain hostels were opened

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at Morskie Oko in 1874 and in Dolina Pi˛eciu Stawów and Dolina Roztoki in 1876. In 1873, the first tourist organisation named Galicyjskie Towarzystwo Tatrza´nskie was established. The beginnings of tourism in Poland are therefore related to mountain tourism (Kra´s 2008). In the region under Prussian rule, the Polish lands were considered unattractive to tourists and health resorts were primarily opened by the Baltic Sea. In 1842, the “Bazar” hotel was opened in Pozna´n, considered one of the first hotels in Europe in today’s sense of the word. Silesia was developing intensely in terms of tourism, and above all the Karkonosze and Jizera Mountains were developed for tourism. Tourism in the region under the Russian rule was the least developed. It mainly consisted in trips to the health resorts of Nał˛eczów, Ciechocinek, and Busko-Zdrój (Gryszel 2015). The beginnings of the Polish tourism market coincided with the regaining of the country’s independence in 1918. New civic rights were passed, which favoured the development of tourism (e.g. the first paid holidays were introduced in 1922, and working hours in industry and trade were regulated in 1919). At that time, despite Poland’s poverty, a demand for organised commercial tourism services already existed. In 1923, the first Polish travel agency “Orbis” was established in Lviv. In 1926, Polskie Towarzystwo Schronisk Młodzie˙zowych, which provided accommodation for school tourism, was established, and then in 1937, Spółdzielnia Turystyczno-Wypoczynkowa “Gromada” was founded with the aim of organising trips for the rural population. However, according to Wojciechowska (2012), the organisational formation of tourism in Poland was clearly dependent on the past and an understanding of tourism as a socio-cultural movement with a religious and patriotic dimension. After the Second World War, in accordance with socialist political doctrines, the development of mass social tourism was considered a priority in Poland. Travel and leisure, accessible only to a few before the war, were to become a common good. Tourism was considered a social and non-productive sphere. The state paid for the development of tourist facilities and subsidised holidays for employees. One of the main objectives of trade unions was to provide employees with the opportunity to take a holiday. As early as in 1949, the Fundusz Wczasów Pracowniczych [lit. Employee Holiday Fund] was established “in order to exercise the constitutional rights of employees to rest”, which managed holiday houses and was the organiser of vacations for employees of state-owned enterprises (Jarosz 2001). From 1960 onwards, not only the Employee Holiday Fund, but also companies themselves started to establish holiday and recreation centres in popular tourist destinations. The centres were accommodation facilities that were available only to employees of such companies. Over time, they ended up organising 90% of holidays spent in Poland. Polskie Towarzystwo Turystyczno-Krajoznawcze (PTTK), established in 1950, played an important role in the development of domestic tourism, mainly qualified tourism and was the largest and most important tourist organisation in Poland. Its responsibility, in addition to running hostels, tourist information points and marking tourist trail, included training and granting licences to tour operators, tour guides, and managers (Gryszel 2015).

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In the times of the Polish People’s Republic (1945–1989) leisure tourism boomed, primarily, in the form of company holidays taken in Poland. The number of holidaymakers increased from 490.3 thousand in 1950 to 4388 thousand in 1979 (Sowi´nski 2005). Domestic travel and excursions were organised mainly by schools, youth organisations, and companies. However, foreign travel was not restricted. In the 1950s, only 45,000 people annually went abroad (Table 14.1). The policy of “gradually opened doors” initially covered family tourism (visiting Silesian families in Germany) and later company holidays in Eastern Bloc countries (Bulgaria, Romania, the USSR and Hungary). In this way, the annual number of trips from Poland increased from about 500,000 in the sixties to over 8 million in the mid-seventies, 95% of which were trips to socialist countries. In the late seventies and early eighties, along with Poland’s economic crisis, annual foreign excursions decreased to around 3 million and the purpose of foreign trips changed from leisure to trade. Within the scope of “trade” tourism, a trip abroad was an opportunity to sell Polish goods and to buy goods that were not available or were much more expensive in Poland (Podemski 2011). Many coach trips to the West ended in West Berlin, and their participants became political or economic emigrants (especially after martial law was imposed in Poland in December 1981). Hotel accommodation facilities in Poland were available to domestic tourists to a limited extent. Since the 1950s, when almost all major accommodation facilities were nationalised or socialised and handed over to state-owned companies, municipal authorities, and various organisations, there were hardly any private hotels left. In addition, hotels had limited availability to citizens—in particular, to residents of the cities in which they were located (due to registration regulations). A constant lack of free rooms and astronomical prices were typical of those days. Hotels were only for business travellers, and the best quality facilities, which were managed by the state-owned Orbis, were almost exclusively for foreigners. Table 14.1 Polish trips abroad in the years 1955–1989 Year

Number of trips abroad

% trips to countries outside the communist bloc

1955

44,163

10

1960

216,440

19

1965

778,442

10

1970

871,347

13

1975

8,152,899

4

1980

6,852,103

10

1982

995,337

32

1985

3,493,472

24

1988

6,923,503

24

Source Podemski (2011)

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14.3 Development of Tourism in Poland After 1989 The political, economic, and social changes in Poland after 1989 also brought about significant changes in tourism, as well as a free tourism market and a tourism economy. The marketisation of the economy also resulted in tourism services being commercialised, and tourism was no longer perceived as a social service. The ownership transformation processes that consisted in the privatisation of state-owned companies made it possible for private business entities to take over tourist and leisure facilities. Political and economic reforms, including the decentralisation of power, increased the jurisdiction of local authorities to develop tourism in their regions. The issue of local tourism development was reflected in autonomous tasks assigned to commune authorities on the basis of the Act on District Self-Government (of 1990) and at the supra-local and regional level on the basis of the Act on County Self-Government) and the Act on Province Self-Government (of 1998). In the field of tourism, local governments were tasked with developing a tourism policy in their regions, maintaining and developing tourist facilities and infrastructure, as well as, for example, promoting local tourism values and regional products. The processes of social and economic transformation and the corresponding changes in the tourism market in Poland after 1989 are presented in Table 14.2. The transformation of tourism in Poland from closed and social to open and commercial has been made possible by several political decisions: • Since 1990, it has been possible to freely use passports issued with a validity of 10 years, • Visas to European countries and some other countries in the world have been abolished (in 2019 to the USA), • Since 1990, it has been possible to convert the Polish zloty into other currencies and to buy other currencies, • The Act on Economic Activity was passed, which introduced the principle of freedom to carry out business activities and enabled foreign entities to open branches and establishments in Poland (Act on Economic Activity of 23 December 1988). In the first period of political transformation in Poland, the functioning of tourism companies was not subject to any specific regulations. The breakthrough was the adoption of the Act on Tourism Services in (1997) which regulated the operations of fundamental tourist companies on the market such as travel agencies and hotel facilities. The launch of pre-accession funds PHARE (since 1992), as well as ISPA and SAPARD (since 2000), was of significant help to the development of tourism in Poland. The only aid programme financed by the European Union, created to provide direct support to the tourism industry in Poland, was the TOURIN Tourism Development Programme (1993–1999). Its objective was to promote the development of tourism and to ensure institutional development of the tourist sector, as well as to provide financial subsidies for the development of tourism infrastructure. Under the

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Table 14.2 Key changes in the tourism economy in Poland after 1989 Transition processes/tourism policy characteristics

Phase

Changes; description of the tourist facilities and tourist flows

A centrally controlled and Mass social tourism fully regulated state policy on leisure tourism. Socio-economic crisis

80%—socialised accommodation facilities, 20%—private accommodation facilities; Fundusz Wczasów Pracowniczych—organising holiday trips in collective accommodation facilities. Domestic tourism

System/ownership restructuring

Indirect, direct privatisation, and reprivatisation of ownership and management in the tourism sector

Increase in the number of small and medium-sized tourism service providers. Sale of individual camping huts in company centres to company employees. Reduction in the number of tourist facilities

Demonopolisation

Tourism industry ceases to be social and redistributed by the state

Decrease in the number of the state-owned holiday centres. Slow transformation of the state-owned tourist institutions into commercial tour operators

Market liberalisation

Commercialisation, marketability of services

Tourism services cease to be a public good and become market assets. Since 2015, the industry has been consolidating considerably

Decentralisation

Implementation of regional and local policies for the development of tourism functions

Local authorities responsible for maintaining and developing tourism activities

Internationalisation

Development of foreign inbound and outbound tourism. Adaptation of tourism services to EU standards

Polish travel agencies offering foreign travel and holiday trips. Development (since 2000) of Internet portals, provision of online information on tourist events, transport, and accommodation (wakacje.pl, easygo.pl, nocowanie.pl). Promotion of Poland by POT. Tourism investments supported by EU funds (continued)

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Table 14.2 (continued) Transition processes/tourism policy characteristics

Phase

Changes; description of the tourist facilities and tourist flows

Globalisation

Global network investments

Orbis becomes a member of the Accor hotel chain. Construction and acquisition of hotels by other global brands. Establishments of TUI (1997), Hilton (2007), and Marriot Int. (1989) in Poland. Low-cost carriers: WizzAir (2004), Ryanair (2005). Global tourist Websites: tripadvisor.com, booking.com. Meta search engine—trivago (2008)

COVID-19 pandemic

Border closures, suspension of Survival strategy implemented tourism mobility, crisis in the by large tour operators. State global tourism industry aid introduced as part of the financial shield programme

Source Authors’ elaboration based on Kaczmarek (2010)

PHARE TOURIN III program, Polska Organizacja Turystyczna (POT) was established in 2000, whose key objective was to promote Poland both at home and abroad as a country attractive to tourists, especially in cultural terms, and to strengthen Poland’s image as a modern country, with a strong and expressive national identity, built on the foundation of cultural heritage and natural environment and high service standards and attractive prices. The POT, as a specialised state institution promoting both foreign inbound and domestic tourism activities, cooperates in the implementation of its tasks with local authorities and with the tourism industry. The promotion of tourism at a provincial, district, and commune level is carried out by regional (ROT) and local tourist organisations (LOT). Upon accession to the European Union in 2004, Poland adopted European standards for the protection of consumer legal interests and European standards for tourism services. In addition, it has become a beneficiary of funds from the European Union Structural Funds, which support the development of tourism in the country. Despite the lack of a clearly defined EU sectoral policy on tourism, the potential use of the variety of structural funds for tourism (and quasi-tourism) initiatives and undertakings is extremely wide. Their beneficiaries are local authorities, non-governmental organisations, companies, and entrepreneurs operating in the tourism industry. In particular, local projects forming part of the existing network structures or under public and private partnerships are preferred (Kaczmarek and Kaczmarek 2009).

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14.4 Development Dynamics of Tourism Services The scale of development of tourism services in Poland after the change in the political and economic system is evidenced by an increase in the number of business entities that operate as tour operators, intermediaries, and tourist agents. In 1990, there were about 500 private travel agencies; in 2005 almost 3.5 thousand, and in 2019 around 13.7 thousand business entities were registered in the tourism sector. The dynamics of the tourism industry between 1990 and 2019 were the strongest amongst all the service categories in Poland (Dominiak and Weltrowska 2022). 85% of the services provided by travel agencies in Poland involve trips abroad. Domestic trips are provided by rather small local travel agencies, whose services are addressed to school children and youngsters, and to seniors. In the first years of the transformation, large Polish tour operators provided tourism services in the form of two kinds of trips from Poland: shopping trips mainly to Germany, the Netherlands, Turkey or Austria, and foreign sightseeing tours (mostly by coach). At the beginning of the nineties, the most popular foreign destinations for coach travels by Poles were the countries of Western Europe such as France (Paris), Italy (Venice, Tuscany and Rome), and Spain (Barcelona). The variety of services offered by Polish travel agencies was then rather very poor; the availability of places was limited, and clients were put on waiting lists. In the mid-nineties, the first catalogues of travel agencies appeared on the Polish market, which included many travel offers to Italy, France, Great Britain, and Scandinavia. In 2004, for the first time in Poland, all-inclusive foreign holiday trips were introduced. New destinations and air charter providers also appeared. In 2019, Polish travel agencies served 3.2 million tourists. The consolidation of the tour operator industry resulted in the three largest companies serving at present 68% of all the travel agency customers. The largest tour operators in Poland are Itaka, TUI Polska, Rainbow, Coral-Wezyr, Grecos, Exim Tour, and Logos Tour, most of which operate as family-based enterprises. The supply profile of tourism services also includes an analysis of the size and structure of tourist facilities, mainly accommodation. According to Statistics Poland (GUS), in 2019, there were around 19.2 thousand tourist accommodation facilities in Poland, of which 41% were establishments with less than 10 beds. In total, they had 891.2 thousand beds, 68.5% of which were available all-year round (mainly hotels and health resorts). The facilities consisted mainly of guest rooms and private accommodation, which accounted for 36.4% of all the tourist accommodation facilities, and of agrotourism accommodation (21.4%). To illustrate changes in the accommodation facilities, as compared to those available in the eighties, when the statistics only included collective accommodation facilities, the analysis of the size and structure of the accommodation facilities also covers establishments with more than 10 beds (Fig. 14.1). In the first half of the nineties, the number of such accommodation facilities increased from 8.2 thousand in 1990 to 9.3 thousand in 1995, as a result of large company-owned or state-owned facilities being replaced by several smaller private establishments. This trend slowed

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Fig. 14.1 Changes in the number of tourist accommodation facilities in Poland between 1980 and 2019. Source Authors’ elaboration based on GUS

down in the following years and only since 2005 has the quantity of accommodation facilities grown. In 2019, there were 11,251 tourist accommodation facilities in Poland. The changes were not only quantitative, but also structural. The number of holiday centres, which previously belonged to the FWP, fell. Due to the lack of funds for modernisation and expansion, the facilities belonging to the FWP fell into dilapidation and usually had to be closed down. The number of holiday centres decreased from 4.2 thousand in 1990 to 1.1 thousand in 2019. On the other hand, the number of hotel facilities has been growing very fast. In 1990, there were 445 hotels operating in Poland, and 2.6 thousand already in 2019 (Fig. 14.1). Despite the dynamic growth in 5- and 4-star hotels in recent years, over half of the hotels in Poland fall into the 3-star category. The use of hotel services in Poland is 75% Polish and 25% foreign. After 1990, as a result of the privatisation and reprivatisation processes, the structure of the Polish hotel facilities is dominated by individual hotels owned by Polish companies that run them themselves.1 They also form part of hotel chains and comprise facilities such as hotels with conference facilities, aparthotels, condos, and boutique hotels. The largest Polish hotel chains are as follows: Arche Hotele, Grupa ´ zka, Hotele Goł˛ebiewski, Hotele Desilva, Zdrojowa Inwest & Hotels, and Osada Snie˙ Polski Holding Hotelowy. Poland has 13 global hotel chains with 44 brands. These include 191 hotels with 31 thousand rooms. The largest of them are Accor (including Orbis,2 with 75 hotels), Hilton, Mercure, and Ibis Style. Global brand hotels account for approximately 1% of the total number of hotels in Poland. They are larger than an average hotel in Poland and account for 23% of hotel rooms. A characteristic feature of the hotel 1

The opening of the Marriott Hotel in Warsaw in October 1989 and the return to the owner of the Pollera Hotel in Krakow in 1990 are recognised as the cut-off dates that mark the return of the market economy to the hotel industry in Poland. 2 Orbis SA, following its privatisation in 2000 and the commencement of cooperation with its French strategic partner, Accor, operates in Poland and Eastern Europe as a group investing in hotel facilities. It comprises 73 hotels, including 63 of its own hotels and 10 leased ones (over 14,000 rooms in total) in 6 countries in Central and Eastern Europe: the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Hungary. The hotels operate under brands owned by Accor, i.e.: Sofitel, Novotel, Mercure, Ibis, and their standards vary (from 5-star luxury hotels to 1-star economy ones).

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accommodation facilities in Poland is a small number of hotels located in resorts and health resorts by the sea and in the mountains. This type of hotel is the main element in the hotel structure worldwide. In Poland, on the other hand, hotels are located in large and recently also in medium-sized cities as a base for business travel and sightseeing (Fig. 14.2). However, the largest hotels in Poland with about 1 thousand rooms and members of Hotele Goł˛ebiewski are resort hotels (Mikołajki, Karpacz, Wisła and Pobierowo) with extensive conference and business facilities. The accommodation facilities in Poland are considerably diversified in terms of their location, which depends on the tourist attractiveness of individual provinces. The value of the Baretje-Defert’s tourist function index, expressed in the number of tourist accommodation places per 1000 inhabitants, shows a clear concentration of facilities, mainly holiday resorts in the coastal areas and in the mountains in the south of the country (Fig. 4.2).

Fig. 14.2 Tourist function index and structure of the accommodation facilities for provinces in Poland in 2019. Source Authors’ elaboration based on GUS

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Fig. 14.3 Changes in the number of departures of Poles from Poland and arrivals of foreigners in Poland between 1989 and 2019. Source Authors’ elaboration based on GUS

14.5 Dynamics of Tourist Flows The transformation of the political and economic system in Poland in the nineties brought about fundamental changes in the size and structure of the domestic tourist flows. In addition, the collapse of the communist system in the countries neighbouring Poland and a rapid quantitative increase in tourist flows worldwide undoubtedly had an impact on the volume and structure of tourist inflows to Poland. The opening of borders in 1989 caused literally a more than twofold increase in border traffic overnight (Fig. 14.3). According to GUS, in 1988 about 9 million people departed from Poland, and in 1989 almost 20 million, to exceed 60 million in 2018. The analysis of changes in the volume of Polish border traffic shows a rapid increase in departures from and arrivals to Poland between 1990 and 2001. In more than 50% of cases, these were one-day trips for shopping and services, mainly at openair markets operating at that time.3 They were held at border crossings, mainly with Germany and the Czech Republic and Slovakia (Ł˛eknica and Osinowo). The “shopping tourists” from countries beyond Poland’s eastern border, however, shopped mainly at bazaars in big cities—Warsaw4 and Tuszyn and Rzgów near Łód´z. Since 2000, a decrease in the number of departures from and arrivals to Poland can be observed (Fig. 14.3). This was partly due to the global situation of reduced tourist mobility due to the terrorist threat after 11 September 2001, but the most important reason for this, however, was the decreasing cross-border bazaar trade as a result of the levelling off of prices. Since 2004, there has been an increase in border traffic,

3

According to data from the Polish Ministry of Economy, as a result of political and economic transformations, as well as bazaar tourism, which developed thanks to price and supply structure differences, as well as exchange rates in 1996, Poland was ranked eighth on the list of countries most frequently visited by tourists, published by the World Tourism Organisation, and 14th on the list of countries which generated the highest income from arrivals of tourists. This position was higher than that of countries such as Greece or Turkey (Kropiwnicki 2003). 4 The Europa Fair is a bazaar in Europe that operated between 1989 and 2008 on the site of a former stadium and became a multicultural space where, apart from Poles, Nigerians, Russians, Turks, and Vietnamese traded. In 2012, the National Stadium was built there.

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although it has not reached the level of the nineties. In connection with Poland’s accession to the Schengen area in December 2007, an area without controls at the EU’s internal borders, and with the abolition of checks at air border crossings since 2008, the border traffic is only recorded at crossings with Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia, i.e. at the EU’s external borders. Therefore, between 2008 and 2013, the statistics concerning the departures of approx. 6 million Poles per year and the arrivals of 12 million foreigners only refer to the traffic on the Poland’s eastern borders. Since 2014, the volume of total traffic across all borders has been based on estimates obtained from many institutions related to tourism services. In 2019, the number of foreigners arriving in Poland (84.2 million) was higher than the number of Poles going abroad (56.1 million). Approximately, 64% of the total arrivals of foreigners to Poland were shopping-related, with 82% of those crossing the external EU border declaring this goal. In the case of the internal EU border, Poles travelled mainly for leisure, recreation, and on holiday (45%). According to GUS, in the first half of 2020, due to the pandemic, arrivals to Poland decreased by 41% compared to the previous year, and departures of Poles decreased by 38%. When defining tourist flows in Poland, two types of participants are considered therein. The first category includes visitors (one-day travellers) and tourists (travellers who use accommodation facilities). In 2019, 36.5 million tourists used tourist accommodation facilities, of which 20% (7.6 million) were foreigners. A total of 93.3 million overnight stays were provided, including 18.7 million to foreigners. The Schneider index (the number of tourists per 100,000 inhabitants) is very strongly diversified regionally in Poland (Fig. 14.4). The regions of traditional recreational tourism for Poles, mainly summer tourism on the Baltic Sea (Zachodniopomorskie and Pomorskie Voivodeship) and winter tourism in the mountains (Małopolskie and Dolno´sl˛askie Voivodeship), are characterised by the highest intensity of tourist traffic. In these regions, there are towns (communes) with the highest income from tourism (Fig. 14.4). Unfortunately, the promising tourism industry is one of the sectors of the national economy most affected by the pandemic in 2020. By government decree, travel opportunities were severely restricted by the introduction of a lockdown in the spring, and hotels and accommodation facilities remained closed until May. The gradual opening up of tourism activities was coupled with many sanitary and epidemiological restrictions. As a result, Poles spent their holiday this year in a different way, i.e. they used organised trips less often and chose more individual forms of recreation. According to GUS, until July, the total number of tourists in Poland was 50% lower than a year ago—in July and August alone, the number of tourists using accommodation facilities decreased by 29.3% compared to the same period last year. As compared to 2019, only about 40% of children and young people went on a summer holiday. In the autumn of 2020, in the face of the second very high wave of infections in Poland, the activity of hotels was again restricted, i.e. they were practically closed down until the end of the year. Hence, the number of tourist accommodation facilities decreased by 9% in comparison with the previous year. In the tourism industry, from the beginning of the year to mid-October, nearly 1.5 thousand business activities were suspended. These included travel agencies as well as travel agents, tour operators or managers,

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Fig. 14.4 Tourist traffic intensity for provinces in Poland in 2019. Source Authors’ elaboration based on GUS

etc. Polish coach transport companies, which were the leader of transport in Europe, have been also experiencing a severe crisis due to the closure of borders. The state aid for tourism took various forms: from tourist vouchers (to be used for children’s holidays in the country) to Turystyczny Fundusz Zwrotów [Tourist Refund Fund] for tourist events unsold and Turystyczny Fundusz Pomocowy [Tourist Assistance Fund] with idle-time benefits for seasonal tour operators and tax exemptions and the Polskie Uzdrowiska [Polish Health Resorts] programme as support granted to health resort districts after the pandemic.

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14.6 Polish Branded Tourism Products In 2000, Polska Organizacja Turystyczna (POT) began operating. It is a state institution established by the relevant act in order to promote Poland as an attractive country to tourists on foreign and domestic markets, and to ensure that the Polish system of tourist information functions and is developed both in Poland and abroad, as well as to initiate, evaluate, and support plans for the development and modernisation of tourist infrastructure and for the development of tourism products. The main tool available to Polska Organizacja Turystyczna and the tourism industry is the document entitled “Marketing Strategy of Poland in the Tourism Sector” (2008–2012 and 2012–2020), based on a strategic approach and a paradigm shift from resource to product, a characteristic feature of the contemporary tourism policy and of directions of tourism development. The document contains a list of Polish branded tourism products which demonstrate the competitiveness of Poland as a tourist destination. The strategic directions for the development of the Polish tourism industry developed by the POT on the basis of national resources and values (fundamental, but not the only elements of a tourism product) involve the following forms of tourism: urban (cultural), business, spa, active and specialist, rural, and borderland. City tourism The development of mass tourism is accompanied by an increase in the volume of tourist traffic directed to cities, and city tourism has been one of the most rapidly growing trends in travel for years in developed countries (Ashworth 1989; Law 2002; Liszewski 2010; Zmy´slony 2015; Bellini and Pasquinelli 2016; Postma et al. 2017). Today, large cities and metropolises are not perceived as mainly the centres of tourist traffic emission, but they are also identified as primary places for tourist reception ˙ nska 2013). International city trips have been the fastest-growing segment of the (Zabi´ leisure market and grew four times as much as the total holiday market between 2007 and 2017 (IPK International 2019). After 2004, as a result of joining the European Common Airspace and the entrance of low-cost airlines, there has been a dynamic increase in traffic into the largest Polish cities (Duda-Seifert et al. 2017). City tourism is seen as an opportunity to strengthen the recognition of the Polish tourist brand. In strategic documents, cities began to be perceived as a commodity for sale the value of which is the greatest. The documents also emphasised that city tourism is a basic tourist asset and generates the highest number of foreign arrivals for the Polish tourism economy (POT 2008). In 2019, the volume of registered tourist traffic in the accommodation facilities of the six largest cities in Poland5 amounted to 10.7 million and increased almost three times compared to 1997 (3.7 m), as did the number of overnight stays (from 7.2 m in 1997 to 20.4 m in 2019) (Fig. 14.5). A rise in the number of tourists was recorded in all cities, with the largest noted in Gda´nsk (405.2%) and Wrocław (398.7%). An increase in the registered tourist traffic was mostly related to domestic travellers 5

Warsaw (1.8 m in 2019), Kraków (779.1 thousand), Łód´z (679.9 thousand), Wrocław (642.9 thousand), Pozna´n (534.8 thousand), Gda´nsk (470.9 thousand) (Demographic Yearbook 2020).

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0 Jan

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Apr

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Fig. 14.5 Monthly distribution of tourist traffic in the registered accommodation in the largest Polish cities in 1997–2019. Source Authors’ elaboration based on GUS

(329.1%) and the nights they spent (295.3%) rather than foreign visitors—232.8% and 266.4%, respectively. Therefore, in the investigated multi-year period, the predominance of domestic over foreign tourists significantly increased (from 59.9% in 1997 to 67.2% in 2019). The highest proportion of foreign travellers was noted at the beginning of the studied period, in 1997 (40.1%), and then in 2004 (41.2%), i.e. in the year Poland joined the European Union, and in 2012 (34.6%) when Poland and Ukraine host the Euro 2012 European Football Championship. Domestic tourists dominated nearly all major Polish cities, including Warsaw. This structure of tourists in Polish capital is a unique feature in the scale of European metropolises (Fig. 14.6). In 2019, the only city where almost half of the tourists came from abroad was Krakow6 —the best known Polish city in terms of tourism. In the New York Times ranking 52 Places to go in 2020, Krakow was ranked 14th, whilst in the Travel & Leisure rankings Cities in Europe: Word’s Best European Cities 2020 and Best Cities in the World to Visit: Wold’s Best 2020, it came in 7th and 25th, respectively. It was the only Polish city which appeared in the above-mentioned rankings. Amongst foreign 6

In the last 20 years, Kraków has become one of the most attractive tourist destinations in Europe. The cultural heritage, extensive accommodation facilities, good transport accessibility (including, low-cost airlines) mean that Kraków is visited by about 14 million tourists every year. In 2019, 3.3 million overnight stays were by foreign tourists. Most come from Germany (14.2%), Great Britain (13.9%), Italy (11.5%), France (11.2%), Spain (10.4%), and Ukraine (5.4%).

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foreign domestic 20,000

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0 Paris

Lisbon

Rome

Oslo

Madrid

Copenhagen Budapest

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Fig. 14.6 Number of tourists in selected European capitals in 2015. Source Authors’ elaboration based on TourMIS (2020)

tourists staying overnight in Polish cities, most came from Germany (14%), the UK (12%), and the USA (7%). There is a clear downward trend in the share of tourists from France and Italy (approx. 2%). However, the proportion of those from remaining countries, including Israel, China, India, and Brazil, is significantly increasing (cf. Ministry of Development 2020). Moreover, a noticeable rise was observed amongst visitors from Ukraine and Norway. It was very high in some cities. In Łód´z, the proportion of Ukrainian tourists increased from 3.2% in 2005 to 12.4% in 2019, whereas in Gda´nsk, a growing share of tourists from Norway was noticed, from 2.2% in 2005 to 16.1% in 2019. In the years 1997–2019, the average length of stay in the largest Polish cities slightly decreased from 2.05 to 1.9 days. It should be emphasised, however, that this is not exceptional as short stays are typical of urban tourism and are one of its distinguishing features (Ashowrth and Page 2010; UNWTO 2012). The city where domestic tourists and also foreign stayed the longest, 2.26 and 2.46 days, respectively, was Gda´nsk. Business tourism (congress and incentive tours) is blossoming within urban tourism, forming part of the Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions Industry (MICE) segment. The participation in congresses and business meetings is the purpose of about 30% of all foreign guests visiting Poland. In 2019, about 25 thousand meetings and events were organised, of which 51% were conferences and congresses, 45% corporate and incentive events and 4% trade fairs. In total, these events were attended by over 7.5 million people, of whom 10% came from abroad.

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The leader on the business tourism market is Warsaw, which in 2019 organised 7.5 thousand events attended by 2.5 million people. In terms of the number of business tourists, Pozna´n is second (1.4 million people), followed by Kraków (over 1 million participants). An important role in the Polish “meetings industry” is also played by cities such as Gda´nsk and in recent years, Katowice, which were the organiser of, in particular, the 2018 COP24 Climate Summit. Rural tourism Rural tourism had long traditions in Poland, but its rapid development only started during the social and economic transformation initiated in 1989, i.e. much later than in Western European countries (Lane and Kastenholz 2015; Wilson et al. 2001; Wojciechowska 2006). The introduction of the market economy triggered a deep restructuring process of agriculture and contributed to a decline in the profitability of agricultural production. At that time, rural tourism began to be perceived as an additional source of income for farms and as a way to improve the economic situation of rural areas (Hegarty and Przezbórska 2005; Kosmaczewska 2007). Initially, its importance was overestimated and treated as a panacea for almost all economic problems of rural areas (Bednarek-Szczepa´nska 2017). Ba´nski et al. (2012: 5–6) point out that it should be seen rather as one of many factors in their development, which only “in sporadic cases of villages or districts can be a dominant factor” and at the same time “a complementary and not alternative economic function of the country’s rural space”, appreciating “(…) a significant role in the building of social and human capital, as well as in the protection and revitalisation of the rural cultural heritage, as elements of multifunctional and sustainable rural development”. Rural tourism is one of the Polish tourism products supported by public institutions. It has been popularised, amongst others, by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, which has been implementing successive editions of the “Rest in the Countryside” campaign since 2016, whose objective is to create the image of rural areas as a tourist market offering diverse and all-year attractions. It is a project that promotes rural tourism along with the cultural, culinary, and natural heritage of Polish villages. In 2020, by promoting holidays in the Polish countryside, its advantages in the context of the corona virus pandemic were highlighted. It was emphasised that rural tourism was a great form of leisure tourism for entire families and for people wishing to chill out and relax in a safe environment. The areas with the best conditions for the development of rural tourism are the ´ etokrzyskie MounCarpathian Mountains, Kłodzko Valley, Białowie˙za Forest, Swi˛ tains, Baltic Coast, and Suwałki Lakeland. Slightly less favourable ones include the areas of other Polish lakes, the Carpathian Foothills, and in the vicinity of the largest cities (Ba´nski et al. 2012). Many researchers highlight the importance of natural beauty in conducting tourism activities in rural areas, e.g. Drzewiecki (2002), Przezbórska-Skobiej (2015), and Wojciechowska (2009) as well as cultural appeal (Sadowski and Wojcieszak 2019). Attention is also drawn to the fact that the existing agrarian structure is conducive to tourism development in rural areas. A large number of private, small-area family farms are run according to traditional methods, and the attractive and largely untransformed natural environment

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are factors that should encourage the development of agrotourism (McMahon 1996; Hall 2004; Hegarty and Przeborska 2005), including one particular form of it, i.e. ecoagrotourism (Łopata 1993; Zar˛eba 2013). In 1993, Europejskie Centrum Rolnictwa Ekologicznego i Turystyki [European Centre of Organic Agriculture and Tourism] in Poland was established to promote organic farming and combine this activity with tourism. In 2001, ECEAT Poland with its project “Ecotourism in Organic Farms— Holiday with Eco-Farmers” won the prestigious British Airline and British Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Tourism for Tomorrow award. In 2002, the project was awarded the “Tourism for Tomorrow” prize. In 2002, announced by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) as the International Year of Ecotourism, the founder and president of ECEAT Poland in recognition of outstanding achievements in promoting the idea of ecological agriculture, tourism, protection of traditions, and cultural values of the Polish countryside, was awarded the Goldman’s Award, the so-called “Ecological Nobel”. However, the chance for eco-agrotourism farms to become a kind of showcase for Polish rural tourism has not been properly exploited so far. There is still a lack of implementation and coordination of a well-designed policy for the development of this form of tourist service at the national level (POT 2016). There are still few farmers who have decided to get involved. According to data from Centrum Doradztwa Rolniczego in Brwinów, in 2007, there were 170 organic agrotourism farms, i.e. less than 2% of all agrotourism farms (Kacprzak and Ma´ckiewicz 2015). In 2017, 286 such farms were identified, which means that despite the increase in their number, there are still only a few per cent of farms engaged in agrotourism (Wilk 2018). The rural tourist base has been expanded on a regular basis since the nineties (Drzewiecki 2002; Legienis 2002). The beginning of the twenty-first century was marked by further development of rural accommodation facilities, i.e. by an increase in the number of agrotourism farms and the guest rooms and beds they offer. The average number of beds per one rural tourism facility increased, but the average use of beds in agrotourism accommodation and guest rooms was lower than in other tourist facilities (Przezbórska-Skobiej 2015). The spatial distribution of rural accommodation facilities is considerably diversified and stable—it is concentrated mainly in the regions of high tourist value (Ba´nski et al. 2012; Przezbórska-Skobiej 2015). A characteristic feature of the Polish rural tourism supply market is the seasonality of the services offered (Ba´nski et al. 2012; Drzewiecki 2002). Since the beginning of the political transformation, the basic form of rural tourism has been and still is agrotourism. Over time, however, new forms of tourism in rural areas have also appeared and they include, in particular, nature tourism, enotourism, health tourism, and culinary tourism (Białk-Wolf, et al. 2016; Durydiwka 2013; Kruczek 2014; Mazurkiewicz-Pizło, 2013; Stasiak 2015). Nevertheless, despite a huge potential for their development in rural areas, they have so far not become Poland’s flagship tourist product (Ba´nski et al. 2012; Bednarek-Szczepa´nska 2011; Baum 2011).

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Health tourism In recent years, one of the most dynamically developing areas of global tourism is connected with health. According to the European Travel Commission (ETC) and the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) Exploring Health Tourism (2018), health tourism consists of wellness tourism and medical tourism. Wellness tourism aims to improve and balance all of the main domains of human life including physical, mental, emotional, occupational, intellectual, and spiritual. The primary motivation for wellness tourism is to engage in preventive, proactive, lifestyle enhancing activities such as fitness, healthy eating, relaxation, pampering, and healing treatments. Eastern and Central European countries have begun to take a significant share of the health tourism market by taking advantage of European Union membership and lowlabour costs. These countries are turning into popular health tourism destinations, due to lower costs of health tourism products. In the European Union, Belgium, Hungary, Czech Republic, and Poland are rapidly becoming popular health tourism destinations (Dragiˇcevi´c and Paleka 2019). In the case of Poland, a particularly important element of health tourism is spas which are included in wellness tourism according to global and European programme documents. A characteristic feature of trips to health resorts is that patients stay in places with health resort status in order to improve or maintain health through preventative, rehabilitative, or spa treatment associated with natural therapeutic procedures prescribed by a doctor. This medical dimension of a spa holiday involving doctors, along with confirmed therapeutic efficacy, ensures that spa tourism is a genuine Polish tourism product. There is a tendency in the whole Europe to move away from traditional health resort treatment to wellness or spa treatments. In Poland, however, these treatments do not replace what is normally offered by health resorts, but complement it. The combination of the spa qualities of a city with modern treatments based on the philosophy of spa and wellness builds the strong reputation of the spa and distinguishes it from other similar spas or tourist resorts. Poland is a country with a long history and tradition of spa treatment, and it is ranked 6th in the world in terms of the number of spas (Fig. 14.7). In 2020, there were 45 statutory health resorts in Poland, 41 of which have sources of medicinal waters (the so-called medicinal water health resorts). They are most numerous in the Dolno´sl˛askie Province (10) and in the Małopolskie Province (7). The largest number of spas in Poland: lowland spas (17) and sub-mountain spas (14); the share of other spas is significantly smaller: mountain spas (8) and seaside spas (6). Health resorts have at their disposal a total of 271 treatment facilities (hospitals, sanatoriums, preventoria, natural healing facilities), including 1 spa health resort in an underground mining excavation in the former salt mine in Wieliczka. According to GUS in 2019, 782 thousand patients visit spas every year, 6% of whom come from abroad. More than a half (62%) of the patients benefited from the funding from the National Health Fund and other social institutions. However, the number of paying patients, who in 2019 constituted over 38% of spa tourists, is growing. The most popular natural therapeutic procedures are mud treatments and mineral baths. Most patients were treated in health resorts located in the Zachodniopomorskie

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Fig. 14.7 Distribution of health resorts worldwide in 2019. Source Authors’ elaboration based on https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lista_uzdrowisk

Province, followed by the Kujwsko-Pomorskie Province and Dolno´sl˛askie Province. In total, these three provinces received about 60% of the total number of health resort patients in Poland. Over 90% of foreign guests (mainly from Germany) use health resorts in the Zachodniopomorskie Province (Kołobrzeg) and in the Dolno´sl˛askie ´ Province (Swieradów Zdrój and Kudowa Zdrój). A great attraction of many places is their specific spa and therapeutic infrastructure, unparalleled when compared with other resorts. In the spas, there are mineral water pumping stations, natural healing facilities, spa clinics, thermal swimming pools, brine graduation towers, as well as beautiful spa parks and special outdoor walking areas, wisely used by both patients and tourists. Some of the villages have an extensive sports and recreational infrastructure, which makes them popular winter and water sport destinations and centres of qualified mountain tourism. Many Polish resorts, apart from their spa functions, also develop industrial activities based on local medicinal values (e.g. mineral water, healing salt, mud, etc.). Due to competitive prices and high quality of medical services, in recent years, Poland has also noted that tourism has been growing. According to the GUS, 172 thousand medical tourists arrived in Poland in 2018. An increased interest in Poland is triggered by both external and internal factors. The internal ones include: better preparation of medical facilities for servicing medical tourists, intensified promotion on foreign markets and increased quality in the servicing of foreign patients. External factors include the deterioration in the situation in Russia as regards the profitability of foreign travels, which, in turn, has resulted in a decrease in interest in Germany in favour of countries offering cheaper services, which has undoubtedly benefited Poland. The most numerous group of medical tourists in Poland are dental tourists. This is due, on the one hand, to the interesting range of services on offer and on the other hand, to the fact that certain dental services have to be privately financed in many Western European countries. An analysis carried out in 2016 in Poland shows

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that at that time, there were about 180 clinics operating in the market of medical service providers, which were active on international markets. It is estimated that Poland was visited by 75,000 dental patients and 22,000 aesthetic medicine patients in 2016 (Białk-Wołk and Arendt 2018). Amusement parks in Poland Amusement parks are one of the most rapidly developing tourist attractions, stimulating an influx of tourists to the region. The role of tourist attractions in the postmodern world is changing, in line with general trends in tourism. Nowadays, the formula of tourism has changed from 3xS (sun, sea, sand) to 3xE (education, excitement, entertainment) (Alejziak 1999). Hence, the new tourist attractions follow the idea of edutainment and provide for the experience area. Thanks to the use of the latest technologies, but also discoveries in psychology, for example, amusement parks effectively create an extremely attractive, fully absorbing world of fantasy, illusion and adventure, in which fiction mixes with reality and sightseeing are accompanied by real emotions: fear, pleasure, amusement, satisfaction, etc. (Stasiak 2019). The origins of amusement parks can be seen in fun fairs and “fairgrounds” that used to be created in the eighteenth and nineteenth century in large European cities. However, the first modern amusement park was Disneyland, opened in 1955 in Anaheim, California, and Walt Disney Attraction is still the largest in the industry, serving more than 150 million tourists a year in all its parks worldwide. In Poland, the first amusement park did not open until 2014. Until then, small theme parks had been developing rapidly, mainly in small towns and villages. The majority of over 150 parks were rope, dinosaur, miniature, amusement parks and funfairs, as well as educational, water, western, fairy tale, and insect parks (Poczobut 2013). The largest amusement park in Poland is Energylandia in Zator (Małopolskie Province), although it has not yet met the criteria of a “megapark”, which, according to Pisarski (2009), attracts about over 5 million visitors from long or medium distances per year. Energylandia is an investment financed by domestic private capital supported by structural funds from the EU, continuously developing, receiving about 1.5 million tourists a year (before the COVID pandemic). In 2017, the oldest ´ askie Wesołe Miasteczko in Chorzów, was relaunched amusement park in Poland, Sl˛ under the name of Legendia after renovation. A new foreign investor installed there, amongst others, Lech coaster—the fastest and longest mountain railway in Poland— along with Bazyliszek in 2018, which is a dark ride attraction granted the European Star Award. Legendia is visited by about 400 thousand people a year. In 2018, the first all-year Majaland theme park in Poland, belonging to a foreign investor, was ´ launched in Kownaty (Lubuskie Province). In 2020, Suntago Wodny Swiat in Mszczonów (Mazowieckie Province), i.e. the largest roofed water park in Europe, was launched, with over 1 million visitors anticipated per year. The water park is to form part of the Park of Poland entertainment complex along with a theme park, hotels, conference, and shopping centre in the near future. It is a foreign capital investment. For 2021, the opening of Mandoria, a theme park with a Renaissance trade motif, is scheduled in Rzgów near Łód´z (Table 14.3). Besides Energyland, other much

General

General

Movie

Movie

Renaissance commercial city

Water

Energyland

Legendia SWM

Majaland

Majaland

Mandoria

Park of Poland/Suntago Water World

Source Authors’ elaboration

Theme

Park 2014

Year of establishment

Mszczonów/Mazowsze

Rzgów/Łód´z

Warsaw-Góraszka

Kownaty Lubuskie Province

2020

2021

2022

2018

´ askie Province 1959–2017 Chorzów Sl˛

Zator—Małopolska

Location

Table 14.3 The largest amusement parks in Poland in 2020 Attendance

–

–

250,000

350,000

20–400 ha, including 2–4 million a theme park (expected) (planned)

15–50 ha

–

205 ha (planned)

26 ha

35–150 ha (planned) 1,600,000

Size

Israel

Poland/ Ptak S.A

The Netherlands

The Netherlands

Slovakia

Poland/A. and M. Goczał

Investor

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smaller theme parks include Rabkoland, Alvernia Planet, Zaurolandia (Rogowo, Wielkopolskie Province), Farma Iluzji (Trojanów, Mazowieckie Province), Loopy’s World (Gda´nsk, Wrocław), and others. Centrum Nauki Kopernik in Warsaw, which has been operating since 2010, plays a specific role. The centre is visited by ca. 1 million people every year. There are more than 115 water parks operating in Poland, 21 of which are thermal baths. Most of them (40%) are located in the regions that are the most attractive for tourists, i.e. in the mountains (Sudetenland, Tatra Mountains), by the sea and in the Masurian Lake District. The remaining ones are established in large cities. Amongst them the most famous are Termy Malta´nskie in Pozna´n, Uniejów, AquaPark in Kraków, Legnica.

14.7 Positioning Poland as an International Tourist Destination The tourist appeal of Poland increases, as confirmed by the travel and tourism competitiveness index (TTCI) published in the World Economic Forum7 reports (Blanke and Chiesa 2013; Crotti and Misrahi 2017; Calderwood and Soshkin 2019). In 2019, it was 4.2, which placed Poland 42nd amongst the 140 evaluated countries and 20th in EU-28 (2011—49th and 24th place, respectively). The leaders in this regard were Spain, France, Germany, Japan, and the USA for which the value of the competitive index of tourist conditions was at the level of 5.4. The assets of Polish tourism were Health and Hygiene as well as Cultural Resources and Business Travel. The areas where Poland scored less in terms of the attractiveness and competitiveness of tourism were Business Environment and Prioritisation of Travel and Tourism (Calderwood and Soshkin 2019). Despite increasing tourist traffic and the gradual expansion of its accommodation base, Poland is not a major tourist destination. In the years 1995–2019, the number of tourist accommodation establishments grew by 48% (by 3.7 thousand), and as a result, 11.3 thousand of them were operating in 2019. Its share in the total number of accommodation options in the EU decreased from 1.8% in 1995 to 1.6% in 2019 (9th place in EU-28). Leaders in this respect were Italy (31.3% EU-28), Croatia (16.3%), and Great Britain (12.1%). In Poland, year by year the number of tourists staying overnight was increasing (from 13.5 m in 1995 to 35.7 m in 2019) as well as their share in the total number of nights spent in the EU states (2.6% in 1995 to 3.2% w 2019 r.). The economic significance of tourism in Poland is still small. According to OECD data (OECD 2020), the direct contribution of tourism to GDP in 2018 was 1.3%, which was nine times lower than in Spain (11.8%). The value of 7

The index is composed of four subindexes (Subindex A: Enabling Environment, Subindex B: Travel and Tourism Policy and Enabling Conditions, Subindex C: Infrastructure, Subindex D: Natural and Cultural Resources) and includes 90 specific evaluation indicators: Scores range from 1 to 7, where 1 = worst and 7 = best (Calderwood and Soshkin 2019).

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this share depends not only on the scale of tourist traffic but also its structure (the level of openness of the tourist market to foreign tourists) and the economic potential of enterprises operating in the tourism industry (Czernicki et al. 2020). Reports on the economic and employment impact of travel and tourism (Economic Impact Reports) produced by The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) together with Oxford Economics (https://wttc.org/Research/EconomicImpact) show that the largest European economies in terms of travel and tourism contribution to GDP in 2019 were: Germany (23.6% EU-28; 347 billion USD), Italy (17.7% EU-28; 260 billion USD), Great Britain (17.3% EU-28; 254 billion USD), France (15.6% EU-28; 229 billion USD), and Spain (13.5% EU-28; 198 billion USD). Poland’s contribution in this respect was 26 billion USD (1.8%) with the 11th position in the EU-28. This sector made up 4.7% of the entire national economy, almost two times lower than the EU average (Fig. 14.8). The share of employment in travel and tourism in the total employment was merely 5.0% and was also one of the lowest in the EU (Fig. 14.9).

Croatia Greece Portugal Malta Spain Cyprus Italy Austria Estonia Bulgaria Slovenia Germany United Kingdom Luxembourg France Hungary Sweden Latvia Finland Denmark Czechia Slovakia Romania Netherlands Lithuania Poland Belgium Ireland

EU-28 9.5%

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

% Fig. 14.8 Contribution of travel and tourism to GDP (of national economies) in 2019. Source Elaborated on the basis of Economic Impact Reports data (https://wttc.org/Research/EconomicImpact)

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30

25

%

20

15 EU-28 11.2%

10

5

0

Fig. 14.9 Contribution of travel and tourism to employment (of total employment) in 2019. Source Elaborated on the basis of Economic Impact Reports data (https://wttc.org/Research/EconomicImpact)

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Chapter 15

Environmental Change and Management Andrzej Mizgajski and Małgorzata St˛epniewska

Abstract The disastrous state of the environment in Poland has been one of the critical factors stimulating political, economic and social changes. How to turn away from real socialism in Poland was discussed at the ‘Round Table’, and one of the negotiating groups dealt exclusively with environmental protection issues. The transformation of the economy resulted in eliminating the most burdensome industrial plants and reducing industrial pressure on the environment. The national and regional environmental protection and water management funds enabled allocating a large portion of public funding to environmental protection. The association and the accession negotiations with the European Union (EU) involved harmonising environmental protection law with EU regulations. Accession to the EU further gave impetus to profound changes. On the one hand, it stimulated in-depth amendments in the law, and on the other hand, it brought a large influx of EU funds to support the reduction of environmental pressure. The transition period was generally a time for improving the quality of the environment, but new challenges are now emerging. Climate change is one of them. Poland has achieved a considerable reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, thanks to the in-depth restructuring of its economy; however, the decarbonisation of the economy has slowed down in recent years. There is also a growing social pressure on the government to implement effective measures in terms of air protection. The transition to a circular economy requires a reduction in the material consumption of the Polish economy, as well as an improvement in waste management, which is currently proceeding relatively slowly. Keywords Environmental transition · Environmental policy · Pollution

A. Mizgajski (B) · M. St˛epniewska Faculty of Human Geography and Planning, Adam Mickiewicz University, B. Krygowskiego 10, 61-608 Pozna´n, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Churski and T. Kaczmarek (eds.), Three Decades of Polish Socio-economic Transformations, Economic Geography, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06108-0_15

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15.1 The State of the Environment at the Threshold of Transformation The catastrophic state of the environment was one of the important factors that led to the political and economic transition. Real socialism treated the exploitation of the environment as a necessary cost for development. In the 1980s, social pressure on the authorities grew; however, the actions of the administration were apparent or superficial. The indicators of the condition of individual components of the environment systematically deteriorated (Statistics Poland 1990). In the 1980s, sulphur dioxide emissions stabilised at a level of 4.1–4.2 million tonnes, which accounted for about 10% of the emissions of Europe as a whole. In 80% of the cities, permitted dust concentrations, registered as a 24-h average over the year, were exceeded and in 15% of the cities; the exceedances were fivefold. Particularly high concentrations ´ ask), as well as in other large of air pollutants were found in Upper Silesia (Górny Sl˛ urban agglomerations, where emissions related to mining, heavy industry, energy production and municipal economy co-existed. The water quality was extremely low. Only about 5% of the examined river sections had first-class water quality according to the classification in force at that time, while in Europe it was about 50% of river waters. In Poland, 37% of river waters did not meet any standards for usable waters. About 650,000 m3 of water from coal mines with a load of 7000 tonnes of salt were discharged per day into the waters of the Vistula and Oder. Only 17% of industrial wastewater and 25% of municipal wastewater had an appropriate degree of treatment ensured. 109 Polish cities had no sanitation system and 366 cities had no sewage treatment plants. The cumulation of industrial and municipal pollution made it impossible to use river waters even for industrial purposes. The situation in the area of waste management was similarly unfavourable. Annually, the industry generated 170–180 million tonnes of waste, half of which was landfilled and almost all the rest was directed to filling excavations and to form the land surface. In 1989, 11.5 million tonnes of municipal waste were collected, which was entirely disposed of in landfills. It should be noted that the collection was carried out in urban areas only, while the inhabitants of rural areas disposed of their waste in a disorderly manner. In Poland, there were over 1500 legal municipal waste dumps and many times more small, illegal dumps. The state of the environment was spatially diverse. By 1983, the government had already designated 27 areas as ecological threat (Resolution of the Council of Ministers 1983). These areas covered 11% of the area of the country and were inhabited by 35% of the Polish population (Fig. 15.1). They were grouped together in the southern and central part of Poland. At the Baltic coast, the Gda´nsk and Szczecin agglomerations were assigned to this group of areas. The areas of ecological threat (AET) accounted for 75% of total dust emissions and 81% of gas emissions. They discharged 55% of all untreated industrial and municipal wastewater in the country. Industrial waste posed a particular problem for AET, as 93% of the total weight of accumulated waste was deposited in these areas. The poor condition of

15 Environmental Change and Management

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Fig. 15.1 Areas of ecological threat in Poland at the threshold of transformation. Source The authors’ own study based on Statistics Poland (1984)

the environment has had a negative impact on the health of the society. The average life expectancy of people born in 1989 amounted to less than 67 years for men and 75 years for women. These figures were far below those for Western European countries (men 71 years, women 78—World Bank Open Data 2020). The ‘Solidarno´sc´ ’ movement triggered social activity, including pressure on those in power, due to the disastrous state of the environment (Dulewicz 2017; Kassenberg 2014; Zakrzewski 2017). This raised the status of environmental management, which had previously been dispersed across various government agencies as an insignificant element. In 1983, the Office of Environmental Protection and Water Management was established, and in 1985 the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources was created. In the first few months of 1989, Round-Table discussions were held to determine the way in which Poland’s political and socio-economic transition would proceed (Foundation for Democracy 2015; Institute for Sustainable Development 2004). The arrangements of the Ecological Group were of key importance for shaping the environmental management system in Poland. The group adopted 28 postulates, which constituted guidelines for the development of a strategic document of the State Environmental Policy. The later implemented contents of this document include: • water management within the regional water management boards, based on an economic model of self-financing water management,

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• the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources taking over the management of forestry and national parks, • introducing legal obligation to carry out an environmental impact assessment of investments, • ensuring public availability of information on the state of the environment. The arrangements also included interventions on the most pressing problems related to specific objects negatively affecting the environment. This set of arrangements includes the postulate to draw up a list of enterprises most burdensome to the environment and to take a decision on actions to reduce or eliminate their negative impact on the environment, up to and including the decision on liquidation of the plant. In 1990, a list was created, of 80 industrial plants posing the greatest threat for men and the environment due to the emission of pollutants into the air and water, accumulation of waste and threat to soil and groundwater.

15.2 The System of Environmental Protection Under Construction Entering the period of transition of the political and socio-ecological system, Poland had disastrous indicators of environmental quality. At the same time; however, there was a far-reaching consensus among the outgoing and new political elites on the importance of environmental protection for the future of the country, as well as on the strategic directions of corrective actions (Protocol 1989). The existence of institutional frameworks at the national level, including, in particular, the Ministry of Environmental Protection, Natural Resources and Forestry and the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management was important. Paradoxically, the deep economic collapse was a factor in favour of environmental improvement in the early 1990s. The shutdown of many plants, which were technologically backward and unprofitable, resulted in a reduction in the amount of pollutants emitted to the air, water and soil. For example, in the years 1985–1991, the total emission of sulphur dioxide fell from 4932 to 3552 thousand tonnes, the emission of dust from 1,788 to 923 thousand tonnes, and the amount of untreated wastewater discharged by industrial plants fell from 2000 to 1133 hm3 (Statistics Poland 1992). By 1990, following the Round-Table guidelines, the Ministry developed a strategic document called the National Environmental Policy. The political importance of the document is evidenced by the fact that it became the subject of a parliamentary resolution and was subsequently adopted by the Government in a modified form in September 1991 (National Environmental Policy 1991—NEP). The document declared the subordination of the needs and aspirations of society and the state to the opportunities offered by the environment. The basic principle of the NEP was the need to restructure the system of environmental law and its implementation in such a way that each legal provision is strictly

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adhered to, so that the rules cannot be circumvented using arguments of ‘higher necessity’, ‘public interest’ or ‘impossibility’. The exposure of this principle documents how devastated the rule of law was during the period of real socialism. In view of the enormous pollution of the environment, counteraction was based on the principle of eliminating pollution at its source, which follows a hierarchical chain: avoiding the production of pollution—closing the circulation of materials and resources—neutralising pollution. In accordance with the principle of making environmental protection a social issue, the creation of institutional and legal conditions for the participation of citizens, social groups and non-governmental organisations was envisaged. The principle of economisation was understood as the use of the market mechanism, while maintaining the necessary scope of state interventionism. This was combined with the ‘polluter pays’ principle, which means that the perpetrator is responsible for the effects of pollution. Given the strong diversity of the ecological situation in the country, the principle of regionalisation was adopted, including the powers of the local government and the diversity of regional and local environmental policy mechanisms. The international context was also taken into account by introducing the principle of solving European and global environmental problems together. Finally, the NEP provided for the application of the principle of staging, which resulted from the enormous backlog and the huge investment outlay needed in environmental protection. The review of NEP content shows that at the beginning of the transformation, Poland had a very modern concept of strategic environmental management. Although the Ministry of the Environment, Natural Resources and Forestry had extensive jurisdiction, the conditions for active policy were extremely difficult. The state’s structures were in a poor state; there was a shortage of educated professionals. The level of ecological awareness among the society was very low, and there was a deep collapse of the economy causing impoverishment and lack of funds for investments. Despite these limitations, a great deal of effort was made to implement the most urgent investments in order to reduce the volume of pollution emissions. In the first phase of the transformation (1989–1992), the investment outlays on environmental protection increased from 0.6 to 1.3% of gross domestic product (GDP), while the share of environmental protection in the total investments increased from 3.7 to 6.5%. These figures illustrate the extreme effectiveness of the Polish system of mobilising funds for environmental protection at that time. It is also shown by a comparison of the sources of financing of the environmental protection in 1992: ecological funds 58%, own resources of enterprises 20%, municipal budgets 13%, central budget 5% and foreign aid 4% (Statistics Poland 1993). From the very beginning of the transformation, the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management, together with its regional and local counterparts, have played a decisive role in financing environmental protection. These funds have financial resources obtained from fees for the economic use of the environment. They are paid by economic entities relative to the amount of pollutants introduced into the air and water, the amount of waste stored and the volume of water intake for economic purposes. A smaller portion derives from penalties for non-compliance with environmental protection standards. This system, which was

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developed in 1989, has proved to be very effective as it provides considerable funds that cannot be spent on purposes other than environmental protection. In 1991, the revenues of ecological funds exceeded 70% of the investment outlays on environmental protection in Poland (Statistics Poland 1992). The linking of fees to the amount of emissions was at the same time a factor mobilising economic entities to reduce pollution. In 1993, regional environmental protection funds in voivodeships became legal persons and manage about half of the funds collected in their territory. This made it possible to differentiate the outlays on environmental protection according to the priorities of each of the 49 voivodeships existing at that time. The local government in communes established in free elections in 1990, triggered tremendous social activity, which from the beginning was aimed at improving municipal hygiene and the quality of the environment. An illustration of the organisational and investment efforts of municipalities in the first phase of the transformation may be the fact that expenditures on municipal sewage treatment plants in 1991 accounted for 24% of the total investment expenditures on environmental protection in Poland (Statistics Poland 1992). Progress was made mainly in the cities, while the economically weaker rural communes were less active in reducing emissions. At the same time, the legal framework for the new social, political and economic system was being created. This was an extremely difficult task due to the dynamics of changes in all spheres of state operation. Moreover, it should be noted that the principle of legal continuity was very much in force in Poland, i.e. all new legal acts had to take into account the existing legal status. The Act on the Protection and Control of the Environment, dating back to 1980, had been amended 25 times since 1990 before the new act, (the Environmental Protection Law 2001) replaced it in 2001. Subsequent editions, among others, shaped the system of environmental protection funds, regulated the issues of environmental impact assessment of planned investments, updated administrative procedures in environmental protection and regulated administrative fines for exceeding the permitted emissions. In 1991, the Polish Parliament adopted a new Act on Nature Conservation (1991), which replaced the archaic act of 1949. This act provided a legal framework for establishing new forms of territorial nature conservation such as landscape parks, protected landscape areas and introduced various forms of site protection, apart from the already existing nature monuments. The OECD report (OECD 1995) provides a review of the initial years of transformation (1990–1992) in terms of environmental protection. The report notes a significant improvement, mainly because of a decline in economic activity and restructuring of industry and energetics. The reduction of pressure on the environment was greater than the decrease in GDP, which indicated the effectiveness of the measures taken. The document stresses that in spite of significant investments, emissions of the municipal sector to water and air have not decreased, and waste management is limited to landfills, which, in two thirds of cases, do not meet safety requirements. Among the recommendations, attention was drawn to the necessity of ensuring economic effectiveness of public expenditure on environmental protection and its consistency with the ‘polluter pays’ principle. This postulate also concerned pricing the use of environment and shaping the structure of related fees.

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After a deep, yet short, economic collapse, since 1992 there has been continuous GDP growth in Poland. This has been accompanied by a systematic, albeit differentiated, reduction of pressure on the environment and improvement its quality. This shows that the correlation between economic growth and increasing environmental impact is broken. The Report of the State Inspectorate for Environmental Protection (1998) indicated a clear reduction in the nuisance of industrial plants (mostly chemical plants and power plants), which were the largest emitters of pollutants. Against this background, the importance of the municipal sector as a source of pollution increased in the second half of the 1990s. Municipal wastewater became the main cause of water pollution, while emissions from local furnaces and vehicles became the most important factor of poor air quality in cities. In comparison with the pretransformation period, the volume of municipal waste has increased twofold—the management of which consisted almost exclusively in landfilling. For the environmental management structure, the administrative reform was very important, consisting in the creation of local governments for voivodeships and poviats (counties) in 1999, which, together with communes, took over from governmental agencies almost all administrative competences regarding environmental protection on the regional and local scale. The local government administration of regions and counties issues decisions concerning the conditions of using the environment, including the emission of pollutants. The regional and local parliaments elected through general elections, together with their executive bodies, can now shape and implement their priorities in environmental protection. This is all the more possible because local government regions have their own budget and have some influence on the directions of intervention of regional environmental protection and water management funds. The 1990s were marked by a remarkable dynamic of investments to improve the quality of the environment. This was a great financial effort for a country undergoing profound reconstruction of all the sectors of its economy. Throughout that decade, there was a high rate of growth of expenditures, but the proportions were changing. By the year 2000, outlays on environmental protection already accounted for 2.1% of GDP, with current outlays slightly outweighing investments (OECD 2003). Nevertheless, it should be pointed out that the main expenditures on environmental protection were possible thanks to the mobilisation of domestic funds. The volume of foreign subsidies between 1991 and 2000 amounted to $590.3 million, which, on average, represented about 5% of all annual environmental protection expenditure (Statistics Poland 2001). The possibility of writing off Polish debts by half in 1991 as well as allocating up to 10% of the debts to environmental protection were important for the possibility of financing environmental protection. Within this framework, the EcoFund Foundation operated, which had at its disposal resources under the debt-for-environment swap scheme for a part of debts to the USA, France and Switzerland, as well as Italy, Sweden and Norway. In 1992–2010, the EcoFund allocated more than 2 billion PLN in the form of subsidies to about 1.4 thousand projects. The first decade of transformation was a period of dynamic development of various forms of nature conservation, which was possible due to new legal regulations and

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social acceptance for the legal protection of new areas. During this period, the number of national parks increased from 17 to 22, and their total area increased by more than 80%, reaching about 1% of the country’s area (Statistics Poland 2001). The form of legal nature protection, which has experienced the greatest boom in that decade, is landscape parks as a protected area due to the value of the natural, historical and cultural and scenic landscape in order to preserve, promote these values in terms of sustainable development. Their number increased from 68 to 120, and the area exceeded 8% of the country’s area. The restructuring of the economy enabled significant progress to be made with industrial waste management, while the municipal waste management was the sector most neglected in the 1990s. The opening to the world, the systematic increase of the society’s wealth, the uncritical duplication of Western European patterns, the faulty waste management system and the lack of legal regulations resulted in an avalanche of waste generation. In principle, the only form of waste handling was its landfilling, often in substandard or illegal landfills. The cubic capacity of the solid waste accumulated at municipal landfills increased from 42.7 to 49.8 million m3 between 1990 and 2000 (Statistics Poland 2001). It was only in 1997 that the Act on maintaining cleanliness and order in communes and consequently in 1998 that the Act on waste came into force. The effectiveness of these regulations was very limited. The amount of collected municipal waste increased in the years 1990–2000 from 11 to 12.2 million tonnes per year (Statistics Poland 2017); only about 3% of this amount was selected for recovery in cities in 2000 (Statistics Poland 2001). Neither did the first years of European Union (EU) membership bring a breakthrough, even though supra-local waste management systems began to emerge. A critical expertise of the Polish Academy of Sciences (Kozłowski 2002) stresses that in the 1990s the waste of energy, raw materials and materials inherent during the socialist system had reduced. This led to a reduction of loads of pollution introduced into the environment. However, the authors pointed out that the vigorous transformation process in Poland was not consistent with the objectives of the National Environmental Policy (1991). The following drawbacks were mentioned: • The transition to a market economy did not prevent economic, social and environmental risks, • The increase of the resources and energy use efficiency as well as the reduction of emissions from the most important branches of the economy was too slow, • There was an inconsistency between the macroeconomic and environmental policies of the state, and as a consequence, systemic and legal as well as institutional changes in environmental protection were poorly harmonised with the dynamics of the social and economic transformation. The OECD report (OECD 2003) summarises the first decade of transformation of environmental management in Poland. The report states that there are efficient and competent institutions of environmental protection in Poland, even though the enforcement of legal regulations needs improvement. Progress has been made in the area of reduction of air emissions, water abstraction, nutrient discharges and decline in the production of industrial wastes. However, further significant investments in

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environmental protection infrastructure are necessary. The range of economic instruments used to rationalise the use of the environment has expanded, but the report highlighted the need to apply ‘the polluter pays’ principle. There is also a need to take greater account of environmental protection in spatial management plans. In general, it can be said that Poland—given its first decade of political, economic and social transformation—has definitely caught up with Western Europe in terms of environmental protection. However, the enormity of previous backwardness and the systematic raising of environmental protection standards in European Union has meant that more effort is still expected, which is possible thanks to EU membership.

15.3 Polish Environmental Protection Within European Environmental Policy Integration with the European Union formally started with the Resolution of the Parliament in 1992. This process has played a crucial role in the evolution of environmental management and financing of environmental protection in Poland. In 1994, the Association Agreement between Poland and the EU which was connected with the harmonisation of the Polish legal system with the acquis communautaire, came into force. As part of preparations for accession, nearly 200 acts of secondary EU legislation in the area of ‘Environment’ were analysed (Radziejowski et al. 2002) as to the necessity of their transposition into the Polish legal system and practical implementation. Waste management, water quality, air quality and reduction of industrial pollution were particularly difficult areas in the negotiations on EU membership (Progress of negotiations 2000). As a result of the negotiations, Poland obtained 10 transitional periods of several years allowing for the extension of the adjustment periods beyond 1 May 2004, as the date of its accession to the EU. The most important concerned municipal sewage treatment, waste management and integrated prevention and control of pollution in the largest industrial plants. Apart from the issues included in the transition periods, Poland completed the transposition of its legal system by the end of 2002. Meeting this requirement was a great challenge, as it involved not only the development of new regulations, but also required the provision of institutions and financial resources for their implementation, as well as the preparation of a control system and instruments for law enforcement (Radziejowski et al. 2002). The accession to the EU was the time of intensive investments to make up for the delay in providing the technical infrastructure for environmental protection. This period involved, on the one hand, forcing Poland to apply EU standards in environmental protection, and on the other hand, the flow of EU funds allowing for a jump in investment outlays on objectives consistent with the priorities and measures described in the operational programmes. According to the information provided by the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management, from 2004

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to 2020, Poland has used over PLN 45.1 billion of EU funds under subsequent operational programmes for environmental protection. This amount should be completed by, probably only slightly smaller, funds allocated to environmental protection being included in regional programmes, in programmes devoted to rural areas and in funds for modernisation of the economy. During the period of Poland’s membership in the EU, foreign funds have accounted for somewhere between a dozen to more than 25% of total expenditure on environmental protection (Statistics Poland 2019a). Funds originating from the EU ensured the mobilisation of, at least, a similar amount of funds from domestic sources. The share of environmental protection expenditures in GDP in the first decade of the twenty-first century fluctuated between 3.1 and 4.5%, while the average share of environmental protection expenditures in GDP in the European Union countries was slightly above 2% (Eurostat 2020). In the next decade, this share decreased in Poland to 1.5% in 2017, but by 2018, it rose to 3.1%. The main reason for this was an increase in costs incurred by households for waste management, drinking water and sewage disposal. Among the formal requirements for obtaining European Union funds for financing projects, the sine qua non condition is the conformity of projects with relevant EU and Polish strategic and operational documents. The long-term strategic framework for environmental management after the year 2000 was to be determined by the II National Environmental Policy (National Environmental Policy 2001—2nd NEP), which combined the experience of the transformation period and the EU approach. This document listed, among its main objectives, the impact on macroeconomic policy, the improvement of the quality of the environment and the reduction of pressures on it, the achievement of full regulatory compliance with the EU and the promotion of sustainable development. Meanwhile, only a year later the European Union adopted the 6th EU Environment Action Programme (2002), which coincided with the conclusion of negotiations on Poland’s membership in the EU. As a result, Poland quickly updated the 2nd NEP and adopted the ‘National Environmental Policy for 2003–2006 with the perspective for 2007–2010 (2003)’ (3rd NEP). Successive editions of the NEP were created at irregular intervals (National Environmental Policy 2007, 2009, 2019). In spite of political changes, the priorities and objectives of subsequent documents were identical or similar and in line with the 6th EU Environment Action Programme (2002). They exposed systemic horizontal measures, including impacts on sectoral policies, development of economic mechanisms, institutional strengthening and increased public participation in environmental protection. The lively tradition of silo mentality in the Polish government has resulted in ineffectiveness in introducing environmental perspective to sectoral policies. This is particularly true in the energy sector, where activity in favour of energy efficiency and the development of renewable energy sources has long been insufficient in view of the dominant position of coal-based energy. The postulate of institutional strengthening is also still valid, as subsequent structural and personnel changes are not conducive to the long-term formation of substantive strong institutions. However, it cannot be overlooked that integration with the EU has resulted in the need for extensive

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changes in legal regulations. Their preparation and implementation rested, mainly, on the shoulders of the administration, which demonstrated its ability to prepare a large number of legal acts. Only in the first phase of the transposition of EU law were the most important acts creating legal order in environmental protection rewritten. These included Environmental Protection Law (2001), Water Law (2001), Act on waste (2001), Act on nature conservation (2004). In addition to these, dozens of other laws and hundreds of executive regulations were adopted. Apart from horizontal issues, significant progress is being made in shaping economic instruments. Among the mechanisms implemented, one can mention the realistic pricing for water extraction, wastewater discharge and waste management and the introduction of market prices for energy carriers. The challenge remains to continuously expand the internalisation of environmental costs so that the perpetrator of the environmental damage has to include the costs of the damage reparation to the price of his products and services. The European Union requires Poland to apply extensive environmental impact assessment procedures for planned projects, which involves ensuring public participation and expanding access to environmental information. The threat of blocking subsidies for investments from the EU programmes turned out to be an effective instrument for making administrative procedures more public and for improving the quality of expert documents on the possible environmental impact of planned projects. Successive editions of the NEP have unsuccessfully raised the need to integrate the administration of environmental management and spatial planning. The lack of consideration of environmental terms is the reason for spatial conflicts and negative effects of erroneous space management on both the quality of life and the state of environment. Since accession to the EU, the protection of natural heritage has taken on a new dimension resulting from the establishment of protected areas in Poland under the European NATURA 2000 Network. Communes opposed this new form of nature conservation for fear of hindering economic investments. Thanks to pressure from the European Union, as well as activities of non-governmental organisations, in 2018 NATURA 2000 sites occupied 9.5 million hectares of land in Poland, i.e. approximately 20% of the country’s land area (General Directorate for Environmental Protection 2020). One million hectares of marine NATURA 2000 areas needs to be added to this. NATURA 2000 sites, including the Areas of Special Bird Protection and Areas of Special Habitat Protection mainly cover national legal forms of nature conservation, especially national parks, nature reserves and landscape parks. This results in a total of 1/3 of the country’s land area being covered by various forms of nature conservation. After the year 2000, the pressure on natural resources, as a result of the decreasing emission of pollutants began to, systematically, decrease and at the same time, social resistance against legal protection of new areas was on the rise. Hence, only one new national park and two landscape parks were created. On the other hand, afforestation continued, which made it possible to increase the forest cover of the country to 29.6% in 2018, with the dominance of public forests (Statistics Poland 2019b). The forests grew healthier, which is assessed based on defoliation as an indicator of large-scale air pollution. Between 2004 and 2018, the share of damaged trees decreased from 34.6% to 18.7% (Statistics Poland 2005, 2019b), while the stands

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of large, compact forest complexes remain healthier compared to the dispersed ones (State Forests, 2018). Concentration of activity in development centres, instead of peripheral areas, has resulted in the recovery of large mammalian populations. A spectacular example is the wolf, whose population increased from 719 to 2,868 individuals between 2004 and 2018 (Statistics Poland 2005, 2019b). The NATURA 2000 sites proved to be effective in protecting forest bird populations. In the years 2000– 2018, the value of the Forest Bird Index, aggregating changes in the numbers of the most common forest birds in Poland, increased by 14%. Contrarily, the intensification of agriculture increased the pressure on birds of agricultural landscapes. Their worsening situation is reflected in the decrease in Farmland Bird Index during the period 2000–2018 by 25% (State Inspectorate for Environmental Protection 2018). Within the EU, Poland maintains a high level of material intensity in terms of the economy. The main factors are the consumption of building materials and fuels (State Raw Material Policy 2019). There is a systematic progress in the efficiency of the use of resources, materials, water and energy in relation to GDP (Fig. 15.2). In the years 2004–2018, resource productivity, which determines the relationship between GDP and domestic material consumption, increased by 86%. The demand for water, which after 2000 stabilised at about 11,000 hm3 per year, whereas in 1990 it was over 14,000 hm3 , is an example of the increase in natural resource efficiency (Statistics Poland 1992, 2019b). During the period 2004–2018, there was also a decrease in the energy intensity of GDPs by about 1/3. However, although the pace of breaking the link between economic development and material and energy use was faster in Poland than in the EU, the resource productivity and energy intensity of GDPs currently remain below the European average. Poland’s share of energy from renewable sources is still

Fig. 15.2 Trends in resource productivity and material consumption in relation to gross domestic product in the years 2000–2018. Source The authors’ own study based on Eurostat (2020)

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low (11.3% in 2018, compared to 17.9% in the EU); however, its dynamic growth should be noted (Eurostat 2020). Energy obtained from renewable sources in the country comes mostly from biofuels and wind energy (Statistics Poland 2019c). The share of coal in the country’s total primary energy supply is clearly declining, from about 95% in 1990 to 70% in 2018 (Institute of Environmental Protection—National Research Institute 2018). Changes in waste management towards reducing the share of landfilling and increasing the recovery of raw materials began after 2012, when new regulations came into force, introducing common fees for municipal waste management and forcing segregation at source. As a result, the amount of municipal waste collected increased, from 9.6 mln tonnes in 2012 to 12.5 mln tonnes in 2018 (Fig. 15.3a). The share of selected waste collection also increased. In 2018, this waste accounted for 28.9% of the total amount of collected municipal waste, as compared to 10.5% in 2012 (Statistics Poland 2013, 2019b; Fig. 15.3b). Among the selectively collected waste, biodegradable waste, bulky waste, glass, plastics and paper represent the largest share. The share of individual sources in air pollution has been changing. Focusing the attention of the inspection services from the beginning of the transformation on the industrial plants with the highest emission levels has proved to be a very effective tool (Fig. 15.3c), which made it possible in 2005 to, officially, close a list of plants posing the greatest threat for people and the environment, even though the supervision of such facilities continues. In turn, the role of diffuse sources of emissions,

Fig. 15.3 Changes in selected environmental indicators after Poland’s transition. The time period considered for each indicator results from the availability of comparable data. Source The authors’ own study based on Statistics Poland—Local Data Bank (2020)

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from the communal and living sectors and transport, has increased. In the years 2005– 2018, exceedances of the air quality standards mainly concerned particulate matter PM10, PM2.5 and the benzo(a)pyrene (State Inspectorate for Environmental Protection 2010, 2014, 2019a). In 2018, out of 46 zones into which the national territory is divided for air quality monitoring purposes, 44 exceeded the permitted annual average level of benzo(a)pyrene concentration; 39 zones exceeded the permitted annual average level of PM10 and 14 zones exceeded the permitted annual average level of PM2.5 (State Inspectorate for Environmental Protection 2019b). The size of the average dust-exposure indicator, measured in the 30 largest Polish cities and agglomerations, decreased in the period 2010–2018 from 28 to 22 µg/m3 . However, in most cases, the indicator value still exceeds the standard for human health (20 µg/m3 ) (Announcement of the Minister of Environment 2019). The main sources of particulate matter and benzo(a)pyrene in Poland are emissions from the communal sector, including the combustion of solid fuels for heating (National Centre for Emissions Management 2019a). Emissions associated with individual heating of houses are often located in densely populated areas, which directly affect the air quality in places where people live. Road transport, especially in the central parts of cities with dense networks of streets and intense car traffic, also has a frequent impact on exceeding the particulate matter and benzo(a)pyrene standards (State Inspectorate for Environmental Protection 2019b). The implementation of the Water Framework Directive has led to a change in the approach to the protection of freshwaters, whose quality has so far been assessed solely on the basis of physicochemical characteristics. The new approach takes into account the ecological status of surface water bodies related to the quality of the structure and functioning of water ecosystems. Investments, following Poland’s accession to the EU, increased the share of the population using sewage treatment plants from 58.2% in 2003 to 74.0% in 2018 (Statistics Poland 2004, 2019b; Fig. 15.3D). This resulted in an improvement in the condition of waters, even though their quality is still unsatisfactory (State Inspectorate for Environmental Protection 2009, 2019c). In 2018, good chemical status was found in 27% of freshwaters and good ecological status in 22% (Statistics Poland 2019b). For comparison, this was 38 and 40% in the EU on average (European Environment Agency 2018). However, the principle of ‘the worst decides’ should be taken into account, according to which for poor water status assessment, it is sufficient that one of the indicators does not meet the standard for good status. The reason for the poor chemical condition of most freshwaters in Poland is because they exceed the standards of several polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, brominated diphenylethers, heptachlor, mercury and related compounds (State Inspectorate for Environmental Protection 2019a, b, c). In turn, poor ecological conditions are often determined by factors not directly related to pollution. This is especially true for fish, whose living conditions do not always improve with the improvement of water quality, as they also need suitable habitats for reproduction and migration (Cie´cko and Panek 2019). Climate policy occupies a low position in Poland. It is significant that in the 7th EU Environment Action Programme (2002), climate change mitigation was at the top of the priorities, while in the 3rd National Environment Policy (2003) it is

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listed as the last. Poland has been a signatory to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change since 1994 and the Kyoto Protocol that has been operating it since 2002. In the first commitment period (Kyoto Protocol 1997), Poland committed itself to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from 2008 to 2012 by 6% compared to base year emissions. Between 2013 and 2020, the EU member states and Iceland adopted a common reduction target, which included achieving average annual emissions of 80% of the total base year emissions of all member countries (Doha Amendment 2012). For Poland, the base year is 1988 for carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, 1995 for hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulphur hexafluoride, and 2000 for nitrogen trifluoride. In 2017, the total national GHG emissions were 413.78 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent. Compared to the base year, the emissions for 2017 decreased by 28.3%. The biggest decrease in GHG emissions was recorded in agriculture and power generation. In agriculture, this was caused by structural and economic changes after 1989, including a reduction in animal and plant production. The reduction of emissions in the energy sector, in turn, was associated with the transformation of industry, a decrease in coal consumption and implemented measures for energy efficiency (National Centre for Emissions Management 2019b). A comprehensive assessment and classification of communes in terms of changes in pressure on the environment and its quality in the years 2000–2009 is presented Kistowski (2012). The study shows a decreasing pressure of industrial emissions and a partial improvement in the state of the environment, even though it was still unsatisfactory for some air and water pollutants. In turn, the OECD Environmental Performance Review (OECD 2015) assesses the directions of changes in Poland since accession to the EU. The document indicates that environmental policies and institutions have strengthened since 2004. Increased investments have improved access to sanitation and solid waste services, helping to reduce environmental pollution. At the same time, the report notes that the Polish economy remains one of the most resource- and carbon intensive in the OECD, mainly due to its strong dependence on coal. The need for better pricing of environmental externalities and a clear specification of measures necessary for the transition to a low-carbon economy was stressed. Poland’s efforts to establish a more effective system of municipal waste management were noted. However, municipal capacities should be strengthened in order to increase selective waste collection and develop a coherent investment approach to waste treatment.

15.4 Contemporary Challenges In our opinion, Poland faces the following critical challenges: the adaptation to and mitigation of climate change, the reduction of environmental pressures caused by emissions, including, a decrease in particulate matter concentration, as well as the implementation of a circular economy. Of course, at the same time, actions must be

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taken in the field of nature conservation, including both living and inorganic nature, as well as the landscape. International reports point to the deepening effects of global climate change— in particular, rising temperatures and the intensification of extreme phenomena. The EU’s response to these problems is the European Green Deal (2019), which expresses the aspiration to develop a modern and competitive, yet resource-efficient and lowcarbon economy. The EU’s objective is to achieve climate neutrality, i.e. zero net greenhouse gas emissions, by 2050. In the case of Poland, climate policy has played a marginal role and has only been undertaken in recent years. The framework for national action in this respect is formulated in the Strategic Adaptation Plan towards 2020 with a perspective to 2030 (2013)—SAP. The document presents climate change scenarios for Poland, considering extreme weather phenomena, such as heavy rainfall, floods, droughts, heat waves, hurricanes, as the greatest threat to society and the economy. These phenomena are likely to occur with increasing frequency and intensity, covering larger and larger areas of the country. Among the consequences of climate change, changes in hydrological conditions have also been identified, including the occurrence of longer rain-free periods, interrupted by violent and heavy rainfall. Groundwater levels will decrease, which will have a negative impact on biodiversity and ecosystems, particularly, freshwaters and wetlands. The SAP sets out the directions of adaptation measures to be taken for the most sensitive sectors and areas: water management, agriculture, forestry, energy, transport, construction, land use, health, biodiversity, as well as urbanised areas, mountain areas and coastal zones. As the implementation of SAP guidelines, in 2017–2019 local climate change adaptation plans were developed for 44 of Poland’s largest cities, which comprise about 30% of the country’s population. These plans included the assessment of sensitivity to climate change and identification of adaptation measures taking into account regional and local specificity. Owing to Poland’s much greater dependence on coal than other EU member states, the energy transformation remains crucial for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The objectives and directions of measures in the energy sector are set out in the Energy Policy of Poland until 2040 (2019). The indicators of the energy transformation until 2030 include 60% of coal in electricity generation, 21% of renewable energy sources in gross final energy consumption and reduction of CO2 emissions by 30% (compared to 1990). The necessary changes in the energy sector must be seen in the broad context of a fair transition, reflecting the compromise between the interests of all groups affected by this process. The rate of shutting down conventional energy sources must be correlated with the reduction of energy demand by: • • • •

reducing the energy intensity of the economy and the municipal sector, thermomodernisation of buildings, development of dispersed renewable energy generation, making the energy management system more flexible by developing its storage and transmission system as well as supporting the transformation of regional economies towards independence from coal mining.

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A major challenge will be to apply diverse tools in the regions so as to reduce environmental pressures. Differences in the ways and intensity of using the environment in Poland result in distinguishing areas with specific environmental problems in regional terms. The first group includes mining and mineral processing areas, mainly Upper Silesia, Rybnik and Lublin coal basins. The effects of deep coal mining include land deformation caused by subsidence, changes in water conditions, changes in water quality (as a result of saline discharges from mine drainage), waste accumulation and air pollution (Pietrzyk-Sokulska et al. 2015). This is compounded by emissions from the developed metallurgy and power industry as well as communal and living emissions resulting from high population density. In turn, opencast lignite mining (Bełchatów, P˛atnów-Adamów-Konin and Turów lignite basins) are related to largescale transformations of the surface of the earth, changes in the structure and quality of soils, deep changes in the level of ground and surface waters and emissions of dust and gas pollutants (Kasztelewicz 2018). Increased mining pressure also occurs in the Legnica-Głogów Copper Belt, which is related to the deep mining of copper ore and the storage of post-flotation waste, as well as emissions from metallurgy. Specific areas of large-scale industrial impact on the environment occur in the vicinity of large plants representing high-emission types of industry. This applies, in particular, to the petrochemical industry (e.g. Płock, Gda´nsk), chemical industry (such as nitrogen plants in Puławy, K˛edzierzyn-Ko´zle and Tarnów, chemical plants in Police, soda plants in Janikowo) and cement plants (12 plants located in 7 regions in 2018). The agriculture production is linked with the emission of pollutants from dispersed sources to soil, water and air, which is associated with the use of pesticides and artificial fertilisers, as well as with animal husbandry (Goł˛ebiewska 2016). The impact of intensive agriculture on the environment, additionally, includes erosion and degradation of soils as well as the simplification of a landscape structure, leading to the loss of habitats and biodiversity (OECD 2008, 2018). The above problems occur ˙ in particular in agricultural areas of the Szczecin Lowlands, Zuławy at the Vistula delta, Kujawy, the Wielkopolska Lowlands, Wrocław Plain, the Głubczyce Plateau, the Sandomierz Uplands and the Lublin Uplands. Large cities constitute a different group of centres where pressure on the environment is concentrated. About 10.1 million Polish people live in urban areas with more than 100,000 inhabitants (Statistics Poland 2019d). The low quality of the urban environment is mainly due to the high, although systematically decreasing, use of coal to heat buildings. Additionally, emissions from vehicles account for a significant share of air pollution. Poland is characterised by a high rate of cars per 1,000 inhabitants (610 cars in 2018), with a large proportion being obsolete vehicles with high emissions (in 2018, the average age of cars was 14 years—European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association 2019). Negative effects on the quality of the environment in cities are exerted by uncontrolled urban sprawl. This leads to unreasonable land development, makes it difficult to equip new suburbs with municipal infrastructure and, above all, generates additional car traffic related to commuting to central

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cities, where services and jobs are concentrated. In urbanised areas, emissions from the communal and living sector overlap, in part, with industrial emissions. In the outskirts, the source of pressure is the emissions to the air resulting from the use of low-quality coal and combustion of waste in household furnaces. The problem is the disorderly management of municipal sewage in many small settlement units and deficiencies in the enforcement of municipal waste management standards. Tourist regions along the coastal strip, in mountains and lakeside areas feature dispersed seasonal emissions, which result mainly from the disordered sewage and municipal waste management. In terms of pollution types, a particular challenge for Poland is the reduction of particulate matter. This requires, above all, the reduction of emissions from the households, municipal sector and cars. The National Programme of Air Pollution Reduction (2019), among the most important necessary measures, includes: • • • • • •

transition to using low-emission fuels in heating devices, modernisation and expansion of local gas and heating networks, thermomodernisation of buildings, improvement in energy efficiency in the transport sector, management and optimisation of transport demand, promotion of new forms of mobility.

This should be accompanied by information and educational activities and the development of mechanisms to control local emission sources with emphasis on housing. It should be noted that the matter of air quality is easier to solve than climaterelated issues, as corrective actions in this area have been socially accepted. For example, the growing awareness and social pressure on the authorities to counteract high concentrations of particulate matter meet with a response in the form of their resolutions to eliminate the usage of solid fuels in specific cities. The high material requirements of the Polish economy make the implementation of a circular economy (CE) another form of challenge. This model is based on the assumption that the value of products and materials should be maintained in the economy as long as possible in order to minimise the consumption of resources and the generation of waste. Transition to a resource-efficient and low-carbon economy is the subject of the EU Action Plan for the Circular Economy (2015). The development of a CE will trigger structural changes in the economy and new trends, whose effects will be felt in economic, social and environmental dimensions (European Environmental Agency 2016). The Roadmap towards the transformation to a circular economy (2019) provides a framework for action in Poland. The priorities include strengthening the innovativeness of the economy, development of the market for secondary raw materials and the service sector ensuring the possibility of using products as an alternative to their purchase, e.g. car sharing. In turn, the State Raw Material Policy (2019) for boosting a CE formulates the principle of ’waste as a raw material’, which should lead to the minimisation of waste and increased recovery of raw materials. It can therefore be concluded that in the policy sphere, a set of directions of strategic activities and legislative work aimed at stimulating the CE transformation has been proposed in Poland. On the other hand, there is a lack of

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defined scope of monitoring (Rataj 2019), which would allow tracking the progress of the CE implementation, assessing its effects and introducing corrections so as to increase the effectiveness of actions.

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Chapter 16

Landscape and Spatial Management: Changes, Principles and Directions of Measures Sylwia Staszewska, Damian Łowicki, and Magdalena Szczepanska ´

Abstract The chapter aims to identify and assess the principles and determinants shaping the landscape and spatial order in Poland over the last 30 years. It is divided into two parts: theoretical and empirical. The first presents issues concerning the natural and cultural landscape as well as spatial order, whereas the second illustrates the spatial changes in Polish cities and villages that have taken place over 30 years since the political transformation. These changes are illustrated by an analysis of the land use structure regionally and also by structural, physiognomic and functional research results locally (as a case study of selected settlement units). The work concludes with a set of guidelines which are at the same time recommendations for proper landscape design and the preservation of spatial order. The summing-up includes some final remarks on the course, results and consequences of the landscape changes that have taken place, which can affect the human environment and in turn reflect spatial order. Keywords Landscape · Spatial order · Political transformation · Land use · Poland

16.1 Introduction Today in Poland, there is a growing scientific interest in landscapes. This is supported by an increasingly greater number of publications and conferences and the need for special studies on planning and landscape management (e.g. Nied´zwiecka-Filipiak 2009; Mizgajski 2008; Raszeja et al. 2010; Myga-Pi˛atek 2012). There is a strong need to scrutinise the Polish space developed after the political transformation which brought about landscape changes that are complicated and difficult to evaluate. These changes result, inter alia, from the ‘democratisation of space’ in the continuously liberating spatial planning regulations (Myga-Pi˛atek 2012). The contemporary geographic information systems give great research and application opportunities to S. Staszewska · D. Łowicki (B) · M. Szczepa´nska Faculty of Human Geography and Planning, Adam Mickiewicz University, B. Krygowskiego 10, 61-608 Pozna´n, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Churski and T. Kaczmarek (eds.), Three Decades of Polish Socio-economic Transformations, Economic Geography, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06108-0_16

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study landscape. They help create visualisations of occurring transformations and are used for interdisciplinary analyses to determine trends in changes of various scales, thus contributing to the development of effective methods for protecting the surrounding space. What is considered in the discussion is a physiognomic trend in landscape research which highlights the issues of spatial composition, fostering the aesthetic and natural features as well as cultural components of a landscape. Additionally, this chapter will also asses spatial order. This is space organisation which brings harmonious unity and takes into account determinants as well as functional, socio-economic, environmental, cultural, compositional and aesthetic requirements in organised relations (Chmielewski 2012). The chapter aims to identify and assess the principles and determinants shaping the landscape and spatial order in Poland over the last 30 years. The principles are understood here as the administrative and legal bases for designing landscape and order specified in acts and executive acts and included in planning and strategic documentation at national, regional and local levels. Determinants, on the other hand, are the circumstances (conditions, factors, mechanisms) underlying the state of the environment, where the inhabitants of Polish cities and rural areas live, expressed in landscape and spatial order.

16.2 Landscape versus Spatial Order: A Theoretical Approach Landscape is a broad, complicated spatial system, covering three hierarchical, mutually interrelated patterns: abiotic, biotic and anthropogenic. The first is composed of geocomplexes; the second is arranged in populations and biocenoses remaining closely linked to their habitats which are the basis for the formation of ecosystems and phytocenoses. The third embraces landscape elements formed or transformed by people. This system transforms matter and energy and, in a multisensual way, affects the living organisms that are the elements of this system. A visual effect of the coexistence of all the elements of this system in a given area is the unique physiognomy of a landscape (Chmielewski 2012). Spatial order, on the other hand, is understood sensu stricto as the mutualism of: urban planning and architectural order (Zipser 2006) (related to the compositional compactness of the building structure, clarity and logic in the distribution of buildings, their shape, size, situation of greenery and services), functional order (related to functional values, the provision of technical and social infrastructure, access to recreational areas, services and business activity), aesthetic order (related to the beauty of a place, its attractiveness and harmony), psychosocial order (based on social relations, identity and belonging) and ecological-environmental order (based on the assets of the natural environment, on healthy physiochemical properties of the place where people live). Spatial order is associated with good organisation, balance, stability, cohesion, harmony and beauty

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(Zawadzka 2017). This is such arrangement of space which forms harmonious unity and allows for all the determinants as well as functional, socio-economic, environmental, cultural and compositional and aesthetic requirements in organised relations (Act of 2003 on planning and spatial development).

16.2.1 Landscape as a Spatial Pattern of the Social-ecological System The increasing conviction of scientific circles and governments about the need to take care of the environment not only through the active or passive protection of its individual components, but mainly by managing the environment as a whole, has resulted in an increased interest in the landscape in recent years. Effective environment protection requires considering not only the bilateral interactions between a given factor and an investigated object, but also reciprocal interactions between factors. The landscape, which is the effect of interactions between components of the environment and forms a physiognomic layer of ecosystems, enables such activities (Mizgajski 2008). Such a statement follows, inter alia, from the results of ecological research which led to the formulation of one of the paradigms of landscape ecology holding that the structure of a landscape determines its functions (Forman and Godron 1986), and to the description of the importance of various typical features of the composition and configuration of a landscape for its functioning (McGarigal et al. 2000). The Lake District Declaration of 1988 contributed to a great extent to the recognition of the importance of landscape protection by European governments, international agencies, including the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and NGOs. In 1992, the World Heritage Convention discussed the significance of cultural landscape protection in preserving traditional values, which resulted in the inclusion of this category in the UNESCO World Heritage List. The European Landscape Convention signed by Poland in 2001 and ratified in 20061 obliges public authorities to adopt the policy and implement measures at local, regional, national and international levels for protecting, managing and planning landscapes across Europe.

16.2.1.1

Natural Landscape

A natural landscape is understood in the literature in two ways. On the one hand, this is a landscape composed only of natural elements of the environment such as air, rocks, soil, water, flora and fauna. On the other, a natural landscape is distinguished on the basis of environmental features. Both approaches do not allow for artificial surfaces, but areas transformed by people are usually taken into account. Most scientists agree 1

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that a natural landscape is not an original landscape and embraces both natural phenomena and areas under agricultural, forest or water management. Troll (1950, after: Richling and Solon 2011) differentiates between a natural landscape (natürliche Landschaft), distinguished on the basis of natural features, and the landscape of nature (Naturlandschaft), referring to areas unchanged by people. In Poland, the first comprehensive division of a landscape was presented by Kondracki (1960). The typology was based on land relief which is strongly linked to the geological structure and affects all other landscape elements. The existing division prepared by Richling (1992) is a modification of earlier classifications. It is based on three elements: soil, water and potential plants in four types of landscape: lowlands, uplands, mountains (low, medium–high and high) as well as valleys (also depressions).

16.2.1.2

Cultural Landscape

A cultural landscape is a landscape transformed by humans as a result of civilisation development. It is an evolutionary consequence of natural landscapes (environmental)—different in terms of zones and levels—that existed in the prevailing territories of the world until the Neolithic era. A crucial role in the process of landscape transformations is played by the combination of environmental, socio-economic, political and civilisational (technological) factors, and the position and impact of which (hierarchy) have changed over time (Myga-Pi˛atek 2012). What also appears in the source literature is the notion of an anthropogenic landscape treated as a wide group of heterogenic landscapes embracing all its forms transformed by people. These are landscapes modified in order to fulfil a specific economic function, i.e. cultural landscapes (e.g. agricultural, settlement, mining) and degraded landscapes, so-called anthropic, formed as a result of phenomena that are particularly harmful to the natural environment, also as an effect of unforeseen and unintended processes initiated by people. Cultural landscapes have environmental elements (e.g. forests, parks, meadows) as well as anthropogenic ones, which makes them subject to natural regularities. If a cultural landscape system is well-balanced, it may be regarded as a sustainable cultural landscape (Solon 2004).

16.2.2 Spatial and Social Determinants of Spatial Order In today’s analysis of the spatial development and structure of cities and rural areas, attention is paid particularly to the interaction between spatial and social determinants. These determinants are in a coherent and organised relationship. What is important is the aesthetic appearance of a given space, a transparent (memorable and understandable) as well as a reliable and effective pattern, which should not consist of destructive elements. The interdependence between urban life patterns and the logic of an urban form, between a spatial form and a social process is significant. This harmonisation of spatial structures and urban life forms as well as the balance

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of opinions (discussing and coordinating interests) between various entities acting in the urbanised space is the key element of spatial order (Zuziak 2008). At present, in order to learn about the determinants of the spatial order of urbanised and rural areas, the following should be taken into account: (1) rules of the investment game, which is the basis for the development of cultural and economic values affecting the life of an individual and society, (2) relations and interactions between the settlement centre and its surroundings, (3) properties of the space, resulting from needs, preferences and requirements of the users of this space, (4) principles of co-governance, rules of the game of the game participants, obligations and powers of decision-makers, (5) possibilities of adjusting material forms of space to changing needs and vital functions and (6) urban metabolism, i.e. the phases of tissue (morphology) degradation and methods for its revival. The knowledge of these rules, relations, properties, principles, possibilities and changes allows assessing the space in aesthetic, psychological (visual perception), functional, useful and constructive (the pattern stability) terms. Then, the vitality of the spatial structure can be evaluated, as well as its form and matter (size, shape, mass, mobility and cohesion), as well as harmony understood as the concept of spatial order. It is likely, however, that in the foreseeable future, progress in the democratisation of public life, the liberalisation of economic life and greater ecological awareness will require researchers to be much more skilful than they have been so far in associating various development strategies affecting the quality of the urbanised space and rural areas.

16.3 Principles of Landscape and Spatial Order Design in the Provisions of Law and Strategic Documents of 1990–2020 In Poland, landscape and spatial-order design is subjected to numerous legal regulations along with arrangements resulting from strategic documents discussed nationally, regionally and locally. In the 1990s, the Act of 7 July 1994 on spatial development (Journal of Laws of 1999, No. 15, item 139 as amended) came into effect, which protected property rights, introduced negotiations in planning processes and empowered citizens. The pursuit of freedom meant losing a sense of spatial order and sustainable development (Kolipi´nski 2000; Kowalewski and Puzyna 2005). Liberty without barriers and urban standards became a process that devastated the Polish urbanised space. Therefore, there was a lot of talk about the need to change the provisions of this act. Instead of taking over the proven planning and spatial development systems functioning in democratic countries with market economies and adopting them to low urbanisation, poor development and the country’s specific problems, Poland tried to build spatial management ‘from scratch’ with detrimental effects for development processes, distancing it from the state and spatial development in the European Union (Billert 2006). The Act of 1994 abolished the existing urban provisions that

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determined the creation or maintenance of spatial order and sustainable development in management processes (J˛edraszko 2004). This change was, on the one hand, an expression of discouragement by rigid design rules existing in the socialist system and, on the other, resulted from the conviction that their abandonment will make designers to create spatial order according to the principles taught during academic studies. This conviction proved wrong, because the norms were replaced by even more rigid requirements, alien to spatial order, that investors and designers had to submit to. The existing legal regulations, specifying the principles of designing the urbanised space (i.e. the Act of 27 March 2003 on planning and spatial development—Journal of Laws of 2003, No. 80, item 717 as amended) do not contain tools for the implementation of a planning process. There are no arrangements concerning the preparation of a place for the development planned, including the consolidation and secondary division of private areas, the right of pre-emption by communes, lease of property and preparation of communal land resources. The rules are not defined, as are the procedures for applying public-private partnerships. Instruments for financing investments in communes (taxes, loans, subsidiaries granted by communes) are not specified. What is also lacking is urban supervision at each stage of the investment process. Polish local authorities are not obliged to improve land designated for development (activated by the planning procedure). Commune councils do not specify the amount of compensation fees, cooperation principles of the private sector or ecological compensations from investors for environment and natural protection. The Act of 2003 should contain, but does not, rules for land valuation and procedures related to it. This is particularly important for unavoidable changes in the amount of cadastral tax. The Landscape Act (Journal of Laws 2015, item 774) has started to play a significant role in Polish regulations, aiming at adapting tools for effective landscape protection. This act introduced landscape audits which deal with the so-called common identification of landscapes and assess the landscape value. The landscape audit determines also threats to the preservation of landscape values as well as the recommendations on and conclusions concerning their development and protection. Moreover, the act introduced, inter alia, changes in the regulation on the creation and functioning of landscape parks and the areas of a protected landscape. Urban and rural space designing in Poland is not easy, because legal regulations are adopted by various ministries, therefore, they are: incoherent, non-integrated, non-operational, non-normative, non-marketing and not adapted to property rights protection. Designing spatial order and landscapes results from the arrangement of many strategic documents. Nationally speaking, these principles are formulated by ten strategies which, besides general rules on the spatial, social and economic development of the country, also indirectly specify how to ensure spatial order and principles of landscape design. They stipulate, e.g. the construction of a system for monitoring spatial processes, an increase in the total area of the country covered by spatial development plans, and the introduction of a relevant system of regulations and decisions enabling, inter alia, suburbanisation processes to be controlled or the application of

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functional planning as well as greater emphasis on strengthening public participation in spatial planning. They indicate the need for transformation in the building industry (without excessive dispersion of buildings, maintaining consistency between a project and a local socio-cultural and natural context). They mention the necessity for the energy and material efficiency of architectural-construction projects and also the application of sustainable architecture, which fits in with a local cultural and natural landscape. They stipulate the principles of landscape design and conditions for spatial order by creating a consistent network of transport infrastructure, safety, reliability and constraints on the negative influence of transport on the environment, and the preparation of a rational model for financing infrastructural investments. The directions defined in these strategies greatly affect landscape and spatial-order design. It should also be mentioned that regionally the provisions regarding the formation of a landscape are specified by the Voivodeship Development Strategy (for a relevant Voivodeship) and the Voivodeship Spatial Development Plan (for a relevant Voivodeship). Locally, the principles of spatial-order design are included in the studies on determinants and directions of spatial development of communes, in local development plans and decisions on building conditions. Although the documents mentioned specify the arrangements related to the maintenance of spatial order, they do not complement one another. The arrangements cannot be completed with a shortage of financial resources or weak citizens’ support. The documents are not consistent and their scope often overlaps.

16.4 Changes in the Land Use Structure During the 30 years of the Transformation: Factors and Effects 16.4.1 Land Use as an Indicator Describing the Landscape Land use is the distinctive feature of a landscape, which is most fully represented on maps. At the same time, it can be easily characterised by quantitative indicators. In turn, it enables the formalised comparison of various types of landscapes and research on the dynamics of their changes. According to Jaeger (2000), in addition to documenting landscape development, quantitative evaluations and analyses of the spatial landscape structure are essential due to, inter alia, the consistent and clear presentation of a landscape model, possible comparison to other regions and the formulation and testing of hypotheses on the presence of size thresholds, beyond which the type of spatial structure and landscape factors change. At the same time, one cannot fail to notice that landscape distinctive features, through the land use structure, are associated with the impoverishment of information about it, concerning, e.g. differences in topography and development forms.

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In Poland, one of the data sources on land use is a cadastre. This is a database mainly for fiscal purposes, but is often used for science (e.g. Petek and Gabrovec 2002; Biˇcik et al. 2001; Magnin et al. 1995; Krausmann 2001). Its unquestionable advantage is its time continuity and the fact that it covers the whole country. Uniform data have been functioning in Poland since 1947 (Łowicki 2008a). The authors used the cadastre of 2002 and 2018 (regional level) as well as of 1989, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2012 and 2018 (subregional level) to analyse temporal and spatial variation in landscape changes at regional and subregional scales. The landscape transformation index (LTI) was applied as a change indicator (Łowicki 2008b). In the first stage, the categories of land use distinguished on the basis of various legal acts were unified. Thus, eight types and 16 subtypes of land use were obtained, which were subsequently assigned to either an extensive or intensive group of the use of ecosystems. The first group included biologically active surfaces, i.e. those elements of a landscape in which natural processes dominate. They comprise farmland (arable land, orchards, meadows and pastures), forestland (forests, wooded and bushy land), waters (standing, flowing and ditches) as well as miscellaneous land and wasteland. The second group consists of categories with a large share of sealed surfaces and those landscape elements in which technical processes prevail, i.e. mining land, transport areas (roads, railroads and others) and settlement ones (developed, undeveloped and greenery). Based on the total area of each group, the landscape transformation index has been formed: µ = Et/Ep, where µ—landscape transformation index, Et—areas dominated by technical processes, Ep—areas dominated by natural processes. At regional level, the analysis covered 16 Voivodeships, whereas in the case of the subregional level, neighbouring communes which changed their areas were merged into one administrative unit. Thus, 212 research fields were obtained from 226 communes.

16.4.2 Changes at Regional Levels The Landscape Transformation Index grew on average by 0.9 in 2002–2018, but its rate was 3.5 times faster in 2010–2018 than in 2002–2010. The changes were not evenly distributed among regions. In two western regions, in Lubuskie and Zachodniopomorskie Voivodeships, extensive land use processes dominated intensive ones (Fig. 16.1). However, it only concerned the first period between 2002 and 2010. ´ askie Voivodeship and was evenly The fastest rate of changes was definitely in Sl˛ distributed in the investigated subperiods. Statistically, significant LTI changes (R = 0.72) correlate with changes in settlement areas which grew by 220.5 thous ha, i.e. 27%. The strongest growth has been ´ askie (39%) Voivodeships and the lowest in recorded in Mazowieckie (45%) and Sl˛ Lubuskie (9%) and Warmi´nsko-Mazurskie (10%) (Table 16.1). The reduction in the LTI was mainly due to the liquidation of mining land and transport areas, primarily railroads and other transport infrastructure (land equipped with urban transport devices, such as depots, stops, etc. airports, gliderports, landing

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Fig. 16.1 Changes in the landscape transformation index (a) and in the share of built-up areas (b) in Poland’s regions in 2002–2018. Source Own study

grounds as well as areas related to water transport which were not under water, such as: port areas, harbours, floodgates and piers). In 2002–2018, 7.5 thous ha of mining land was lost. The decrease took place in all regions except for Mazowieckie, ´ etokrzyskie and Małopolskie Voivodeships. In the case of transport areas, almost Swi˛ 12 thous ha of land changed its designation. In 2002–2010, as many as 48 thous ha of transport areas disappeared, but it grew by 36 thous ha in the following years 2010–2018. The changes in forestry affected the LTI to a small extent because mainly agricultural land were afforested. They did not influence much the landscape in Poland as well. The share of woodland increased from 29.96% in 2002 to 31.6% of the land area in 2018. In the years 2002–2010, 510 thous ha of forest land was created with the 70% of which increased in 2002–2008. The average growth in regions was only 5.5%. The most considerable increase in the share of forests occurred in Łódzkie (8.7%), Warmi´nsko-Mazurskie (7.9%) and Mazowieckie (7.8%) Voivodeships.

16.4.3 Changes at Subregional Levels A regional analysis has shown that the polarisation of land use is changing. In Voivodeships with numerous landscape transformations at the early stages of political shifts, changes in land use were more intense. The authors decided to check if the same could be said at a subregional level. The analysis examined Wielkopolskie Voivodeship, which had average results as compared to the rest of the country, both in terms of its state in 1989 and the rate of changes in the LTI. The mean growth

0.2

−0.1

Source Own study

Mean

ZACHODNIOPOMORSKIE

WIELKOPOLSKIE

´ WARMINSKO-MAZURSKIE 0.2 0.7

−0.3

0.2

0.4 0.6

0.0

0.6

0.6

−0.3

0.4 1.8

0.1

POMORSKIE ´ ASKIE SL ˛ ´ ETOKRZYSKIE SWI ˛

1.9

0.4

0.0

PODLASKIE

0.6

0.1

PODKARPACKIE

OPOLSKIE

1.0

0.8

MAZOWIECKIE

1.1 1.2

0.9

0.5

ŁÓDZKIE

MAŁOPOLSKIE

0.4

−1.3

LUBUSKIE

0.9 0.6

0.3

−0.3

0.9

−0.1

0.6

0.1

1.3

3.7

0.5

0.4

0.8

0.1

1.9

1.8

2.0

−0.9

0.9

0.6

0.7

2002–2018

12.90

9.81

18.32

−1.93

15.13

23.86

21.21

14.61

7.98

5.72

24.76

12.63

19.73

1.37

10.22

13.68

9.24

2002–2010

0.6

0.0

2010–2018

2002–2010

LUBELSKIE

KUJAWSKO-POMORSKIE

´ ASKIE DOLNOSL ˛

Settlement areas

Landscape transformation index

12.01

5.35

12.67

12.00

10.96

11.95

11.53

12.85

10.99

5.73

16.58

17.82

14.58

7.77

13.77

19.46

8.09

2010–1018

Table 16.1 Changes in the landscape transformation index and in the share of built-up areas [%] in Poland’s regions in 2002–2018 2002–2018

26.58

15.68

33.32

9.84

27.75

38.66

35.18

29.34

19.85

11.77

45.44

32.70

37.19

9.25

25.40

35.80

18.08

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in the LTI in Wielkopolska communes in 1989–2018 was 3.05. In 24 out of the 212 investigated units, this index decreased (Fig. 16.2a). The decline in mining land in the poviats of Konin and Turek, where lignite mining ceased, was responsible for the fall in the index. In some communes, the fall resulted from the loss of land designated for development in urban spatial development plans. The record holder is the Dobra commune, where 591 ha of such land has been lost. Figure 16.2b shows statistically significant hot spots, cold spots and spatial outliers using the Anselin Local Moran’s I statistic. What is visible is the clear polarisation of landscape transformations. In the north part of the region, there are communes with smaller changes (low-low cluster). The region’s capital and adjacent communes are a hot spot, where the trend towards increasing landscape changes continues (high-high cluster). In the vicinity of Kalisz, however, there are communes where the landscape transformation process significantly accelerated during the political alteration (low–high cluster). In Konin and some neighbouring communes, post-mining areas were reclaimed for water, forest and agricultural purposes (high–low cluster). Regionally, the LTI growth is mainly due to an increase in settlement areas (R = 0.44). On average, communes gained 181 ha of built-up areas. The largest increase occurred in former Voivodeship cities: Pozna´n (3032 ha), Kalisz and Nowe Skalmierzyce (788 ha) as well as Konin (707 ha). The communes neighbouring Pozna´n, such as Tarnowo Podgórne (885 ha), Kórnik (691 ha) and Swarz˛edz (671 ha) has noted considerable increases. The development of transport areas affected the landscape transformation as well (R = 0.43). The area of transport areas recorded a significant growth in communes in which motorways and expressways were built,

Fig. 16.2 Changes in the LTI in 1989–2018 (a) and cluster and outlier analysis (Anselin Local Moran’s I) (b). Source Own study

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e.g. Pozna´n (1,123 ha), Łubowo (314 ha), Dopiewo (281 ha), Kostrzyn (267 ha). An increase in settlement areas is related to a decrease in arable land (R = -0.35). On average, 118 ha were lost per commune. Changes in agricultural land are the most diversified of all changes among communes. For landscape and ecological reasons, the loss of meadows is a great disadvantage; it concerned 91% of all the analysed administrative units. An average commune in Wielkopolska lost 122 ha of meadows and in the record-holding commune of Przygodzice, as many as 410 ha disappeared. The situation was similar in the case of pastures. In the years 1989– 2018 in Wielkopolska, an increase of over 38 thous ha of forests was recorded and woodland grew from 21.6% in 1989 to 22.7% in 2018. As in the case of agricultural land, changes in forestland were strongly diversified when it comes to subregions. The largest increases were observed definitely in the Piła subregion. In the commune of Okonek, 3.5 thous ha of forests were added, and in the commune of Jastrow, it was 2.3 thous ha. A loss in the woodland area was noted in 22 communes.

16.5 Urban and Rural Landscape Transformations as a Picture of Spatial Order in Poland 16.5.1 Urban and Rural Cultural Landscape: General Tendencies Political changes in Poland have brought about radical urban landscape transformations in terms of the use and development of cities as well as their perception. The last three decades have been a period of searching and forming a new identity. Changes in urban landscapes started with privatisation processes, especially regarding industrial facilities. In city planning, two opposing phenomena could be noticed—from the return to the idea of ‘urbanity’ (understood as the restoration of quarter development) through the emergence of the monitored and gated estates to urban sprawl (Bonenberg 2011). The real estate market was dominated by new actors—private investors, national and foreign developers as well as subsidised social housing societies— which contributed to a deterioration in the quality of public spaces, often to their appropriation. In the 1990s, Polish cities for the first time saw representative headquarters of foreign companies and financial institutions, large-area shopping centres with parking facilities, car showrooms and fast-food restaurants. The free market, competition and the struggle for customer-centred advertising ubiquitous. As a result of intense motorisation, the transport network had to be expanded, which included the organisation of parking spaces, contributing to the deterioration of settlement conditions and the liquidation of greenery. After Poland’s accession to the European Union, there was a period of intense sports and recreational investments, large hotels and water parks. The inflow of EU funds allowed the modernisation of large post-communist residential blocks of flats. With regard to the colouring of renovated facilities, in the source literature there appeared the notion of ‘pasteloza’ (meaning the

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abundance of different light colours) (Springer 2013). What was also observed was the construction of high-quality technical infrastructure and architectural facilities. Many socially well-revitalised places were created, although unfortunately in many cities, as a result of poorly conducted revitalisation processes, a so-called ‘betonoza’ took place—city squares/markets were deprived of greenery and their surfaces were hardened with concrete blocks. The past three decades have also observed growing social inequalities—economic exclusions, the emergence of areas of poverty and enclaves of wealth. Smaller localities faced deindustrialisation; residents escape to larger centres and the population ages. Today, Poland has been dealing with advanced revitalisation and the gentrification of urban, industrial and mining landscapes. Historical and recognisable centres face a ‘disneylandisation’ of old cities and an often troublesome influx of tourist (Buczkowska and Malchrowicz-Mo´sko 2012). The suburban zone is subject to the uncontrolled pressure of urbanisation (Staszewska 2013). The majority of research on the state, evaluation and transformation of cultural landscapes indicate negative changes occurring in these landscapes today. The following terms appear: dying landscapes (Klupsz 2010; Kulczyk 2010; Lewandowski 2010) or disappearing ones (Wycichowska 2010) as well as fleeting, ephemeral, transient (Wojciechowski 2010) landscapes and even the notion of landscape extermination (Kistowski 2010). Economic as well as social and ownership factors are crucial for the shifts observed in the cultural landscape. The market economy caused dynamic changes in the proportion of agricultural and forest landscapes (forest management) accompanied by an impoverishment of the agricultural landscape structure (Ryszkowski 2001). What has been observed was native deciduous tree species being cut down and replaced with evergreens, avenues of trees cut down, mid-field ponds eliminated and drainage ditches silting up. The intensive development of new management forms (especially tourism and services) resulted in the abandonment of land cultivation. Farmland was sold off on a massive scale and designated for housing or recreational purposes (so-called second or summer houses). These processes threaten the uniqueness of a region and lead to the formation of a landscape typical of a standardised suburban zone. Changes in the designation and pattern of settlement development have been observed as well as ageing of the rural population and the depopulation of settlements, slow rural urbanisation, and the neglect of the regional architecture of farms and houses. The reclamation of municipal rights leads to landscape urbanisation. Easy access to construction materials contributes to the further standardisation of a landscape depriving it of style and identity (Myga-Pi˛atek 2012). What has been noted is the dispersion and homogenisation of development, location of area-intensive and large-scale constructions and high-rise buildings with no attention paid to landscape determinants and no protection of valuable scenic views and panorama exposition zones, as well as landscape appropriation. The pace and scale of these changes cause many spatial conflicts. Thus, the landscape is subject to irreversible transformations (Uruszczak et al. 2015; Szczepa´nska and Wilkaniec 2014; Raszeja et al. 2010).

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16.5.2 Structural, Physiognomic and Functional Changes in Cities and Rural Areas: A Case Study Economic and political changes initiated in the 1990s triggered processes which resulted in dynamic, but chaotic urban and rural development. What followed was uncontrolled urban sprawl, which affected structural, physiognomic and functional changes of the discussed centres. It referred to the directions of rural growth. The specificity of thirty years of transformation of Polish cities and villages is worth presenting through the example of the Pozna´n region.

16.5.2.1

Poznan: ´ Spatial and Landscape Changes in a Large Polish City

Large cities in Poland are very much alike. This statement does not concern the way of development, architectural features, the quality of the transport pattern or other functional and aesthetic properties. They are similar in terms of the distribution of development elements, management, problems concerning social, spatial, investment and financial matters. Their policies are determined by political, legislative and other decisions which specify the acceptable density of residential areas, land use, height of buildings as well as their function. The features described above reflect the capital of Wielkopolskie Voivodeship— Pozna´n (Staszewska 2017). The downtown together with the surrounding estates form a pattern of mutually related centres which create the functional and cultural entirety. In terms of functional-spatial transformations, Pozna´n has not only the potential for attractive and stable development, but it also has problems which will limit or even inhibit its growth. The potential may include the preserved, historical urban pattern, mainly the composition elements (squares, street layout, historical buildings forming compact frontages, dominants, conservation protection), urban planning scheme, historic buildings and greenery pattern. What is also valuable are attractive points to observe panoramas, preserved vistas, urban greenery forms, preserved natural landscape elements such as zones of urban greenery (untamed), clumps of trees, the river, watercourses and water bodies in the city, making up the integral part of the spatial structure. What is visible are buildings forming walls of squares and streets in the downtown zone with a fairly unified form, and sports and recreational outdoor facilities. A framework road system enables the development of ‘sedate traffic’ in the city centre and integration between individual and collective transport. The railway infrastructure—urban railway stations—allows integration between transport subsystems within the agglomeration. Basic local services are quite dispersed; shopping centres combining grocery, clothing, footwear, electronictechnical stores and bookshops are identifiable. The most important in the development of Pozna´n are the following: the need to improve the accessibility of hierarchically important sites, especially by enhancing the quality of public spaces and creating integrated public transport (Fig. 16.3). What is significant is the use of urbanised places which require renewal or functional

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Park of the Old Warta River Bed The park was built on the site of the former Warta river bed, which was buried in the 1960s. The design of the park was created in 2013–2015, the works started in 2014. One of the inspirations for this place were the meanders of the riverbeds and the accompanying topography and greenery. There are walking paths, a culture zone, bicycle paths, recreational spaces, an amphitheater, a square with a fountain and a playground in the park.

Święty Marcin Street One of the most important communication routes in the centre of Poznań. It connects the railway station, MTP grounds with the Old Market Square. For years this street has been one of the most representative in the city. The aim of the street revitalisation was to calm the road traffic and create additional pedestrian spaces, increase its commercial and service attractiveness and accessibility for public transport passengers.

Free Courtyard - Poznań City Hall The courtyard is open to office workers, residents and tourists. The space encourages relaxation, integration with modern equipment (mobile benches, flower beds) located in a historic setting. Interesting plant compositions and cultural events are an additional attraction.

Śródka Śródka is a district of Poznań which was cut off by the construction of a transit route and thus isolated from the city. In 2007, the crossing of the river was restored for pedestrians and cyclists over the Cybiński Bridge. The former monastery was renovated, the Interactive Center for the History of Ostrów Tumski was built, catering services appeared, and thus tourists, residents and artists. A colorful mural is a symbol of this part of the city.

Fig. 16.3 Revitalisation of public spaces—examples. Source Photos by Szczepa´nska

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changes (e.g. industrial areas) as well as the concentration of development and the protection of the assets of the natural environment. The pursuit of multi-functionality is valuable, understood as spatial and functional integration of areas designated for various purposes with the full involvement and participation of the residents.

16.5.2.2

The Structure and Development of the Polish Countryside: General Trends and Detailed Solutions (The Study of a Wielkopolska Village)

As a result of many administrative decisions, sometimes political as well as economic, the rural landscape has been subject to continuous transformations. Over the last 30 years, rural centres have adopted an urban lifestyle. The abandonment of regional development has begun; the living conditions of the population have changed. The organisation, development and rural architecture have altered. The following properties have undergone transformations: land plot sizes, density of roads and streets, housing density, size of green and recreational areas as well as the volume of the areas of intensive agricultural cultivation. Moreover, the land use patterns are changing. Areas, thus far rural, have been often transformed into districts of single-family houses (Staszewska 2013, 2018). Today, the structure and development of rural settlement units are not subjected to soil conditions, and land relief does not refer to existing structures; they do not follow any logic and the principles of urban composition or architectural unity are not preserved. The only element organising the structure is the historical spatial pattern of development that helped shape the village (Fig. 16.4). Rural settlements do not have a gradual concentration of development: from an open landscape outside the settlement to houses loosely distributed to some parts of compact housing; buildings typical in terms of scenery are not exposed, there are no entrances to and exits from housing estates, no squares, no hierarchically important sites, organised green areas nor public ones (Figs. 16.5 and 16.6). Villages lack links in the form of isolation greenery, squares or small architecture elements. The connection between housing development and water (river) does not exist at present. The rural development in Wielkopolska is highly diversified. The differences result from available building materials and construction methods and the financial means of the owners. This, in turn, is the effect of regional influences, the needs of the local population, the functionality and importance of particular places and buildings, social ties, concern for the unity of form, colouring and details. Therefore, the development has become the background, the basis and the foundation for the functioning, growth and existence of people. They, in turn—under the influence of fashion, other social circles, technology—activate processes of change. These seemingly minor changes usually cause an avalanche of decisions, restrictions, some organisation and the assignment of space (Micek and Staszewska 2019).

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Stara Wiśniewka (Zakrzewo commune) Historical map from 1935 of Stara Wiśniewka village—the spatial arrangement of development (http://maps.mapywig.org/m/German_maps/series/02 5K_TK25/2568_Buschdorf_1935.jpg

397

Stara Wiśniewka (Zakrzewo commune) Contemporary map of Stara Wiśniewska village—the spatial arrangement of development (https://www.google.pl/maps/place/77411+Stara+Wiśniewka/...

It is an irregularly shaped roadside village with a preserved rural spatial pattern. The spatial pattern of the fields is usually irregular, plain or flat-block, divided into numerous plots. Buildings concentrated along the roads create an organism stretched towards the north-west, south-east and north-east. The modern farm structure is only slightly more developed than the historical one. The centre is still intensively developed, only the areas along the roads are developing. A characteristic feature is the square adjacent to the church, shop and school. Currently, a significant part of the area, about 70%, is covered by asphalted roads. The unpaved road in the northern part of the village still performs the same economic (agricultural) function as 81 years ago. The Łużanka river is also preserved, it runs through the centre of the village.

Fig. 16.4 Example of the historical spatial pattern of development. Source Staszewska (2018)

Zgierzynka (Lwówek commune) The rural recreational area located behind the shop, offering active and passive leisure activity. Well-kept, there are visible traces of public use, intended for different age groups of residents. An open area, with unlimited accessibility, integrated into the existing tree structure.

Kobierno (Krotoszyn commune) The micro-interior created by a housing development and farm buildings is the central part of the village. The asset of the village is the urban interior on a proper architectural scale, i.e. in which the cubature and height of the buildings correspond to the width of the street.

Fig. 16.5 Example of public space—positives. Source Staszewska (2018)

398

Kromolice (Pogorzela commune) Entrance zone to the Village Cultural Centre in Kromolice. The view from the entrance to the empty space serving as a parking lot and pedestrian path with access to the bus stop. This zone is a socially deserted and empty space, unrelated to other parts of the village centre. No elements retaining the purposeful composition of the frontage development lines, no reference points, no organised greenery. This low quality of space is characterised by lack of protection against traffic and accidents, no sheltering places against wind, snow, rain, no places to stand and stay, nowhere to sit. The scale of the square and building arrangement does not correspond to the human scale.

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Stara Wiśniewka (Zakrzewo commune) A fork in the road showing the oval layout of the village. View from the south-west. This square is currently used as a car park, it is also a crossroads, a point informing about tourist attractions, a pedestrian route, and a meeting place for residents. Its bad management does not bother the residents in everyday life, but the accumulation of so many functions in an organisationally and aesthetically defective place creates dangerous conditions for users, especially children.

Fig. 16.6 Example of public space—dissonances. Source Staszewska (2018)

16.6 Guidelines for Correct Landscape Design and the Preservation of Spatial Order: General Recommendations What is required is a shift in landscape perception and a revaluation of the hierarchy of needs and expectations in general. The cultural landscape and the natural environment alike should be treated as strategic assets and managed rationally. It is necessary to maintain and strengthen landscape diversity as an expression of national, regional, local identity and durability considering laws of nature and also contemporary requirements of socio-economic growth and technical progress. These measures should rest on the awareness of the values recorded in the natural-cultural space and on reliable knowledge. Radical administrative and legal changes are needed as well as the implementation of a postulate that landscape values are a public good. It is essential that curricula include the content concerning aesthetics and care for beauty in human surroundings and prepare for landscape actions. Public participation should be popularised as well as the development of conflict prevention skills in landscape design and spatial order. The protection of landscape assets requires the following steps (Mizgajski and Łowicki 2014):

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• The implementation of the landscape convention by the valorisation of landscapes at national, regional and local levels as well as the determination of assessment criteria for the quality of an open landscape and on this basis the adoption of regulatory measures to improve landscape values; • The recognition of a landscape audit as an indispensable basis for each level of spatial development planning; • The improvement of the professional competences of urbanists and planners in terms of natural and landscape conditions of spatial planning; • The introduction of a hierarchy of spatial planning arrangements concerning the landscape, especially with regard to the possibility of locating anthropogenic landscape dominants; • The design of spatial order in units larger than a commune by drawing up spatial development plans for functional areas, especially metropolitan ones; • The effective inclusion of a landscape component in sectoral political strategies, especially in the fields of: – agriculture, by: using EU financial instruments for designing environmentally friendly agriculture that fosters biological diversity, increasing the effectiveness of actions for reducing nitrogen outflow from agricultural sources to the environment, increasing the effectiveness of protection against unjustified felling of trees and shrubs; • forestry, by introducing mechanisms encouraging afforestation in the areas with the lowest share of forests and preservation of open landscapes in heavily afforested areas; • urbanised areas, by designing compact settlement patterns and counteracting heavily forked systems along main roads; • infrastructure of the following types: – road infrastructure, by counteracting the elimination of road woodlots and by assigning places with attractive views and protection of the panoramas from them, – telecommunication infrastructure, by eliminating the duplication of telecommunication towers belonging to different operators and creating features of outdoor facilities and their location in places minimising the size of landscape dominants, – energy infrastructure, by building power lines so that their importance as landscape dominants will be minimised; • The closer integration of measures for designing the high-quality open landscape with the simultaneous protection of: (a)

natural assets, especially by the implementation of the ‘green infrastructure’ system covering legally protected areas and ecological corridors connecting them;

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water resources, especially by the protection of waters against the eutrophication and by water retention in ecosystems; recreational assets, especially by designing a harmonious mosaic of landscape elements discerned from tourist trails and viewpoints;

• Raising knowledge and social sensitivity of the socio-cultural and economic importance of landscape assets.

16.7 Summing-Up After 1989, Poland’s natural and cultural landscape have undergone considerable changes. They resulted to a great extent from the liberalisation of spatial planning provisions. The experience of a centrally planned socialist economy has led to an aversion to all forms of top-down planning. This was even noticeable in the name of the act on spatial development of 1994, which replaced the act on spatial planning of 1984. The act of 1994 left its distinctive mark on the landscape, because it handed over the right of space allocation to communes which, adopting spatial development plans, created local laws. Since the communes can spend their budgets more freely than in previous years, it has become natural to design space so that it could bring the greatest financial benefits. The same applies to personal ownership. After years of a planned economy based on state ownership, real estate owners want to use them at their own discretion which causes conflicts with the needs of local or regional communities, or even the whole country. Thus, the environmental aspects of spatial management were often marginalised or even neglected, despite the obligation to draw up, a forecast predicting the effects of local spatial development plans on the natural environment. The most typical manifestation of the impact of the transformation on the landscape is an increase in built-up areas, especially subregional differences in these changes. In relation to 2002, settlement areas grew on average by 27% in Poland but in Mazowieckie Voivodeship, where the largest Polish agglomeration with 1.7 mln inhabitants is located, this figure hit 45%. In the communes of Wielkopolskie Voivodeship, the average growth in settlement areas was 62% in the years 1989–2018, and a lot of communes increased the area of settlement areas twice, or even three times. At the beginning of the transformation, built-up areas were mainly expanded in cities. Later, rural communes situated near larger cities started to dominate. The twenty-first century is the age of suburbanisation in Poland. According to the surveys conducted among those moving out of Pozna´n, the capital of Wielkopolska, the choice of a new residence depended mainly on natural assets, including landscape values (Beim and Tölle 2008). The financial conditions of the purchase, construction or the tenancy were less significant when considering location. In this context, the existing gap between Voivodeship and commune has become an important problem in today’s system of planning documents, which clearly makes it more difficult to harmonise a spatial development process in units larger than a commune. The solution to this problem may be the preparation of spatial development plans for metropolitan areas.

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The second, frequently emphasised gap in existing legal regulations is the possibility of following a spatial policy in a commune on the basis of individual administrative decisions, without the need to adopt local plans. In 2017, local spatial development ´ plans covered only 30.5% of the country (Sleszy´ nski et al. 2018). The factors described above resulted in the polarisation of changes in land use, both on local and regional scales (see Chap. 4). Disproportion in the development of regions negatively affects the landscape. In subregions featuring rapid building development, a crucial problem is the lack of proper infrastructure expansion, especially sewage systems as well as local and access roads. As a result, there is a chaotic spread of buildings, which degrades the open landscape and simultaneously intensifies the pressure on the environment through increased road load and noise as well as disorderly sewage management. Additionally, this state generates long-term costs for local governments, resulting from greater construction expenses and maintenance of water-sewage and road infrastructure as well as an increase in the cost of public services including education and transport. On the other hand, in subregions, where a small increase in development is observed, afforestation grows, often along with the natural value. Unfortunately, this does not involve the development of infrastructure, which would enable environmentally friendly access to natural assets while increasing landscape and architectural diversity. The design of spatial order and a landscape, both in cities and rural areas, should be supported by the participation of local communities. It is important to consider elements such as squares, parks, alleys and gardens, to design parking spaces, to maintain biologically active areas in the form of green corridors, to manage and retain rainwater so that it could increase groundwater supply, to raise architectural requirements, especially in relation to buildings constructed in areas with the highest and natural values, to provide effective public transport and to implement easier pedestrian and bicycle traffic, to optimise the street network (construction of new streets, traffic segregation), to prepare land offers including planning information for investors (this concerns both residential areas and those designated for services and economic activity), to carry out planning analysis on space revaluation, including public spaces, to add social and economic issues to planning processes, to address questions of safety by preventing the effects of disasters and to apply protection in the event of their occurrence as well as to respect public safety principles in architecture and city planning. It is extremely significant to prevent excessive expansion of development along main transport routes, to design new urban systems that are distinctive in their compactness and diversity of functions and respect the existing urban patterns, to maintain the continuity of protection of open area systems, parks and recreational areas, to introduce different forms of public spaces—alleys, meeting places, squares, playgrounds, etc—to develop the coexistence of dominating forms of residential development and economic activity as well as the natural environment.

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Part IV

Poland in Europe and in the World

Chapter 17

Poland’s Position in the Global Economy Anna Tobolska and Magdalena Wdowicka

Abstract The aim of the study is to determine the place of Poland in the global economy and to analyse the changes taking place in the period of the country’s social and economic transformation. The research procedure, which was subordinated to the adopted aim of the study, included five main stages: (1) in the first stage, Poland’s position in global economic rankings was identified on the basis of published reports prepared by the consulting company Ernst & Young; (2) the second stage focused on the analysis of international capital flows in the form of FDI in Poland in the years 1990–2018; Poland’s share in global FDI flows and the geographical and sectoral structure of FDI in Poland during the transformation period were analysed; (3) the third stage involved an analysis of the operations of the largest transnational corporations as key players in the global economy in Poland and a detailed characterisation of the size and structure of key investment projects carried out in Poland by transnational corporations was performed; (4) at the fourth stage of the research procedure, an analysis of the level of Poland’s investment attractiveness on an international scale was carried out, taking into account 39 countries and using the principal component analysis method; (5) the last part of the research was an analysis of the activity of Polish companies in international markets, in which the characteristics of the main directions of Polish foreign investments were determined on the basis of available statistical data and empirical examples. Keywords Global economy · FDI · Transnational corporations · Investment attractiveness

17.1 Introduction One of the most significant processes observed in the world today is globalisation, which manifests itself in various spheres, from economic to social, cultural and A. Tobolska · M. Wdowicka (B) Faculty of Human Geography and Planning, Adam Mickiewicz University, B. Krygowskiego 10, 61-608 Pozna´n, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Churski and T. Kaczmarek (eds.), Three Decades of Polish Socio-economic Transformations, Economic Geography, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06108-0_17

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political to technical. Globalisation processes affect different regions of the world and the society to different degrees, take different forms, generate different spatial changes, and have a different impact on national economies. According to many researchers, the most significant development of globalisation has so far taken place in the economic sphere, leading to the formation of a global economy. In economic terms, globalisation refers to the economy, business operations, companies, markets, and sectors. Many authors consider globalisation of economic activity to be a historic process of growing integration of the global economy, driven by the strategic actions of states and transnational corporations (cf. Dicken 1992; Dunning 1999, 2002; Liberska 1999; Kukli´nski 2000; Schienstock 2000; Stiglitz 2004, 2015; Zorska 1998, 2007). The main feature of the globalisation process is integration of the activities of business entities, conducted internationally on the level of national economies, markets, sectors, and companies, into one global economic system leading to the creation of a global economy. This integration takes place through increasingly intense trade, cooperation, and foreign direct investments (Wdowicka 2017). Components, semi-finished products, technologies, information, and services are exchanged within a network of businesses across national borders. Globalisation in the economic sphere is mainly due to the activity of large transnational corporations which, in search of new markets, unique resources, and knowledge, expand their operations all over the world, thus transforming how the whole economy functions and causing it to be dominated by global relations. This is facilitated by the network organisation of transnational corporations and their global strategies (Wdowicka 2009, 2017). The principal aim of the study is to determine Poland’s place in the global economy and to analyse the changes taking place in the period of the country’s social and economic transformation. The research procedure, which was subordinated to the adopted aim of the study, included five main stages: (1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

in the first stage, Poland’s position in global economic rankings was identified on the basis of published reports prepared by the consulting company Ernst & Young; the second stage focused on an analysis of international capital flows in the form of FDI in Poland in the years 1990–2018; Poland’s share in global FDI flows and the geographical and sectoral structure of FDI in Poland during the transformation period were analysed; the third stage involved an analysis of the operations of the largest transnational corporations as key players of the global economy in Poland. First, a synthetic review was presented of different research perspectives associated with such operations and reflected in the Polish literature, mostly in the field of socioeconomic geography. However, the basic task at this stage was to analyse the size and structure of key investment projects carried out in Poland by transnational corporations; at the fourth stage of the research procedure, an analysis of the level of Poland’s investment attractiveness on an international scale was carried out, taking into account 39 countries. Due to the multidimensional approach to investment

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(5)

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attractiveness of countries, it was necessary to take into account a greater number of characteristics and, consequently, to apply a slow-changing statistical analysis. For this purpose, the principal component analysis method was used (in the version based on a correlation matrix). In the further part of the study, an analysis of clusters using the dendrogram method was performed, as a tool to classify and determine similarity in the set of countries studied; the last part of the study was an analysis of the activity of Polish companies in international markets, in which the characteristics of the main directions of Polish foreign investments were determined on the basis of available statistical data and empirical examples.

The spatial scope of the study includes the international and the global scale. On the global scale, an analysis of Poland’s economic position, the international capital flows in the form of FDI, as well as the structure and operational directions of key transnational corporations in Poland was carried out. On the international scale, on the other hand, a study was conducted on Poland’s investment attractiveness in comparison with 38 countries. This group of countries included mainly European countries, especially members of the European Union (i.e. from the same economic bloc), but also selected countries from other regions of the world, characterised by high rates of economic growth and significant foreign capital inflows. The temporary scope of the study covers the years 1990–2018, although in the case of statistics on foreign investors in Poland, the availability of data was limited to the last decade. The adoption of such a time range made it possible not only to present the current state of affairs, but also to determine the speed of changes in the basic criteria for assessing the degree of globalisation of the Polish economy, i.e. the FDI flows. The study used source materials, mainly reports prepared by the UNCTAD, the Polish Trade and Investment Agency, the National Bank of Poland, Statistics Poland, and Eurostat, as well as reports by professional service agencies EY (part of the Ernst & Young Global Limited network) and PwC Advisory (a part of the PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited network).

17.2 Poland’s Position in Global Rankings Globalisation is changing more and more places, but it is not happening simultaneously in all parts of the world and does not affect all countries and regions to the same extent. The spatial aspect of the diversification of globalisation processes is highlighted by, among others, Czerny (2005, 2007), Dicken (2007, 2015), Friedman (2003), Sassen (2001, 2006), Scott (2001), Stonehouse et al. (2001), and Zorska (1998). Individual countries have been subject to global trends to varying degrees, as evidenced, among others, by the directions of international capital flows (Wdowicka 2017). While some regions of the world are deeply involved in this process, others remain beyond its reach. According to many authors, the mainstream of

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globalisation includes highly developed countries, particularly in North America (USA, Canada), Western Europe, and Asia (Japan). It should be noted, however, that at the beginning of the twenty-first century a group of less developed countries emerged that rapidly increased their participation in globalisation, such as China, India, and Brazil (mainly thanks to a relatively cheap and, at the same time, wellqualified labour force and dynamic growth of technological capabilities), as well as many Central and Eastern European countries undergoing economic transformation, including Poland in particular. The political and economic changes that have taken place in the region have contributed to the spatial expansion of globalisation processes in Central and Eastern Europe. They have removed the key systemic barriers that had previously hindered integration into the global economy and improved the access of transnational corporations to their markets. According to a report prepared by the international consulting firm Ernst & Young, the ten most globalised economies in the world in 2012 were Hong Kong, Singapore, Ireland, Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Hungary, and the UK (Wdowicka 2017). The globalisation index was used to measure the level of globalisation, which determines how deep the links between the largest economies (in terms of GDP) and the rest of the world are. Small countries with well-developed international connections are much higher in the ranking, which is related, among others, to the research methodology. The globalisation index used in the research measures the degree of globalisation in a relative way (in relation to the GDP) and has been structured on the basis of 20 indicators, grouped in five main categories: (1) openness to trade, (2) capital flows, (3) exchange of technology and knowledge, (4) labour mobility, and (5) cultural integration. Poland was in the top thirty of the most globalised economies in the world, specifically in the 27th place of the ranking, just below the USA and above, among others, Japan, Italy, Greece, Portugal, and the rapidly growing so-called BRIC economies, i.e. Brazil, Russia, India, and China (Table 17.1). On the other hand, some countries from the CEE region, such as the aforementioned Hungary, as well as Slovakia, Bulgaria, and the Czech Republic, were above Poland in the ranking. It should be noted that Poland has relatively high ratings in terms of openness to trade, labour market, and capital flows, and low ratings in terms of exchange of technology and knowledge, which is the result of very low investments in R&D that have continued for many years. This is an extremely worrying phenomenon that has a direct impact on the level of innovation of the economy and its international competitiveness.

17.3 Foreign Capital Inflow in the Form of Foreign Direct Investment as One of the Main Dimensions of Poland’s Integration Into the Global Economy One of the key manifestations of globalisation of an economy is international capital flows in the form of foreign direct investment (FDI). Annually, between one and a

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Table 17.1 Ranking of the 30 most globalised economies in the world in 2012 Place in Country ranking

Globalisation Openness Capital Mobility Exchange Cultural index to trade flows of of integration workforce technology and knowledge

1

Hong Kong 7.81

8.27

8.46

4.81

8.54

8.89

2

Singapore

8.57

6.04

4.80

5.56

6.31

6.31

3

Ireland

5.63

6.32

6.04

5.90

3.68

6.35

4

Belgium

5.49

6.39

6.64

5.60

4.27

4.29

5

Switzerland 5.30

5.32

5.64

6.15

4.33

5.06

6

The 5.19 Netherlands

6.24

5.59

5.19

4.49

4.21

7

Sweden

4.96

6.27

5.29

4.82

4.07

4.12

8

Denmark

4.94

5.88

5.33

4.88

4.26

4.12

9

Hungary

4.75

6.63

4.15

5.03

3.82

3.92

10

Great Britain

4.74

5.89

4.81

4.83

3.94

4.06

11

Germany

4.72

6.47

4.58

4.38

3.92

4.00

12

Slovakia

4.66

6.29

4.16

4.76

3.74

4.22

13

Finland

4.62

5.73

4.90

4.42

3.96

3.87

14

France

4.58

5.41

4.55

4.77

3.97

4.08

15

Canada

4.55

5.06

4.79

4.36

3.90

4.60

16

Israel

4.55

5.75

4.36

4.41

3.32

4.89

17

Taiwan

4.55

5.86

4.24

4.56

4.03

3.87

18

Czech Republic

4.53

6.15

4.42

4.45

3.75

3.63

19

Austria

4.51

5.89

4.95

4.14

3.84

3.41

20

Spain

4.45

5.65

4.37

5.02

3.26

3.85

21

New Zealand

4.44

5.49

4.48

4.24

3.81

4.05

22

Bulgaria

4.37

6.31

4.06

4.80

2.91

3.56

23

Norway

4.36

5.33

4.46

4.51

4.12

3.11

24

Australia

4.34

5.30

4.59

4.39

3.49

3.77

25

USA

4.33

5.32

4.57

4.16

3.62

3.79

26

Malaysia

4.28

6.21

4.18

3.60

3.89

3.13

27

Poland

4.23

5.60

4.01

4.53

3.17

3.68

28

Chile

4.22

5.61

5.07

4.19

2.61

3.38

29

Portugal

4.21

4.93

4.02

5.50

3.11

3.42

30

Italy

4.20

5.42

3.65

4.77

3.10

4.02

Source Prepared by the authors based on the Ernst & Young (2012) Globalisation Index Report

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7 6 5 4 3 2 1

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

0

Poland's share in global FDI

Poland's share in the European Union FDI

Fig. 17.1 Poland’s share in FDI worldwide and in the European Union (%). Source Prepared by the authors based on the UNCTAD World Investment Reports 1994–2018

half and two trillion USD are placed in the global foreign direct investment market, which has been growing steadily since the early 1990s. Although in 1990 global FDIs reached USD 207.9 billion, in 2000 it amounted to as much as USD 1.39 trillion and in 2015 FDI exceeded USD 2 trillion.1 By the end of 2018, a total of over USD 32.2 trillion was invested worldwide. International statistics show that while in the 1990s the largest amount of investment capital invariably flowed to highly developed countries, at the beginning of the twenty-first century developing economies started to attract more and more capital. The leading highly developed countries in 2018 were the USA (USD 251.8 billion), the Netherlands (USD 69.5 billion), and the UK (USD 64.4 billion). In the group of developing economies, China (USD 268.8 billion), Hong Kong (USD 200.8 billion), and Brazil (USD 74.2 billion) were in the lead. Since the start of its social and economic transformation, Poland has been ranked first among the countries of Central and Eastern Europe in terms of the volume of foreign capital flowing in on an annual basis, which proves that it has quickly joined the processes of globalisation. While in 1990 Poland’s share in global FDI was only 0.04%, in 1995 it increased to 1.19% and in 2004 it reached 1.81% or 6.02% of the FDI of the European Union countries (Fig. 17.1). In 2018, the total value of FDI in Poland since 1990 reached USD 231.8 billion. When analysing the annual scale of FDI in Poland since 1990, it should be noted that investments show a linear growing trend, but the observed increase in capital was less than proportional (Fig. 17.2). Most of the foreign capital was invested in 2007 (23.5 billion USD) and 2006 (USD 19.6 billion), just before the global economic crisis, and in 2004 (USD 12.8 billion), at the time of Poland’s accession to the European Union, 1

According to the UNCTAD World Investment Report.

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25000

20000

15000

10000

5000

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

1996

1995

1994

1993

1992

1991

1990

0

Fig. 17.2 FDI inflow to Poland between 1990 and 2018 (million USD). Source prepared by the authors based on the UNCTAD World Investment Reports 1994–2018

which created new opportunities for foreign investors to operate in the country. The growing value of the FDI stream indicates that as the socio-economic transformation progressed, the Polish economy was better and better prepared to absorb foreign capital (Wdowicka 2005, 2006). The first symptom of increased interest of foreign investors in starting business operations in Poland was noted in 1992, which was connected with the entry into force of the Act of 14 June 1991 on companies with foreign shareholding and with the first symptoms of the end of a recession in Poland and stimulation of economic growth factors. Undoubtedly, the growing intensity of investment activity in this period was also influenced by the signing of the Association Agreement between Poland and the European Community, which regulated the problem of foreign capital flows between the associated countries. Another significant increase in the inflow of FDI was observed after 1996, which was significantly influenced by the implementation of a significant amendment to the act on companies with foreign shareholding in 1995–1996 and by Poland’s accession to the OECD in 1996 (which brought the Polish legal system closer to compliance with OECD standards). The increased interest of foreign investors in starting business operations in Poland in the late 1990s was also associated with the high rate of economic growth observed in that period and the stabilisation of the political situation. On the other hand, at the start of the twenty-first century, the inflow of FDI to Poland depended primarily on global trends. The financial crisis clearly affected international capital flows in the form of FDI by, among other things, stricter terms for borrowers and lower profits of companies, which have weakened their investment capacity. A renewed increase in FDI was observed from 2014 onwards. The transformation period also saw an increase in the number of countries undertaking investment activities in Poland. Most foreign investments in Poland come from EU countries (92.99%) and OECD countries (76.28%).2 In the early 1990s, the FDI 2

According to National Bank of Poland data in 2018.

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8000 7000 6000 5000 4000 3000 2000 1000 0 industrial production

construction

services

trade

transport and warehouse management

financial and insurance activities

professional, scientific and technical activities

Fig. 17.3 FDI structure in Poland in 2018 (million USD). Source prepared by the authors based on National Bank of Poland data

with the highest values originated in USA. In 1998–1999, Germany took the lead, while in 2000 it was France. In 2010, most FDI came from Luxembourg, Germany, and Italy. In 2018, the largest inflow of FDI was recorded from the Netherlands. Farther places were taken by Luxembourg, Germany, Malta, and Cyprus. Attention is drawn to the changes taking place during the transformation period in the sectoral structure of FDI in Poland. In the first decade of the transformation, Poland was primarily receiving production investments, which was related to the participation of foreign investors in the process of privatisation of Polish industrial companies. On the other hand, since Poland’s accession to the EU, a fast growth of investments in the specialised business service sector has been observed. In 2018, investments in services (52.1%), industrial production (42.7%), and trade (27.7%) had the largest share (Fig. 17.3).

17.4 Activity of Transnational Corporations in Poland as Major Players of the Global Economy The trend of increasing FDI flows into Poland is reflected not only in macroeconomic data, but also in data on the number and size of investment projects implemented by transnational corporations in Poland. Since the start of the political and economic transformation in the early 1990s, Poland has attracted foreign investments, mainly in the form of cross-border mergers and acquisitions (especially many brownfield investments were carried out in the first phase of the transformation, which was associated with the processes of mass privatisation of Polish state-owned enterprises), or in the form of greenfield investments, as discussed in numerous scientific publications, both by economists (including Cie´slik 2005; Golejewska 2008; Gorynia and Samelak 2013; Ró˙za´nski 2012 and Zorska 1998 in Polish literature) and by socio-economic geographers (including Doma´nski 2001, 2003, 2005, 2011;

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Tobolska 2014b). Of the various research trends that involved an analysis of the operations of transnational corporations in Poland, one of the most important is the study of the impacts and effects of the location of corporations, considered in various aspects, both positive (e.g. in the context of multiplier effects, especially in terms of employment and income effects, either by activating local businesses or as embeddedness), and negative (e.g. displacement of small local companies (cf. Brezde´n 2016; Cie´slik 2013; Doma´nski and Gwosdz 2008; Dziemianowicz 1997; Gorynia et al. ´ 2006; Pavlínek et al. 2009; Stryjakiewicz 2005a, 2007; Sleszy´ nski 2014; Tobolska 2012, 2017; Wiederman 2008; Wdowicka 2005; Zorska 2007, 2013 and others). More recent research directions concerning the operations of transnational corporations focus on issues related to their strategies and corporate organisation, especially in the spatial perspective, which indicates the emergence of network forms of production and services, such as clusters (Gorynia 2007; Gorynia and Jankowska 2008; Oczkowska 2013; Stryjakiewicz 2005b; Tobolska 2017; Wdowicka 2017; Zorska 2013 and others). Important research directions also include analyses of location factors in Poland and motives for expansion. In this study, the concepts of international production and strategic management on an international scale are a source of inspiration, but more often, relatively speaking, the authors refer to Dunning’s eclectic theory of foreign direct investment, as well as to the concept of economic networks (with reference to the theory of transaction costs), or to Porter’s concept of competitive advantage (which in the spatial dimension refers to the concept of clusters, as well as to added value and production chains) and to behavioural concepts (including the evolutionary model of internationalisation of companies, i.e. the Uppsala model)—the use of these theoretical concepts makes it possible to interpret the spatial aspects of decisions made by companies concerning internationalisation (cf. Cie´slik 2005, 2007, 2013; Doma´nski 2005; Godlewska-Majkowska 2013; Golejewska 2008; Gorynia 2007; Gorynia and Mroczek, 2013; Stachowiak 2007; Stryjakiewicz 2005b, 2009; Tobolska 2010; 2014a, 2017; Wdowicka 2005; Zorska 2012). The research directions presented herein and undertaken in the Polish literature in the field of social and economic geography, as well as in economic and management sciences, indicate the importance of issues related to the activities of transnational corporations in Poland. But equally important are analyses of the size and structure of investment projects carried out by corporations, which make it possible to assess, first of all, the scope and scale of this activity and their total economic potential. The following section therefore focuses on an analysis of the size and structure of the operations of transnational corporations in individual sectors of the economy, based on data provided by the Polish Investment and Trade Agency (PAIH). The PAIH is a governmental agenda that since 2003 has been publishing annual lists of the largest foreign investors by sections and divisions of the Polish Classification of Activities (PCA), with an indication of the location of individual companies. It should be emphasised, however, that the lists provided contain selected information, i.e. only about those investors who used PAIH’s support in the investment process and invested in Special Economic Zones, and thus are of key importance to the economy (an additional criterion in the first years of publication of the lists was the amount

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of capital invested by a single investor exceeding USD 1 million). The list of the largest foreign investors published in February 2019 contained 2439 international companies, while the number of companies on the first list published in 2003 was 996. Most of them operated in the industrial processing sector: in 2019 almost a half (48.9%) and in 2003 more than a half (54.1%) (see Table 17.2). The sector where the second largest number of foreign companies operated was trade in and repair of motor vehicles (13.4% in 2019 and 10.9% in 2003) and sections of PCA such Table 17.2 Sections of the PCA most represented by key foreign investors in Poland in 2003 and 2019 according to the PAIH’s list PCA section

2003

2019

Number of Examples by value investors of invested capital according to PAIiIZ** and (%)

Number of Selected examples investors according to PAIH and (%)

Manufacturing

(I) 539 (54.1%)

Fiat-GM (I) 1194 Powertrain B.V.; (48.9%) General Motors Corporation; Lafarge, Imperial Tobacco Plc, Philip Morris Holland B.V. Coca-Cola Company, Glaxo SmithKline,

LG Electronics Inc., Royal Philips Electronics N.V., Unilever N.V., Cargill Inc., Dell Inc., GE Corporation, Procter & Gamble International, Whirlpool Corporation, Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company

Trade and repairs

(II) 109 (10.9%)

Tesco Plc, Carrefour, BP International B.V., Metro Group AG, Auchan S.A., Statoil, Jeronimo Martins Holding, IKEA

LiuGong Machinery, Merck KGaA, Marubeni Co., Statoil, BP International B.V., Schell Industries BV, Tesco, Xerox Ltd., Eli Lilly & Co, S.C. Johnson

Financial intermediation (2003)* Financial and insurance activities (2019)*

(III) 92 (9.2%)

European Bank for (VI) 105 Reconstruction and (4.3%) Development (EBRD), Citigroup, UniCredito Italiano SpA, ING Group NV, Credit Agricole

(II) 326 (13.4%)

Vienna Insurance Group AG, BNP Paribas, Commerzbank AG, ING Group NV, AVIVA Plc., Provident Financial Plc., American Express, JPMorgan Chase & Co (continued)

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Table 17.2 (continued) PCA section

2003

2019

Number of Examples by value investors of invested capital according to PAIiIZ** and (%)

Number of Selected examples investors according to PAIH and (%) (III) 191 (7.8%)

Ipsos, Axell Group, MIH Allegro B.V., Millward Brown International; McKinsey & Company, Pfizer Inc, McCann-Erickson Worldwide, TNS INTERNATIONAL LTD

France Telecom, (VII) 95 OAO Gazprom, (3.9%) Vivendi Universal, Telia AB, Bates Telecom Ltd, Therab BV, Vodafone Americas Asia Inc., TDC Mobile International A/S

Maersk S/A, Geopost Group, Groupe CAT, Nippon Express Co., Ltd., OAO LUKOIL, Hispanica de aviation, the Kuehne + Nagel Group, Raben Group B.V., Federal Express Corporation

(IV) 178 (7.3%)

ECI Telecom Ltd, Wolters Kluwer Int. Holding B.V., EMC Corporation, IBM Central Holding GmbH, Intel Europe Inc., Oracle Corporation, Motorola Inc., MICROSOFT CORPORATION

(V) 141 (5.8%)

Zeman BGft mbH, Hochtief Gmbh, TriGranit Corporation, EATON Corporation PLC, Scripps Networks Interactive,

Professional, scientific and technical activities*

(IV) 44 Transport, storage and communication (4.4%) (2003)* Transporting and storage (2019)*

Information and communication*

Construction

(V) 38 (3.8%)

Skanska Kraft AB, Epstein, Ferrovial, Bau Holding Strabag AG, BEG S.A., Eiffage Construction

(continued)

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Table 17.2 (continued) PCA section

Total

2003

2019

Number of Examples by value investors of invested capital according to PAIiIZ** and (%)

Number of Selected examples investors according to PAIH and (%)

822 = 82.5%

2230 = 91.4%

* Sector names according to the PCA classification in force in 2003 and 2019 ** PAIiIZ—Polish Information and Foreign Investment Agency transformed into PAIH in 2017 Source Prepared by the authors based on PAIH data, 2020, https://www.paih.gov.pl/publikacje/inw estorzy_zagraniczni_w_polsce_old

as information and communication (7.3% in 2019), transport and storage (4.4% in 2003), and construction (5.8% in 2019 and 3.8% in 2003). It should also be noted that in 2003, financial intermediation was the third sector in which 9.2% of the total number of large international companies invested in Poland, which indicates an extremely rapid expansion of investors into the developing financial market during the transformation period. On the other hand, in 2019, the section related to professional, scientific, and technical activities was ranked third in terms of the number of foreign investors (7.8% of all companies from the list of the largest ones), which indicates an increased interest of investors in the Polish IT and R&D markets in recent years. Table 17.2 shows the numbers and percentage shares of the largest foreign investors from the PAIH’s lists in 2003 and 2019 according to the most represented sections of the PCA and taking into account the differences in names of some sections after the change of the PCA classification in 2007. An analysis of the data presented herein indicates that Poland is, first and foremost, an investment destination for large industrial corporations. The most numerous group (153 companies) among them invested in the means of transport industry: cars, rail vehicles, and aircraft, as well as in production of parts and equipment for vehicles, including batteries. This group of investors includes well-known companies such as Bombardier Inc., Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Toyota Motor Corporation, General Motors Corporation, and Volkswagen AG. The second sector of the industry that is most frequently represented by foreign investors is the section associated with food, processing, brewing, tobacco, and animal fodder production industries: the PAIH’s list of key investors for 2019 included 137 of them (including Nestle S.A., Hochland SE, Dr August Oetker Nahrunghittel K.G., Bahlsen GmbH & Co. KG, British American Tobacco GmbH, Groupe Danone S.A., and Carlsberg Breweries). Almost as many investors (124) are engaged in manufacture of rubber and plastic products (they include The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, Bridgestone Corporation, and Compagnie Générale des Établissements Michelin). The next sector in terms of the number of investors is machinery and industrial and utility equipment manufacturers, with 104 corporations (including Bosch Thermotechnik GmbH, DeLaval International AB, SKF AB, and Lincoln Electric International Holding Company).

17 Poland’s Position in the Global Economy

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other countries (37) , 376

Germany, 469

Korea, 24 Portugal, 27 Luxembourg, 23 Norway, 34 Spain, 52 Finladia, 54 USA, 239 Belgium, 57 Austria, 69 Japan, 72 France, 236

Denmark, 85 Switzerland, 85 Great Britain, 105 Sweden, 112

Italy, 175 The Netherlands, 145

Fig. 17.4 Structure of key foreign investors on the PAIH’s 2019 list by country of origin. Source Calculated by the authors based on PAIH data, 2020, https://www.paih.gov.pl/publikacje/inwest orzy_zagraniczni_w_polsce_old

More than one hundred large corporations on the PAIH’s list (101) are active in the metal and metallurgical industry (including Daddy Steel International, ArcelorMittal S.A., and Severstallat). The largest group of investors on the PAIH’s list in 2019 were German-owned companies: in total, there were 469 of them, i.e. 19.2% (cf. Fig. 17.4). The second largest group were US-owned companies (239, 9.8%) and there were almost as many French-owned companies (236, 9.7%). Less numerous were Italian companies (175) and Dutch companies (145). The concentration of key investors by country of origin is quite significant, as together investors from these five countries constituted over a half (51.8%) of all companies on the PAIH’s list. The rest came from 50 other countries, with investment capital from 37 countries represented by small groups of investors, i.e. fewer than 20 companies, i.e. less than 1% of the total. Figures 17.5 and 17.6 show the distribution of German and American industrial companies, which are the key investors from the most represented countries. In these two groups of investors, i.e. those from Germany and the USA, investments in industrial companies dominate: in the case of German investors, there are 261 of them (i.e. 55.4% of all), and in the case of American investors, there are 99 of them (i.e. 41.4% of all investments from this country). The prevalence of industrial companies is quite significant, with 31 companies in the information and communication sector ranked second among the American investors and 68 companies in the wholesale and retail trade sector ranked second among the German investors.

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Fig. 17.5 Distribution of key German industrial companies in Poland according to the PAIH’s list for 2019. Source prepared by the authors based on PAIH data, 2020, https://www.paih.gov.pl/pub likacje/inwestorzy_zagraniczni_w_polsce_old. Graphic design by Rafał Lema´nski

Fig. 17.6 Distribution of key American industrial companies in Poland according to the PAIH’s list for 2019. Source prepared by the authors based on PAIH data, 2020, https://www.paih.gov.pl/ publikacje/inwestorzy_zagraniczni_w_polsce_old. Graphic design by Rafał Lema´nski

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17.5 Poland’s Investment Attractiveness on an International Scale In the globalisation era, what is growing is the role of factors shaping the investment attractiveness of countries and regions, mainly related to a knowledge-based economy and the generation of network economic links at the global level (cf. Florida 2006; Hall 2004, 2005; Musterd and Murie 2010; Porter 1998; Scott 2006). They are the factors that create development processes and are conducive to the stimulation of socio-economic potential and investment growth. The investment attractiveness of countries can be perceived subjectively by investors, but it can be determined in empirical research as well, especially multifaceted studies, using multivariate statistical analysis. This study attempts to make a multifaceted assessment of Poland’s investment attractiveness on an international scale, taking into account 39 countries. This group included primarily European countries, mainly the EU member states (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Spain, Holland, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Germany, Norway, Russia, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, Hungary, Italy, Great Britain), but also selected countries from other parts of the world with high economic growth and the significant inflow of foreign capital (North America: Canada and the USA, Latin America: Brazil and Mexico, Asia: China, India and South Korea, Africa: Nigeria and RSA, as well as Australia). This choice of countries made it possible to analyse the investment attractiveness of Poland against the background of countries from the same economic bloc as well as from other world regions where dynamic integration with the global economy has been observed. Owing to the various ways in which individual countries record statistics in different world regions, a key problem from the point of view of the conducted research was gathering international source material that might be used for the comparative analysis of a larger group of countries. As a result, what was considered in the choice of features was both an increase in the importance of new factors shaping investment attractiveness emphasised recently in the literature (including the factors related to the role of knowledge in the economy, the high quality of human capital, the cooperative capacity of the economy and international flows of capital), as well as the availability of statistical data comparable on an international scale. The research included the following five features: X1 X2 X3 X4 X5

GDP per capita (in USD), economic entities per 1000 inhabitants, value of foreign direct investments per 1000 inhabitants (in millions of USD), universities per 1000 inhabitants, number of students per 1000 inhabitants.

A statistical analysis of the considered features (a statistical coefficient of variation) has revealed differences between the particular aspects of investment attractiveness of the investigated group of countries (cf. Table 17.3). Countries differ the

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A. Tobolska and M. Wdowicka

Table 17.3 Statistical characteristics of the differences in investment attractiveness among countries in the world Feature

Mean

Standard deviation

Variation coefficient (%)

X1 —GDP per capita (in USD)

34,906.0

24,939.81

71.45

X2 —number of economic entities per 1000 inhabitants

49.98

25.61

51.24

X3 —cumulative value of FDI per 1000 inhabitants (in millions of USD)

33.11

58.07

175.38

X4 —number of universities per 1000 inhabitants

0.014

0.030

214.28

X5 —number of students per 1000 inhabitants

32.03

14.29

44.61

Source Own calculation

most in terms of the availability of universities and the level of foreign capital inflow. On the other hand, the smallest difference can be observed in the quality of human capital and the level of economic activity. While undertaking research on the differences in the investment attractiveness of the analysed group of countries, an attempt was made to take into account a greater number of features simultaneously, which required multivariate statistical analysis. To this end, the method of principal component analysis was used (cf. Andersen 1984; Jolliffe 2008; Krzanowski 2000; Ma´ckiewicz and Ratajczak 1993; Parysek and Ratajczak 2002; Parysek and Wojtasiewicz 1979; Rencher 2002). The application of this method made it possible to reduce multivariate data space and then to determine the main levels of the diversification of investment attractiveness of countries (described by particular components). The experience of many researchers proved the high efficacy of the principal component method in this type of study (cf. Chojnicki and Czy˙z 1978; Chojnicki et al. 1995; Czy˙z 1998; Mierzejewska 2013; Mierzejewska and Parysek 2013; Parysek 1982; Parysek and Mierzejewska 2009; Parysek and Ratajczak 1978, 2002; Parysek and Wdowicka 2002; Wdowicka 2009, 2017). The further part of the investigation relied on cluster analysis using the dendrogram method as a tool to classify and determine similarities in the set of the countries studied. The set of five features previously mentioned was transformed into principal components (using a correlation matrix) in such a way that the first component (V1 ) accounted for 39.96%, the second (V2 ) 22.17%, and the third (V3 ) 19.66% of the total variability of the five features in the set of 39 countries (the total 81.79% of the variability of the set of features). An analysis of coefficients of determination of components and features as well as correlation coefficients allows interpreting the nature of these components (cf. Table 17.4).

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Table 17.4 Principal component analysis for 39 countries (considering 5 features) Principal components

Features most strongly correlated with components

V1

X3 —cumulative value of FDI per 1000 inhabitants (r = 0.8342) X1 —GDP per capita (r = 0.7926)

V2

X5 —number of students per 1000 inhabitants (r = 0.6666) X4 —number of universities per 1000 inhabitants (r = 0.6276)

V3

X2 —number of economic entities per 1000 inhabitants (r = 0.6861)

Source Own calculation

The first principal component (V1 ) is highly correlated (α < 0.001) with the following features: x3 —the value of FDI per 1000 inhabitants (r = 0.83) and x1 — the value of GDP per capita (r = 0.79). Therefore, it can be called a component of the economic development level and global economic links. The second principal component (V2 ) is significantly correlated (α < 0.001) with feature x5 —the number of students per 1000 inhabitants (r = 0.66) and x4 —the number of universities per 1000 inhabitants (r = 0.63), which entitles it to be called a component of the availability of high-quality human capital and R&D infrastructure. On the other hand, the third principal component (V3 ) is strongly correlated (α < 0.001) with feature x2 —the number of economic entities per 1000 inhabitants (r = 0.68), thus, it can be called a component of economic activity and the cooperative capacity of the economy. Therefore, in the light of the conducted analysis, three different levels of investment attractiveness in the 39 investigated countries were clearly visible. These are: • the level of economic growth and global economic links (V1 component), • the availability of high-quality human capital and R&D infrastructure (V2 component), • the economic activity and cooperative capacity of a country’s economy (V3 component). The analysis of particular principal components facilitated the relevant classification of the investigated group of 39 countries. In terms of the economic development level and global economic links, the following are the best: Luxembourg, Switzerland, Norway, and Ireland. In this respect, India and Nigeria ranked the lowest. Similar results were obtained when analysing the second and third component determining the availability level of high-quality human capital and R&D infrastructure as well as the level of economic activity and cooperative capacity of particular national economies. The final stage of the research involved a synthetic classification of countries taking into account the value of the first two principal components (determining in total 62.13% of the variability of the set of features). A dendrogram analysis made it possible to select five different classes of investment attractiveness of countries.

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When selecting the classes, the largest gap between the successively organised objects (countries) was considered: • class I—a country with a very high level of investment attractiveness: Luxembourg, • class II—countries with a high level of investment attractiveness: Switzerland, Norway, and Ireland, • class III—countries with a mean level of attractiveness: USA, Denmark, Australia, Holland, Sweden, Austria, Finland, Germany, Belgium, Canada, France, and Great Britain, • class IV—countries with a low level of attractiveness: Italy, South Korea, Spain, Cyprus, Slovenia, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary, Poland, Croatia, Romania, RSA, Russia, Mexico, China, Bulgaria, and Brazil, • class V—countries with a very low level of attractiveness: India and Nigeria. In the first three classes, the most developed countries of Western Europe and North America as well as Australia were situated, whereas in the last, countries with the lowest level of socio-economic growth. It should be noted that Poland can be found in the fourth, penultimate and at the same time the most numerous class, which indicates its low investment attractiveness in the investigated group. Along with Poland, this class primarily includes EastCentral European countries as well as China, South Korea, Brazil, Mexico, and RSA. The position of China in the conducted classification turned out to be surprisingly low as for the country which has one of the highest rates of foreign investment inflows in the world. One may assume that this is related to the research methodology adopted in the paper, in which the values of the relative features were taken into account (in relation to the number of inhabitants), hence markedly better positions of smaller countries in the classification.

17.6 The Activity of Polish Entrepreneurs on International Markets Since the beginning of the economic transformation, Poland has been primarily perceived as a location for foreign direct investments (FDI). However, at the same time, Polish entrepreneurs attempted to expand into foreign markets as well, both in the form of equity purchases or bringing capital share and through greenfield investments. The main factor behind the foreign expansion of Polish entrepreneurs has been first of all reaching new markets, and only in the case of industrial investments of the greenfield type do efficiency or resource motives dominate (cf. Kowalewski and Radło 2013; EY Report 2015). The factors that motivate Polish investors are also building a stronger competitive position and creating a global brand through the presence on foreign markets (PwC Advisory Report 2019). On the other hand, for the

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68172

72628

65855

63966

62148

57368

55188

29306

24095

21317

6439

3223

2146

1457

1156

1018

1165

1024

735

678

539

461

14393

39030

52849

65922

Polish economy, the expansion of domestic enterprises into foreign markets means greater internationalisation by being integrated into global value chains and also an increase in innovativeness, especially in technological and organisational spheres. The detailed statistics of the value of Polish foreign direct investments can be found in the publications of the National Bank of Poland (NBP) on the balance of payments, i.e. in the category of Poland’s foreign assets. However, the available data are often inconsistent and poorly comparable depending on the adopted presentation methodology allowing for different elements of foreign investment, e.g. debt instruments, capital in transfer, reinvested earnings, or price revaluation. Based on one NBP study entitled ‘Poland’s international investment position’, which is the list of the foreign assets and liabilities of domestic entities (these data are closest to the statistics of UNCTAD presented in the World Investment Report until 2015), it can be stated that in the years 1994–2019 the cumulative value of Polish foreign direct investments increased nearly 150 times, from USD 461 mln to USD 68,172 mln (cf. Fig. 17.7). The activity of Polish investors abroad started to increase the fastest after the accession to the European Union—as early as in 2005 the cumulative value of Polish foreign investments nearly doubled in relation to 2004, i.e. it increased from USD 3223–6439 mln, and over the next five years it rose more than 6 times to USD 39,030 mln in 2010 (despite the global financial crisis, which slowed down the growth rate in the period 2008–2009, cf. Fig. 17.7). In the new decade, especially from 2010, the growth dynamics were not so stable, which may result mainly from the economic situation on foreign markets, but also, unfortunately, from the change in how the

Fig. 17.7 Changes in the cumulative value of Polish FDI in the years 1994–2019 [mln USD] (FDI outward stock: Poland). Source Own study based on yearly reports ‘International investment position—annual data’, NBP publications (https://www.nbp.pl/home.aspx?f=/statystyka/m_poz_ inwest.html, access: July 2020) and the reports of UNCTAD WIR 1996, 2000, 2005

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NBP presented the data (e.g. through the adaptation to the international BPM6 rules in 2014) and also from price revaluation, or the change in the scale of Polish capital in transfer (cf. PAIH Report 2013). As a result a record value of the Polish cumulative FDI was noted in 2017 (USD 72,628 mln), followed by a slight drop in 2018, which meant disinvestment, the withdrawal of capital, or also some adjustments to the calculations resulting from the update of data by the NBP. Despite a large increase in Polish foreign investments in the analysed period, i.e. since the beginning of the transformation, their cumulative value is still relatively low as compared to both the total value of FDI in the EU states (Polish FDI is merely 2‰), and in relation to GDP—in 2017 it was 5.4% by OECD data, and this is much less than the UE mean, i.e. 68% of the total GDP of the EU states (by PwC Advisory Report 2019). For the most part, Polish entrepreneurs limit their business activity to the domestic market which is relatively large and rich in cheap production means. Thus, the basic motives for foreign expansion related to searching for sales markets or resources are of relatively minor importance to them. The research conducted by PwC Advisory (2019) has shown that decisions made by Polish entrepreneurs in terms of foreign investments are also blocked by various barriers, such as, e.g. the fear of foreign competition, foreign exchange risk, problems with the employment of foreign workers, no possibility to verify contractors, high costs and also cultural differences. According to the reports prepared by PAIH and Bank Pekao (2018), only 13% of micro and small and 27% of medium-sized companies in Poland declare any business activity abroad, and this is mainly export. Therefore, it can be stated that Polish investors are in the first stages of the internationalisation of their enterprises, which, according to the Uppsala Model (cf. Johanson and Vahlne 1977 and 2009; Tobolska 2010, 2017; Wdowicka 2005), are linked to various forms of export and relatively low capital engagement which means locating their service centres or commercial and distribution companies abroad (by EY Report of 2015, 80% of foreign units were in the form of companies with a share of Polish capital). This trend also reflects the Dunning and Lundam investment development path conception (2008), in which the authors indicate the first stages of internationalisation related to investments in the development of distribution and sales networks. The tendency for the value of Polish FDI to increase is reflected not only in macroeconomic data, but also in data on the number and size of investment projects carried out by Polish companies abroad. According to Statistics Poland, 1859 economic entities engaged in FDI, i.e. those with their branches and companies abroad, had their headquarters in Poland in 2018—the total of 3849 units (cf. Fig. 17.8). However, this number of investing entities makes up a small proportion of the total of economic entities in Poland—a mere 0.4% of the total number of registered commercial companies and 1.3% of the total number of entities hiring over 9 employees. Investors were mainly entities running business activity in the fields of industrial processing (622) and trade, car repairs (422) as well as construction (188, cf. Fig. 17.9). In 2018, foreign units owned by entities based in Poland were located in 114 countries. The majority of foreign units, 35.1%, had their head offices in countries neighbouring Poland: Germany (579), the Czech Republic (291), Ukraine (266), Russia (215). Such a trend in investment among Polish entrepreneurs also reflects

17 Poland’s Position in the Global Economy

427 3897

3890 3084

1373

2012

3252

1520

2013

3941

3532

1562

2014

1667

1716

2015

Number of Polish business entities with FDI

2016

3849

1859

1838

2017

2018

Number of foreign units

Fig. 17.8 Business entities with their headquarters in Poland and their foreign units in the years 2012–2018. Source Activity of enterprises with foreign units in 2018. Statistics Poland, 2020, www. gus.gov.p/l Other sections, Transportation 0.102 and storage, 0.045 Information and communication , 0.071 Construction, 0.101 Porffesional, scientific and technical activities, 0.119

Manufacturing, 0.335

Trade; repair of motor vehicles, 0.227

Fig. 17.9 Structure of the number of enterprises with foreign units by PCA in 2018. Source Activity of enterprises with foreign units in 2018. Statistics Poland, 2020, www.gus.gov.pl

the basic assumptions of the internationalisation conception of the Uppsala Model, in which the first stages of foreign expansion are carried out in countries with the shortest geographical distance. The majority of those employed in Polish foreign companies was also concentrated in neighbouring countries—45.1% out of the total of 194.3 thousand people working in them. On the other hand, in terms of the amount of employed capital, the most important recipients of Polish FDI in recent years included Canada and Chile due to the investments realised by Polish copper concern KGHM Polska Mied´z S.A. (in 2012 it acquired the Canadian mining company Quadra FNX for over PLN 9 bln). What is also worth mentioning are large investments in the Czech Republic connected to oil processing and the chemical sector. Another example of Polish investment in the construction industry may be the Polish company Izodom, one of the three main suppliers of advanced materials for passive construction in Europe which started its foreign capital expansion in 2018 establishing a subsidiary in Cluj Napoca in Romania in order to be closer to the receptive Eastern European market. Stores opened by Polish furniture manufacturers may be examples from the trade industry (e.g. a company named ‘Meblik’ in Budapest) as well as the jewellery

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stores of the ‘Apart’ company in the Czech Republic and in Spain. Polish IT and ICT sectors and the e-commerce industry are also expanding dynamically, which can be illustrated by the example of the Polish platform e-Obuwie.pl, leader in online shoe sales in the CEE region. One may also point out the Polish start-up ‘Bohr Technology’ which creates algorithms and software for quantum computers and is one of 14 companies worldwide to have partnered up with Microsoft since 2018.

17.7 Conclusion The presented synthetic analysis of a few selected issues concerning the incorporation of Poland into global economy structures indicates that in the analysed period of the last 30 years, Poland has become an important place for the inflow of foreign direct investments. The largest industrial corporations have established their factories here since the 1990s, and their presence in the Polish economic space has brought positive multiplier effects and, to a large extent, contributed to regional growth by building a cooperation network with the local environment, transfer of technological and organisational innovations and so on. However, trends in the FDI inflow structure recently show that Poland is not only a ‘big factory’, but also a place for ever greater investments in services, including those specialising in supporting the business sphere as well as services related to professional, scientific, and technical activity. In turn, the conducted research on investment attractiveness indicate that it is global economic links based primarily on FDI inflows and also the socio-economic development level that are important factors in assessing attractiveness of countries and thus affect subsequent decisions about undertaking projects of economic cooperation and capital engagement. Although the results of the conducted analysis showed that Poland did not hold the strongest position in terms of investment attractiveness, it was among the 30 most globalised countries in the world, which in turn proves Poland’s important place in the structure of the global economy. The presented synthetic analysis of FDI flows also shows that Poland is not only a passive party to internationalisation, but also participates increasingly more effectively in building structures of the global economy through direct investments on foreign markets.

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Chapter 18

Changes in the Spatial and Commodity Structure of Poland’s Foreign Trade Henryk Ma´ckowiak

Abstract The studies undertaken in this chapter address changes in the spatial and commodity structure of Poland’s foreign trade in the years 1989–2018. The study refers to foreign trade understood in a narrow sense, i.e. as sales abroad and the purchase of material goods from abroad. The spatial scope of the analysis includes Poland’s foreign trade with all countries of the world. The aim of the study is defined by two main research problems: (1) the identification of changes in the spatial and commodity structure of Poland’s foreign trade and (2) the identification of conditions shaping the spatial links of Poland’s foreign trade. An analysis of the geographical distribution of Poland’s foreign trade turnover was also carried out using the gravity model. The analysis of the spatial and commodity structure is preceded by a presentation of changes in the functioning conditions of Poland’s foreign trade and the characteristics of Poland’s share in the world trade and the role of foreign trade in the Polish economy. The primary sources of data included published and unpublished resources of Statistics Poland (GUS) in Warsaw, the World Bank and the Polish Investment and Trade Agency (PAIiH). Keywords Foreign trade · Export · Import · Poland · Spatial structure · Commodity structure

18.1 Introduction The transformation of the social and economic system launched in Poland in 1990 made foreign trade the area of the Polish economy where the most significant and farreaching changes took place. They included, for example, conditions of exchange, dynamics of trade in goods and trade balance, the geographical structure, and the structure of commodity turnover. A completely new situation occurred in this respect, different from pre-1990. Opening the Polish economy to international exchange was H. Ma´ckowiak (B) Faculty of Human Geography and Planning, Adam Mickiewicz University, B. Krygowskiego 10, 61-608 Pozna´n, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Churski and T. Kaczmarek (eds.), Three Decades of Polish Socio-economic Transformations, Economic Geography, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06108-0_18

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highly dynamic. Changes in Poland’s foreign trade were addressed by geographical studies taking into account their spatial nature (Ma´ckowiak 2003), including the inner regional structure of Poland’s foreign trade (Komornicki 2000, 2003, 2004, 2009; Ma´ckowiak 2011, 2012, 2013a, b, 2014, 2018; Komornicki et al. 2015; Umi´nski 2012, 2014; Gawlikowska-Hueckel and Umi´nski 2013, 2014; Nazarczuk and Umi´nski 2018; Nazarczuk et al. 2018). However, there has not yet been a study which would comprehensively address the major changes that have taken place in Poland’s foreign trade structure over the last three decades since the onset of Poland’s socio-economic transformation. Addressing such issues is justified in the context of the ongoing processes of European integration and progressing globalisation. This chapter attempts to fill this gap to some extent. The studies undertaken address changes in the spatial and commodity structure of Poland’s foreign trade in the years 1989–2018. The study refers to foreign trade understood in a narrow sense, i.e. as sales abroad and the purchase of material goods from abroad. The spatial scope of the analysis includes Poland’s foreign trade with all countries of the world. The aim of the study is defined by two main research issues: (1) (2)

the identification of changes in the spatial and commodity structure of Poland’s foreign trade, the identification of circumstances shaping the spatial links of Poland’s foreign trade.

An analysis of the geographical distribution of Poland’s foreign trade turnover was also carried out using the gravity model. It helped to assess the degree to which the export and import potential of the Polish economy was tapped in terms of trade with its major partners (countries) in 2018. The analysis of the spatial and commodity structure is preceded by a presentation of changes in the functioning conditions of Poland’s foreign trade and the characteristics of Poland’s share in world trade and the role of foreign trade in the Polish economy. In order to achieve this study aim, some specific assumptions were made: • the systemic transformation, affecting all areas of the economy, had a substantial impact on the structure of Poland’s foreign trade. This influence was evident in the tendencies that emerged in Polish foreign trade (trade between businesses, an increase in the share of the private sector in trade, geographical reorientation, expansion of economic ties with the European Union member states and, as a result, Poland’s accession to the European Union, an increase in the share of companies with foreign capital in Poland’s trade turnover), • the development of a country’s foreign trade and its structure are determined by two types of factors—those related to the characteristics of the economy of particular countries and those linked to the structural transformations within the global economy. As to its theoretical underpinning, the analysis and explication of phenomena and processes related to the structure of Polish foreign trade are based on the concepts of international trade from three groups of theories (Misala 1990, 1996, 2001; Chrzan 1997): (1) theories explaining international trade by the occurrence of differences

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in the resources of production factors (the school based on the theoretical output initiated by E. Heckscher and B. Ohlin), (2) theories treating international trade as a function of the formation of income, population, distance, etc. (the so-called school of social physics). The development of this group of theories led to so-called mechanistic methods of analysing international trade (e.g. the gravity model used in the chapter), and (3) supply–demand theories (intra-industry trade theory). The pursuit of the research objective set in the chapter required the application of mathematical, statistical, and cartographic methods. The gravity model of international trade is a research tool used to explain the geographical distribution of foreign trade turnover in Poland. The Herfindhal-Hirschman’s concentration index was applied to consider the degree of geographical diversification in Polish exports and imports. The assessment of the degree of intra-industry and inter-industry specialisation and the direction of change in Poland’s trade with its main partners (countries) was based on the Grubel-Lloyd index. The role of foreign trade in Poland’s economy and selected aspects of the development of foreign trade reflect the applied measures of foreign trade—for example, the share of exports and imports in Poland’s GDP, Poland’s share in the world trade, and the share of companies with foreign capital in Poland’s exports and imports. A detailed discussion of the applied indicators and methods of analysis with respect to specific research problems can be found in the successive parts of this chapter. Mathematical and statistical methods are complemented by cartographic methods (cartodiagrams and graphs), which provide a picture of the spatial diversity and dynamics of Poland’s foreign trade. The aim and scope of the study required the use of various sources of information. The primary sources of data included published and unpublished resources of Statistics Poland (Central Statistical Office, Polish GUS) in Warsaw, the World Bank and the Polish Investment and Trade Agency (PAIiH).

18.2 Changes in the Conditions of Poland’s Foreign Trade Poland’s socio-economic and political changes resulted, among others, in a reform of the organisation of foreign trade. The Act on Business Activity adopted by the Sejm of the Republic of Poland on 23 December 19881 offered businesses the freedom to engage in foreign trade. This law guaranteed all economic operators the right to conclude international commercial transactions without having to obtain a licence, as was previously the case. The law lifted the state’s monopoly in foreign trade relations because by then this type of activity had mainly been carried out by state foreign trade centres. As a result of the liberalisation of access to commercial activity, the obligation to obtain licences was retained, for security reasons or the necessity to maintain state control, only in trade in a smaller number of special commodities, such as military equipment, radioactive materials, liquid fuels, alcohol, and cigarettes. Foreign trade centres and other state-owned enterprises were privatised (since 1991). They were 1

Journal of Laws 1988, No. 41, item 324.

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privatised via capital and through liquidation. In addition to privatised companies, a large number of economic entities established with private capital started to operate in foreign trade. During the 15 years between 1988 and 2003, the number of exporters increased 65 times (including domestic private companies 87 times) (Cie´slik 2019: 15). As a result of these processes, the share of the private sector in the total turnover of Polish foreign trade increased systematically. As early as in 1990, its participation in exports was negligible and amounted to less than 5%; its share in imports was about 14% (according to Statistics Poland). The private sector started to prevail over the state sector in imports in 1992, and in exports in 1994. In 2003, the share of the private sector reached 89.5% in exports and 93% in imports. The increase in the freedom of operation of foreign capital in Poland, especially as a result of Poland’s accession to the OECD (22 November 1996) resulted in an increase in the value of foreign direct investments (FDI) coming to Poland. The value of FDI inflow was particularly high in 2006–2007 (according to PAIiH: USD 19.6 billion in 2006 and USD 23.6 billion in 2007), due to the improvement in Poland’s credibility and investment attractiveness after the accession to the European Union (EU) (Małachowski 2009: 102; Cie´slik 2017: 65–82) and the entry into force on 1 January 2007 of the Freedom of Economic Activity Act2 of 2 July 2004, which regulated the process of commencing, conducting, and concluding business operations in Poland. FDI contributed to the growth of production and modernisation of the Polish economy (Weresa 2002: 50; Zysk 2012: 53–75; Ptaszy´nska 2015: 30). The increase in the number of entities with foreign capital (including subsidiaries of transnational corporations) led to the growing importance of these entities in Poland’s foreign trade. The share of enterprises with foreign capital3 rose in Poland’s exports from 25% in 1994 to 64.2% in 2007, and in imports from 32.9 to 58.6%, respectively. This marked increase in Poland’s share in trade turnover was mainly the result of a much stronger export orientation of entities with foreign capital than domestic companies, resulting from (according to Cie´slik 2019: 43–47) high technical and organisational advancement, benefits from international specialisation and the possession of extensive production and trade networks in leading sales markets. As a result of the global economic crisis in 2008–2009 and the unstable situation within the global economy in subsequent years, the annual inflow of capital to Poland in the form of FDI decreased. Although this resulted in a drop in the share of companies with foreign capital to 57.1% in exports and 54.7% in imports in 2018, the volume of Poland’s foreign trade and the competitiveness of Polish exports were still largely dependent on the activity of these entities.

2

Journal of Laws 2004, No. 173, item 1807. The share of entities with foreign capital in Poland’s export and import in 1994 on the basis of Durka B, Chojna J (1999) Udział podmiotów z kapitałem zagranicznym w polskim handlu zagranicznym. In: Durka B (ed.) Inwestycje zagraniczne w Polsce. Instytut Koniunktur i Cen Handlu Zagranicznego, Warsaw: 44–63. The share of entities with foreign capital in Poland’s export and import in 2007 and 2018 was computed on the basis of: reports ‘Działalno´sc´ gospodarcza podmiotów z kapitałem zagranicznym za lata 2007 i 2018’, Statistics Poland, Warsaw and Foreign Trade Statistical Yearbooks for 2008 and 2019, Statistics Poland, Warsaw.

3

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The development of Poland’s foreign trade and the shifts in its structure were also influenced by institutional external conditions. Systemic changes and the economic crisis in the former socialist countries led to the dissolution of the Comecon (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance) in 1991. This meant a decrease in the importance of the eastern market for Poland. On 1 February 1994, the Europe Agreement establishing an association between Poland and the European Communities and their member states came into force. The trade part of the agreement had already been in force since 1 March 1992 (so-called Interim Agreement) and provided for free trade between Poland and the European Communities and their member states. In 1993, further free trade agreements regulating Poland’s relations with its foreign partners were concluded: on March 1, the agreement with Central European Free Trade Agreement countries (CEFTA) and on November 15 with European Free Trade Association countries (EFTA). The aim of these agreements was for all partners to increase the benefits of international exchange linked to its liberalisation. Poland’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) on 1 July 1995 resulted in a 96% binding of customs duties on imported industrial products. After Poland’s accession to the OECD, the conditions for foreign capital access to the Polish market and capital outflow from Poland were softened. After accession to the EU on 1 May 2004, Poland became a member of the customs union and co-created the single European market, in which non-tariff barriers are not applied. In its trade with non-EU countries, Poland is bound by the principles of the customs union, including in particular the common external customs tariff and all the rules of the common trade policy.

18.3 Poland’s Participation in the World Trade and the Role of Foreign Trade in the Polish Economy The competitive position of a given country in the world economy is evidenced, among others, by its share in world trade. Poland’s situation in this respect began to change with the introduction of market economy principles and greater openness of the Polish economy to international exchange. In 1989–2018, Poland’s share in global trade showed an upward trend (Table 18.1). However, one can also distinguish sub-periods characterised by a decline in that share, i.e. 1999 (among others, the effect of the financial and economic crisis in Russia in 1998–1999) and 2010–2012 (the effect of a relatively low trade exchange with the EU countries impacted by the Table 18.1 Poland’s share in global trade in the years 1989–2018 (%) Item

1989 1990 1991 1995 1998 1999 2003 2006 2009 2012 2015 2018

Exports 0.33

0.42

0.36

0.43

0.48

0.46

0.67

0.81

0.97

0.93

1.13

1.26

Imports 0.34

0.34

0.46

0.57

0.82

0.77

0.83

1.08

1.25

1.13

1.25

1.46

Source Own computations on the basis of data of the World Bank from https://wits.worldbank.org/ WITS/WITS/Restricted/Login.aspx (access: 25 June 2020)

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Fig. 18.1 Dynamics of gross domestic product and Polish exports and imports in 1989–2018 (fixed prices). Source Own elaboration on the basis of Statistical Yearbooks of Foreign Trade for the years 2012–2019, Statistics Poland, Warsaw and Statistical Yearbooks of the Republic of Poland for 1997–2019, Statistics Poland, Warsaw

second wave of the global economic crisis in 2008–2009). Comparing Poland’s 21st position in the world in terms of GDP in 2018 (according to the World Bank) (a share of 0.68% in the world economy) and its 24th place among exporting countries in 2018 (a 1.26% share in the world’s exports), it should be noted that Poland, taking into account its economic potential, made relatively good use of the opportunities for increasing participation in the international division of labour. Between 1989 and 2018, the dynamics of Poland’s trade turnover with foreign countries and Poland’s GDP fluctuated significantly (Fig. 18.1). The year 1990 was a transformation watershed. The introduction of market economy principles resulted in a deep recession (a GDP decrease by 11.6%). At the same time, a significant devaluation of the Polish zloty reduced the competitiveness of imports (a 17.9% drop), stimulating the profitability of exports. Hence, the first two years of the transformation period were characterised by a positive trade balance. The trade surplus in 1989 resulted mainly from a surplus in turnover with the GCC states (mainly from the USSR and the GDR), settled in transfer roubles. However, an even greater predominance of exports over imports in 1990 was partly a result of the continuing positive balance in rouble turnover and the strong dynamics of slow-moving exports (Ma´ckowiak 2003, pp. 39 and 44). The export surplus proved temporary. The stabilisation of the exchange rate of the zloty in the conditions of high domestic inflation, leaving the liberal tariff, and the abolition of non-tariff barriers strongly stimulated imports; as of 1991 the trade balance of Poland changed to negative. The main reason for the growing foreign trade imbalance (growing deficit) in the 1990s

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Table 18.2 Role of foreign trade in the Polish economy in the years 1989–2018 Item

1989* 1990 1991 1995 1999 2003 2006 2009 2012 2015 2018

Relation of exports 21.5 to GDP (%)

16.5 19.2 19.4 17.7 24.8 32.4 31.5 37.3 41.7 45.0

Relation of imports 16.8 to GDP (%)

14.9 20.2 24.6 29.7 31.5 37.2 34.5 40.1 41.2 45.9

* In 1989, the relation between exports and imports and the gross national income Source Own computations on the basis of Statistical Yearbooks of Foreign Trade for the years 2007–2019, Statistics Poland, Warsaw and Statistical Yearbooks of the Republic of Poland for 1997–2019, Statistics Poland, Warsaw and Zagraniczna polityka gospodarcza Polski 1996–1997, Instytut Koniunktur i Cen Handlu Zagranicznego, Warsaw, 1997: 132

was the low competitiveness of domestic production and the resulting need to quickly modernise it through increased investment and supply imports. Contributing to the deficit was the growing consumer demand for highly processed foreign goods. The strong dynamics of investment imports in the 1990s facilitated the modernisation and growth of production and export potential of the Polish economy. The translation of earlier investment imports into export effects was confirmed by the results in Poland’s foreign trade in the years 2000–2018. The export growth rate in that period exceeded the import growth rate (the growth rates according to Statistics Poland (GUS) were 445.0 for exports and 331.0 for imports), which resulted in a positive balance in Poland’s trade turnover in the years 2015–2017. The share of exports in creating national income is an expression of the country’s commitment to international exchange. The ratio of the value of exports to gross domestic product is an indicator which synthetically defines the level of exportfriendly development of the economy. In the entire period under analysis, the volume of Poland’s trade with foreign countries grew much faster than actual GDP (Fig. 18.1). The above trend translated into an increase in the share of exports and imports in GDP (Table 18.2). We can therefore conclude that export was an important factor in Poland’s economic growth in 1989–2018. It should be noted that during the global economic crisis in 2008–2009, Poland was the only EU country not to have recorded a decrease in GDP (Fig. 18.1). There was only a slowdown in economic growth, which was largely due to a fall in exports in 2009 (Fig. 18.1). The striking feature of this crisis was the stronger collapse in international trade than in the general level of economic activity. The sharp drop in trade was abrupt and global as, due to international production links, it affected not only the market for final goods, but also for semi-finished products manufactured in many countries (Czarny et al. 2012: 88). As noted by Komornicki et al. (2015: 35), Polish exports during the crisis were relatively less hit than those of neighbouring countries. Polish exports were supported by the floating exchange rate mechanism, which allowed for the depreciation of the Polish currency. However, the effects of the crisis were visible in subsequent years, when the export dynamics were weaker than in 2000–2007 (Fig. 18.1). In the years 2010–2018, the export growth rate was slightly higher than the GDP growth rate

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(growth rates according to Statistics Poland were 167.7 for exports and 131.9 for GDP).

18.4 Spatial Structure of Poland’s Foreign Trade One of the most characteristic effects of the social and economic transformations launched in 1990 was the fundamental change in the spatial structure of Poland’s foreign trade, as illustrated by the data in Table 18.3. A marked feature of Polish Table 18.3 Structure of Poland’s foreign trade turnover by groups of countries* in the years 1989– 2018 Item

1989

1990

1991

1995

2003

2009

2013

2018

43.0

58.6

74.0

75.0

74.8i /87.9h

85.6

81.7h /81.9i

87.1

27.9

44.3

55.6

63.8h /70.0i

68.8i /81.9h

79.6

74.8h /75.0i

80.6

EFTA countriesg

8.7

9.3

14.1

7.8h /1.6i

2.9

2.8

2.8

2.1

Developing countriesa,d

19.8

18.2

9.2

7.7

5.6i /5.1h

6.9

8.7

7.1

Central and Eastern European countriesb,e

37.2

23.2

16.8

17.3

19.6i /7.0h

7.5

9.6h /9.4i

5.8

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

46.9

63.8

68.8

74.3

69.3i /77.8h

69.1

65.9h /66.0i

65.9

30.9

43.9

49.7

57.1h /64.6i

61.1i /69.6h

61.9

58.4h /58.5i

58.8

EFTA countriesg

9.8

10.2

14.6

10.6h /3.1i

3.0

Developing countriesa,d

19.6

13.0

12.4

10.3

Central and Eastern European countriesb,e

33.5

23.2

18.8

15.4

Poland’s exports in % Developed countriesc Including EU member statesf

Total

100.0

100.0

100.0

Poland’s imports in % Developed countriesc Including: EU member statesf

2.3

2.7

1.9

13.0i /12.8h

20.9

20.4

25.2

17.7i /9.4h

10.0

13.7h /13.6i

8.9

(continued)

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Table 18.3 (continued) Item

1989

1990

1991

1995

2003

2009

2013

2018

Total

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

* The division into groups of countries follows EUROSTAT geonomenclature a According to the EUROSTAT directory, in 2003, 2009, 2013, and 2018 including the Asian countries of the former USSR b According to the EUROSTAT directory—in 1989, 1990, 1991, and 1995 including all the countries of the former USSR and in 2003, 2009, 2013, and 2018 including the European countries of the former USSR c The turnover of developed countries was as of 2009 increased by the turnover of ten countries, i.e.: the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, and Romania; as of 2013 the turnover of Croatia was added d The turnover of developing countries has since 2009 not included the turnover of Cyprus and Croatia e The turnover of Central and Eastern European countries has since 2009 not included the turnover of nine countries, i.e. the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, and Romania and includes the turnover of Croatia; from 2013 onwards it has not included the turnover of Croatia f EU countries’ turnover since 1995 was increased by the turnover of the three countries that joined the EU on 1 January 1995, i.e.: Austria, Finland, and Sweden; since 2009, it was increased by the turnover of the nine countries that joined the EU on 1 May 2004, i.e.: the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Slovakia, Slovenia and the turnover of the two countries that joined the EU on 1 January 2007, i.e. Bulgaria and Romania; from 2013 onwards, the turnover of Croatia, which joined the EU on 1 July 2013, has been added g The turnover of the EFTA countries since 1995 has not included the turnover of three countries, i.e.: Austria, Finland, and Sweden h, i Data given in the range: h—comparable, i—actual Source Computations and elaboration on the basis of Statistical Yearbooks of Foreign Trade for the years 1997–2019, Statistics Poland, Warsaw

foreign trade in the first half of the 1990s was a strong geographical reorientation from east to west. The clear decline in the share of Central and Eastern European countries in Poland’s trade turnover in 1989–1993 was matched by an increase in the share of economically developed countries, mainly EU member states. The reasons for the shift in the geographical structure of Polish foreign trade during this period include the collapse of the eastern market, caused by the economic crisis in the former Comecon member countries, and the qualitative changes which took place in Poland as a result of progressing systemic reforms and adjustment to the requirements of the global economy. The dissolution of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (in 1991) and the attendant transition to settlements in current world prices and convertible currencies led to deep revaluations in the volume of Poland’s trade with Central and Eastern European countries. In turn, as a result of the systemic transformation, the reasons justifying the application of various types of restrictions on trade with Poland by economically developed countries disappeared. The westward reorientation of Poland’s economic ties was also significantly influenced by German reunification. As of 1990, the EU member states have dominated Poland’s foreign trade (Table 18.3). Poland’s trade links with EU countries were enhanced by the conclusion of

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the Europe Agreement, followed by Poland’s EU accession. The increase in the EU’s share in Poland’s foreign trade in the 1990s was due to the occurrence of two effects, known in the theory of integration as the effect of trade creation (Gorynia 2012: 408–409) and the effect of trade shift. The effect of trade creation took place, among other things, under the influence of the liberalisation of mutual trade flows. The reduction of customs duties in trade between Poland and the EU and the preservation of external protection may have adversely affected the supply conditions of third countries. Polish producers and EU countries could therefore intercept some of the external supplies, causing the effect of shifting trade. In 2004, 2007, and 2013, Poland’s intra-EU trade increased by the turnover with the successive countries joining the union. Poland’s EU accession in 2004 was associated with Poland’s joining the customs union and membership in the single European market (trade creation effect). The first years of membership were marked by relatively strong dynamics of turnover with the EU (dynamics indicators for the period 2003–2006, calculated in a comparable range based on Statistics Poland data in USD are: 195.7 for exports and 168.7 for imports). However, the dynamics were still lower than that of turnover with developing countries (242.2 and 250.9) and Central and Eastern European countries (274.5 and 232.6). In 2009, trade with all groups of countries declined. Poland’s exports to the EU fell by 18.7% and its imports dropped by 29.2%. Respective drops in trade with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe were 42.3 and 38.8% (the effect of a deep economic crisis in Russia) and in turnover with developing countries: 17.3 and 21.6%. In 2011–2012, EU countries felt the effects of the second wave of the global economic crisis. There was a drop in internal demand, especially from Eurozone countries, which was reflected in the relatively weaker dynamics of Poland’s trade with the EU at that time than with developing countries and countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Taking into account the entire 2003–2013 decade, the turnover dynamics (to a comparable extent) with the EU were weaker than with developing countries and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Hence, in comparable conditions, there was a decrease in the EU share in Poland’s foreign trade (Table 18.3). In 2013–2018, the dynamics of Polish exports to the EU (138.0) exceeded those of exports to other groups of countries, which resulted in an increase in the EU share in Polish exports (Table 18.3). The dynamics of Poland’s imports from the EU in that period did not differ (130.0) from the average dynamics of all Polish imports (129.4). Hence, the EU share in Poland’s imports in 2013–2018 changed slightly (Table 18.3). In the entire analysed period, a secondary position in Poland’s foreign trade was retained by non-European developed countries (with the USA having the largest share). This position was out of line with the large role of these countries in international trade. The scale of Poland’s trade relations with EFTA countries was small (Table 18.3). A significant reduction in the share of EFTA in Poland’s foreign trade since 1995 was a consequence of the fact that this group was left by three members as a result of the EU accession of Austria, Finland, and Sweden.4 4

After 1 January 1995, the EFTA member states have been Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland.

18 Changes in the Spatial and Commodity …

445

The share of Central and Eastern European countries in Poland’s trade turnover, after the aforementioned large decline in 1989–1993, gradually increased until 2003 (Table 18.3). This growth was interrupted due to the financial and economic crisis in Russia, which contributed to a decrease in the share of the former USSR countries, and thus of the whole group of Central and Eastern European countries in Poland’s trade turnover in 1998–1999. The increase in the importance of Central and Eastern European countries in Poland’s foreign trade in 1994–2003 resulted from the development of mutual trade within CEFTA (Poland was a member in 1992–2004) and the emergent economic policy towards Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. A significant decrease in the share of Central and Eastern European countries in Poland’s foreign trade in the years 2004–2013 was a consequence of the reduction of this group by ten countries that joined the EU. Although other countries of Central and Eastern Europe5 displayed at that time an increase in Poland’s trade flows (Table 18.3), this was basically the effect of growing (3.7 times) imports from Russia (largely due to a significant increase in the price of imported oil and gas) and an increase (3.5 times) in exports to Russia. The introduction of the Russian embargo on the export of Polish agri-food products (including apples), in response to EU economic sanctions imposed on Russia (related to the annexation of Crimea and support for separatists in eastern Ukraine), and the restriction of Polish industrial exports to Russia and Ukraine (as a result of the worsening economic situation in these countries) resulted in a strong decline in trade with these two countries in 2014–2016. This, in turn, resulted in a decline in the share of the CEE group of countries in Poland’s foreign trade during this period. The increase in trade with Russia in 2017–2018 was not large enough to bring the share of this group of countries in Poland’s trade back to the 2013 level (Table 18.3). The role of developing countries in Polish exports in the examined period was much smaller than in imports (Table 18.3). The share of developing countries in exports dropped significantly in the years 1989–2003; in the period 2004–2015, it showed an upward trend, to a slight decrease in the years 2016–2018. After the initial significant drop in the share of Poland’s imports, since 1996, these countries have recorded gradual growth, mainly due to the strong dynamics and growth in the share of imports from China. Poland’s negative trade balance in 2018 (UDS 5.4 billion according to Statistics Poland) was primarily due to a trade deficit with developing countries (USD 49.2 billion, including USD 28.8 billion with China) and Central and Eastern Europe (USD 8.6 billion, including Russia USD 11.2 billion). Trade with developed countries recorded a large surplus (USD 52.5 billion). Since 2005, Poland has recorded a growing surplus in trade with the EU, which in 2018 reached USD 54.6 billion (including USD 13.7 billion with Germany). This proves the importance of the absence of trade barriers for the competitiveness of Polish exports. The deficit in trade with Russia and with developing countries (growing deficit) is linked to the inter-industry nature of this trade.

5

According to EUROSTAT geonomenclature, in 2013, the CEE group included Albania, Belarus, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine.

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To illustrate changes in the geographical structure of Poland’s foreign trade by major partners, Table 18.4 presents the shares of major partners in Poland’s trade turnover between 1989 and 2018, Fig. 18.2 shows the volume of Poland’s trade turnover with European countries in 2018, while Fig. 18.3 illustrates the absolute changes in Poland’s exports to EU countries between 2003 and 2018. Table 18.4 Poland’s principal trade partners in the years 1989–2018* Country

1989

1991

1995

1999

2003

2006

2009

2012

2018

29.4

38.3

36.1

32.3

27.2

26.2

25.1

28.2

Poland’s exports in % Germanya

14.2

Republicb

5.5

4.6

3.0

3.8

4.1

5.5

5.8

6.3

6.4

United Kingdom

6.5

7.1

4.0

4.0

5.0

5.7

6.4

6.8

6.2

Czech France

2.4

3.8

3.6

4.8

6.1

6.2

6.9

5.9

5.6

Italy

2.3

4.1

4.9

6.5

5.7

6.5

6.9

4.9

4.6

Netherlands

2.6

5.2

5.6

5.3

4.5

3.8

4.2

4.5

4.5

Russiac

20.8

11

5.6

2.6

2.8

4.3

3.7

5.3

3

Sweden

2.2

2.6

2.5

2.5

3.6

3.2

2.7

2.7

2.8

USA

2.8

2.5

2.7

2.8

2.2

1.9

1.8

1.9

2.7

Hungary

1.6

0.7

1.2

2.0

2.4

3.0

2.7

2.4

2.7

Slovakia

–

–

1.2

1.3

1.6

2.1

2.3

2.6

2.6

Spain

0.6

0.6

1.1

1.5

2.1

2.5

2.6

2.0

2.6

15.7

26.5

26.6

25.2

24.4

24

22.4

21.3

22.6

3.1

0.3

1.6

2.7

4.3

6.1

9.3

8.9

11.6

Poland’s imports in % Germanya China Russiac

18.1

14.1

6.7

5.9

7.7

9.7

8.5

14.0

7.1

Italy

4.1

4.5

8.5

9.4

8.5

6.8

6.8

5.2

5.1

France

3.1

3.6

4.9

6.8

7.1

5.5

4.6

3.9

3.7

Netherlands

3.0

4.9

4.5

3.7

3.4

3.1

3.6

3.9

3.6

Czech Republicb

5.7

3.3

3.1

3.2

3.4

3.5

3.6

3.7

3.4

USA

1.4

2.3

3.9

3.6

2.6

2.2

2.3

2.6

2.8

Belgium

1.5

2.7

2.6

2.3

2.6

2.5

2.3

2.2

2.5

United Kingdom

4.5

4.0

5.2

4.6

3.7

2.9

3.0

2.4

2.4

Spain

0.4

0.9

1.6

2.5

2.6

2.0

2.2

2.1

2.2

Sweden

1.7

1.8

3.1

3.2

2.6

2.2

1.8

1.9

1.8

* Ranking of countries in Poland’s exports and imports in 2018 a In 1989, only the German Federal Republic, without the German Democratic Republic b Until 1991 along with Slovakia c Until 1991 data for the USSR Source Own elaboration on the basis of Foreign Trade Statistical Yearbooks for 1990–2019, Statistics Poland, Warsaw and Statistical Yearbooks of the Republic of Poland for 2000 and 2004, Statistics Poland, Warsaw

18 Changes in the Spatial and Commodity …

447

Fig. 18.2 Polish trade with European countries in 2018. Source Own elaboration on the basis of World Bank data from https://wits.worldbank.org/WITS/WITS/Restricted/Login.aspx (access: 15 June 2020) (graphic design Rafał Lema´nski)

Just as the EU countries in 1990 took the place of the former Comecon countries, Poland’s former main trading partner, the USSR, was replaced by Germany, which in 1990–2018 dominated Poland’s trade (Table 18.4, Fig. 18.2). This was due to a number of far-reaching, long-standing factors that became even more important in the wake of German unification. These include the tradition of long-standing intensive German–Polish trade relations, the enormous economic potential and sales market of Germany, and mutual foreign direct investment.6 The spatial factor is important, as the geographical proximity, as well as the length of the common border, facilitates direct business contacts and reduces transaction costs. In the 1990s, Germany accounted on average for about 1/3 of Polish exports and 1/4 of Polish imports (Table 18.4). In the following years, despite a large increase in turnover with this country in terms of value (primarily Polish exports), Germany’ dominant position declined. The reason for this was, first of all, the intensification of Polish exports to other EU countries (after Poland joined the EU) (Fig. 18.3). In the years 2003– 2018, the export dynamics to the new EU members was mostly higher than to the EU-15, and in the case of the Visegrad countries (the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary) and Romania, it was reflected in relatively large absolute growth (Fig. 18.3). 6

According to the Polish Investment and Trade Agency (PAIiH), in 2018 Germany was the second largest investor in terms of the cumulative value of the capital employed in Poland of EUR 35 billion; in terms of numbers, investors from Germany prevailed. According to the Federal Bank of Germany, the value of Polish investments in Germany reached EUR 2 billion by 2018.

448

H. Ma´ckowiak

Fig. 18.3 Absolute changes in Poland’s export to European Union countries in 2003–2018. Source Own elaboration on the basis of World Bank data from https://wits.worldbank.org/WITS/WITS/ Restricted/Login.aspx (access: 16 June 2020) (graphic design Rafał Lema´nski)

Secondly, between 1995 and 2018, the degree of diversification of Polish export and import directions increased. The level of geographical concentration of Polish exports computed by means of the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index7 dropped from 0.3592 in 1995 to 0.2706 in 2018, while the level of Polish imports decreased from 0.2528 to 7

The Herfindahl–Hirschman concentration Index used in the calculations (Komornicki et al. 2015; Ma´ckowiak 2018). / n ( xit )2 / 1 − n i=1 X t / (18.1) H Ht = 1 − n1

where xit —value of exports (imports) of Poland to (from) a country i in the year t, Xt —total value of Poland’s exports (imports) in the year t, n—number of destination countries. The geographical concentration index indicates the extent to which exports (imports) are concentrated in a small number of countries. The value of one indicates the total concentration of export (import), while the values approaching 0 indicate high diversification of export (import). The calculations were made on the basis of World Bank data from https://wits.worldbank.org/WITS/WITS/ Restricted/Login.aspx (access: 12 July 2020).

18 Changes in the Spatial and Commodity …

449

0.2361, respectively. Moreover, the results confirm a higher degree of diversification of Polish imports than exports. Poland is also becoming an increasingly important trading partner for Germany. Hence, the unfavourable quantitative asymmetry is gradually diminishing, which is reflected in the fact that the share of Germany in Poland’s foreign trade clearly exceeds the share of Poland in Germany’s foreign trade. While in the 1990s, this gap was several times wider (Ma´ckowiak 2003: 113), in 2018 it was only five times wider (according to the World Bank, in 2018 Poland was the sixth supplier of goods to Germany with a 5.1% share in German imports and the eighth recipient of goods from Germany with a 4.8% share in German exports). This indicates, however, that Poland’s economy is still much more dependent on the economic situation in Germany than the opposite. Among Poland’s first 12 export trade partners in 2018, 11 are European countries (ten are EU members), of which four (Germany, the Czech Republic, Russia, and Slovakia) are Poland’s direct neighbours. In turn, out of Poland’s 12 largest import partners in the same year, ten are European countries (nine are EU members), of which three (Germany, Russia, and the Czech Republic) are direct neighbours of Poland (Table 18.4, Fig. 18.2). In the geographical structure of Poland’s trade turnover by individual partners in the period under review, apart from a clear German dominance, some shifts were noticeable (Table 18.4). Among the changes that took place in the spatial structure of Polish exports, one should mention: instability of the share of Russia and Ukraine (clear increases in the share of these countries in the years: 1993–1997, 2004–2008, and 2010–2013, interspersed with decreases in the years: 1998–1999, 2009, and 2014–2018); an increase in the share of the Visegrad Group countries (especially the Czech Republic) and Spain; after an increase in 1989– 2009, a decrease in the share of Italy and France in subsequent years; loss of their high positions in Polish exports (from the early 1990s) by Austria and Switzerland. There have also been significant changes in the spatial structure of imports, which are reflected, among others, in: a large increase in the share of China (the largest exporter in the world); after an increase in 2000–2012, a decrease in subsequent years in the share of Russia; after an earlier increase, a downward trend in the share of Italy in 1998–2018 and France in 2004–2018; a drop in the share of the United Kingdom; loss of high positions in Poland’s imports (from the early 1990s) by Austria and Switzerland.

18.5 Analysis of the Spatial Distribution of Poland’s Foreign Trade Turnover Using a Gravitational Model The gravity model of international trade was used to analyse the geographical distribution of Poland’s foreign trade turnover. It is one of so-called mechanistic methods, whose common denominator is treating international trade as a homogenous mechanism, guided by unchanging laws. Gravity models for the analysis of international trade were first applied in the 1960s (Tinbergen 1962; Pöyhönen 1963; Cornelisse

450

H. Ma´ckowiak

1964; Linnemann 1966). Subsequently, the gravity model was used to examine international trade by many authors, e.g.: Błaszczuk (1974), Bergstrand (1985), Biessen (1990, 1996), Hamilton, Winters (1992), Christie (2002), Ma´ckowiak (2003), Helpman et al. (2008), Kucharcukova et al. (2012), and Pietrzak, Łapi´nska (2014). Błaszczuk, Biessen and Ma´ckowiak used this method with respect to Poland’s international trade. This study adopts the gravity model used by Ma´ckowiak (2003), similar in its form to that applied by Biessen (1996). The study was carried out taking into account the mutual trade turnover of 13 countries in 2018, i.e. Poland and 12 main trading partners in its exports: Germany, the Czech Republic, United Kingdom, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia, USA, Sweden, Hungary, Slovakia, and Spain. This generated 156 trade flows. Ultimately, the model is as follows: X i j = a0 Yia1 Y ja2 Nia3 N aj 4 Diaj5 Piaj6 Hiaj7 µi j

(18.2)

where8 Xij —exports of a country i to the j country in millions of USD, Yi —GDP of the i country (exporting) in billions of USD, Yj —GDP of the j country (importing) in billions of USD, Ni —population of the i country (exporting) in millions, Nj —population of the j country (importing) in millions, Dij —distance between the i and j countries in km, Pij —structural variable equal to two if the pair of i and j countries are neighbours; in another case it equals one, Hij —structural variable equal to two if there are preferences (the pair of countries are both European Union member states) and equals one if there are no preferences in the trade between the i and j countries, uij —random factor, a0 —independent part (constant), a1 —profit export flexibility, a2 —profit import flexibility, a3 —population export flexibility, a4 —population import flexibility, a5 —distance export and import flexibility, a6 —parameter denoting the impact of geographical neighbourhood on mutual trade, 8

Actual export values (Xij ) were adopted after the World Bank data from https://wits.worldbank. org/WITS/WITS/Restricted/Login.aspx (access: 11 June 2020). GDP levels (Yi , Yj ) and population figures (Ni , Nj ) were adopted after the Statistical Yearbook of the Republic of Poland 2019, Statistics Poland, Warsaw and the Yearbook of International Statistics 2019, Statistics Poland, Warsaw. The distance (Dij ) was the distance between the largest cities of the countries under scrutiny, the capital cities of these countries (except New York); the distance was measured on the basis of https://www. mapsdirections.info/pl/ (access: 09 June 2020).

18 Changes in the Spatial and Commodity …

451

a7 —parameter denoting the impact of preference (results of impact of a pair of countries belonging to the European Union or their non-membership) in the trade between the counties under examination. The equation assumes that bilateral trade depends on: – the potential supply of the exporting country, represented by its gross domestic product and population, – the potential demand of the importing country, represented by its gross domestic product and population, – ‘resistance’ to trade, i.e. the geographical distance between trading partners. A country’s export is assumed to be positively correlated with its gross domestic product. Moreover, it is assumed that a country with a large population can specialise much more easily in a wide range of products and will consequently be less dependent on foreign trade. The size of the export and import flows depend in inverse proportion on the distance between trading partners. These five accepted variables: Y i , Y j , N i , N j , and Dij explain the potential intensity of trade between country i and country j. Parameters a1 and a2 are expected to be positive, while a3 , a4, and a5 are expected to be negative. In order to take into account specific deviations from this expected trade pattern, structural variables are used, i.e. the fact that countries i and j are adjacent (Pij ) and that the pair of countries are European Union member states (H ij ). The value of the parameters of the model was assessed using the least squares method. The results, along with multiple correlation and determination coefficients, are shown in Table 18.5. The assessment of the parameters of the model (flexibility) helps to draw conclusions about the strength of the impact of each of the variables on the volume of mutual trade of the examined countries. Profit flexibilities of export (a1 ) and import (a2 ) assume positive levels. The national income of partner countries has a positive, significant impact on trade. An increase in national income of 1% results in an increase in exports of 0.42% and imports of 0.85%. The flexibility of imports in relation to changes in the national income of the importing country (a2 ) is about 0.43 higher than the profit flexibility of exports. This leads to the conclusion that mutual trade in the examined group of countries is more dependent on the national income of the importing country than that of the exporting one. Population export flexibility (a3 ) and population import flexibility (a4 ) are opposite values. The population variable of the exporting country has a significant positive impact on export flows, while the population variable of the importing country has a negligible and negative impact on trade. The distance flexibility of exports and imports (a5 ) is negative. This means that, as the distance increases, on average, the turnover decreases. The absolute value of this parameter is 1.03, which indicates a significant impact on trade. This conclusion is well-founded because geographical distance is a good substitute for transport costs and transport time and also indirectly reflects cultural distance or market knowledge. The value of the parameter for the neighbourhood variable (a6 ) is negligible and positive (0.24), which implies that, for the analysed group of countries, the fact that they are neighbours has little positive impact on the

0.4233 (0.1000)

a1

0.8519 (0.1000)

a2

0.2522 (0.1249)

a3

a5 −1.0335 (0.1093)

a4 −0.1177 (0.1249) 0.2358 (0.2128)

a6 0.3071 (0.2691)

a7 0.8779

Multiple correlation coefficient (R)

Note Statistically significant values are highlighted in bold; estimates of parameter evaluation errors are given in brackets * a˘ 0 = lna0 · a0 = ea˘ 0 = 1207,1289

7.0960 (0.7679)

a˘ 0

*

Parameter assessment

Table 18.5 Results of estimations of the gravity model parameters

77.08%

Explained variance R2 ×100

452 H. Ma´ckowiak

18 Changes in the Spatial and Commodity …

453

Table 18.6 Poland’s trade turnover as a percentage of expected turnover in 2018 Country

Polish exports as a percentage of expected exports

Polish imports as a percentage of expected imports

Germany

103.0

178.9

Czech Republic

198.2

160.7

United Kingdom

101.3

70.3

France

86.4

111.5

Italy

87.9

170.6

Netherlands

123.6

255.7

Russia

71.5

141.5

USA

62.4

95.2

Sweden

67.7

81.6

Hungary

149.8

105.7

Slovakia

154.3

161.5

Spain

116.0

156.4

Total

101.9

149.2

Source Computations on the basis of levels of trade flows according to the World Bank from https:// wits.worldbank.org/WITS/WITS/Restricted/Login.aspx (access: 11 June 2020) and levels of trade flows calculated from the model (18.2)

level of mutual exchange. Due to the fact that as many as 11 out of 13 countries of the analysed group belong to the European Union (EU), the effect of integration (a7 ) is only slightly visible. The value of a7 parameter indicates that mutual preferences (the pair of countries being EU member states), the turnover is slightly more than 1.2 times higher9 than in the case of such links being absent. After entering the values of parameters and explanatory variables into the Eq. (18.2), theoretical (expected) values of trade flows between each pair of countries in 2018 were calculated. In this way, the model used made it possible to determine the expected trade volumes of Poland with its 12 main partners and to compare the expected and actual trade volumes (Table 18.6). Analysis of the results obtained for Poland must take into account the ‘conditions of trade’ that Poland had in relation to its partners. Poland’s gross domestic product in 2018 was USD 586 billion, i.e. was almost five times lower than the average GDP for the examined group of countries (USD 2,915.1 billion). The average (unweighted) distance of Poland from its trade partners included in the study was 1537.6 km and was about 24% smaller than the average distance calculated for all the analysed countries (2035 km). Poland’s trade turnover with individual EU countries was assigned preferences which occurred in intra-EU trade. The volume of Poland’s turnover with five trade partners was influenced by Poland’s being a neighbour of those countries. It follows from the above that Poland’s ‘trade conditions’ were slightly worse than average. 9

As 20,3071 = 1.2372.

454

H. Ma´ckowiak

Theoretical values very close to the actual values occurred in the case of Polish exports to Germany and the United Kingdom (Table 18.6). It follows that Poland’s export to these countries is comparable to the average export for all the countries studied. The much lower than average level of Poland’s GDP was fully compensated by the relatively high partners’ GDP and to some extent by the fact that the three countries belong to the same inclusive group. An important factor influencing the volume of turnover between the partners was the distance, much bigger between Poland and the United Kingdom than between Poland and Germany (direct neighbourhood). The impact of this factor may have been stronger in this case than the size of the estimated parameter and may have significantly differentiated the target values of Polish imports from these countries. Hence, the actual value of Poland’s imports from Germany was significantly higher than expected, while Poland’s actual imports from the UK were clearly below expected import levels (Table 18.6). Theoretical turnover much lower than actual was observed in Poland’s trade with the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Spain, and Hungary (Table 18.6). This means that in 2018 Poland had relatively lively trade relations with these partners, clearly indicating its presence as a country engaged in exporting to their markets. This could indicate that in fact the strength of preferences (EU membership) in trade between Poland and these countries is greater than the average strength of preferences. In addition, the higher value of actual rather than theoretical trade between Poland and the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary may imply that the geographical distance and the fact that they are neighbours have in this case a stronger impact on the level of mutual exchange than would be implied by the values of the distance and neighbourhood variable parameters for the group of 13 countries under consideration. The cooperation taking place within the Visegrad Group should be seen as an additional factor favourably influencing the volume of Poland’s actual trade with the above countries. The theoretical trade of Poland with the USA and Sweden was higher than in reality (Table 18.6). On this basis, it can be concluded that trade between Poland and these countries was below the level one would expect at a given national income, population, and distance. This leads to the conclusion that in 2018, there was a possibility (need) for a further increase in trade between Poland and the above countries. This is particularly evident in Poland’s exports to the USA, which only represented around 62% of expected exports. Such a high level of theoretical exports to the USA was due to the very high level of US GDP (over seven times the average GDP), with a distance of less than three and a half times the average. A comparison of the theoretical and actual turnover obtained in Poland’s trade with Russia, France, and Italy shows that the actual values of Poland’s export to those countries were lower than the theoretical values, while the actual import of Poland from those countries (especially from Italy and Russia) remained clearly above the expected import level (Table 18.6). The above indicates that Poland recorded relatively dynamic imports from these countries, but did not take advantage of the hypothetical opportunities for export development. The model used is descriptive, well suited for determining the relative underestimation or overvaluation of trade within a group of countries. However, the model

18 Changes in the Spatial and Commodity …

455

does not answer the question whether the designated turnover is optimal. It can only be assumed that if the theoretical turnover is higher than the actual one, this is a disadvantageous phenomenon, because it means that a country does not benefit from the international division of labour. Taking into account in the study mutual trade turnover of 13 countries in 2018, it was found that in seven cases the actual exports of Poland and in nine cases the actual imports of Poland were higher than the theoretical values (Table 18.6). Poland used the potential export opportunities in its trade with: Germany, the Czech Republic, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Hungary, Slovakia, and Spain. These opportunities were not fully exploited in the trade exchange with Russia, USA, Sweden, France, and Italy.

18.6 Commodity Structure of Poland’s Foreign Trade The changes in the geographical structure were matched by changes in the commodity structure of Poland’s foreign trade. These resulted mainly from the process of transformation of the entire economy and changes in global demand. The analysis of the structure of Poland’s foreign trade in goods is hampered by changes in the presentation of data on foreign trade in goods, which took place in the Polish foreign trade statistics in the analysed period.10 Hence, Table 18.7 showcases the commodity structure of Poland’s foreign trade in the 1989–1995 period by groups of sectors. In turn, Table 18.8, for a more precise identification of the subsequent trend of change, presents the commodity structure of Poland’s trade with its main partners (from the EU as a group, with the most important trade partner among EU countries, i.e. Germany, and with the most important trade partner outside the EU, i.e. Russia)

10

Until the mid-1990s, the structure of foreign trade was presented mainly taking into account the division of the economy into groups of sectors, sectors and industries according to the Systematic List of Commodities. This classification was abandoned due to the change of the classification of economic activity in Poland in 1993: from the Classification of National Economy of Statistics Poland (GUS) to the Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community (NACE). From 1 January 1992 to 31 December 1993, the Polish foreign trade statistics used the Combined (8-digit) Nomenclature of Foreign Trade (CN), which is the basis of the European Customs and Commodity Classification. From 1 January 1994 to 30 April 2004, the Polish Combined Nomenclature of Foreign Trade of the PCN was in force, being a continuation of the CN nomenclature (extended by the ninth digit). Since 1 May 2004, foreign trade in goods has been presented according to the 8-digit CN Combined Nomenclature, based on the 6-digit Harmonised Commodity Description and Coding System (HS) and constitutes the basic commodity classification for all foreign trade.

456

H. Ma´ckowiak

Table 18.7 Commodity structure of Poland’s foreign trade by sector groups in 1989–1995 (%) Sector group

Poland’s exports 1989

1991

Poland’s imports 1995

1989

1991

1995

Fuel and energy industry

10.2

11.2

8.0

12.4

18.7

9.2

Metallurgical industry

11.1

16.7

12.2

8.8

4.2

5.8

Electrical machinery industry

40.8

23.5

27.6

36.3

37.4

35.1

Chemical industry

11.2

12.2

11.4

15.2

12.6

19.2

Mining industry

1.4

3.6

3.2

1.3

1.7

2.6

Wood and paper industry (incl. furniture)

3.1

6.9

11.3

1.9

2.5

4.7

Light industry

5.9

6.4

14.1

7.6

6.1

10

Food industry

10.2

10.5

8.5

9.5

10.5

6.8

Remaining industry sectors

0.6

1.3

0.9

1.7

3.1

2.7

Agriculture produce

4.4

6.9

2.5

4.9

3.1

3.5

Forestry produce

0.3

0.5

0.2

0.1

0

0.1

Remaining

0.8

0.3

0.1

0.3

0.1

0.3

Source Calculations and elaboration based on Foreign Trade Statistical Yearbooks for 1992 and 1996, Statistics Poland, Warsaw

in 2005 and 2018, by commodity groups,11 matching in large measure the earlier division into groups of sectors. The changes that took place in 1989–1995 in the commodity structure of Poland’s foreign trade proved greater in exports than in imports (Table 18.7). The abandonment of centralised economic management and the disintegration of the Eastern European market (functioning within the Comecon Council) laid bare the low competitiveness of many Polish goods (excessive production costs and low quality of products as compared to those of developed countries) and the relatively low degree of connectivity between the economy and the international market. There was a marked decrease in the exports share of the electrical machinery industry products (Table 18.7), previously regarded as a showcase of the Polish economy, sold mainly to socialist countries. On the other hand, a significant increase in the share in exports 11

Based on the CN classification (22 sections), the following 11 product groups are distinguished: agri-foodstuffs (Sections 1–4 i.e.: live animals and animal products; vegetable products; fats and oils; and food preparations), mineral products (Section 5), products of the chemical industry (Sections 6–7 i.e.: products of the chemical industry; plastics and plastic products), leather (Section 8), products of the wood and paper industry (Sections 9–10: wood and wooden items; wood pulp, paper, cardboard, and related items), products of the light industry (Sections 11–12: textiles and textile products; footwear and headgear), ceramics (Sections 13 and 14: articles of stone, ceramics, glass; pearls, precious stones, precious metals, and articles thereof), metallurgical products (Section 15), products of the electrical machinery industry (Sections 16–18: manufacture of machinery and equipment, electrical and electrotechnical engineering equipment; transport equipment; optical, photographic, measuring and control instruments, and apparatus), miscellaneous products (Sections 19–21 i.e.: arms and ammunition; furniture, prefabricated buildings, toys; works of art, collectors’ items, and antiques), and others (Section 22).

5.4 5.1 2.3 10.3 38.4 7.9

9.6 0.7 5.7 5.1 2.3 12 40.8 7.9 0

Wood and paper industry products

Light industry products

Ceramic products

Metallurgical products

Products of the electrical machinery industry

Miscellaneous products (including furniture)

Others 0

10.4

37.6

14.5

2.1

5.9

6.2

0.9

8.2

0

8.9

37.5

10.7

1.9

7.5

6.6

0.4

13.5

0.3

4

30.4

10.3

4.1

5.1

11.4

0.2

22.2

0.3

4.9

42.6

7.6

1.7

5.2

4.3

0.0

25.2

0.9

0

1.9

39.3

13.3

1.9

5.1

5.4

1.0

21.9

3.6

6.5

0.4

2.4

38.3

13

1.7

3.8

4.8

0.5

21.9

2.8

10.4

Source Own calculations based on Foreign Trade Statistical Yearbooks for 2006 and 2019, Statistics Poland, Warsaw

0.1

0.4

13.6

0.5

11.5

7.4

Leather

1.6

11.4

Chemical industry products

5.2

9

6.2

2.9

13.6

9.6

2018

Mineral products

2005

Agri-foodstuffs

2018

EU

2005

2005

2018

2005

2018

Poland’s imports Russia

Germany

Poland’s exports

Commodity group EU

0

1.8

42.9

14.6

1.7

4.2

5.6

0.5

21

3.2

4.5

2005

Germany

0

2.8

41.9

13.1

1.6

4.2

4.9

0.3

19.9

3

8.2

2018

Table 18.8 Commodity structure of Poland’s trade exchange with main partners by commodity groups in the years 2005 and 2018 (%)

0

14.8

0.9

3.7

0.1

0.1

1

0.0

3.4

75.6

0.5

2005

Russia

0.1

12.6

1.3

8.3

0.5

0.1

1.3

0.0

7.0

67.6

1.2

2018

18 Changes in the Spatial and Commodity … 457

458

H. Ma´ckowiak

in that period was recorded for products of the wood and paper industry (including mainly furniture) and light industry (including mainly clothing) (Table 18.7). In the commodity structure of Polish imports, in the period 1989–1995, a high share of products of the electrical machinery industry was maintained, the role of the chemical industry increased, and that of the fuel and energy industry declined (Table 18.7). The decrease in the share in imports of the latter industry was connected with the decrease in oil prices on global markets. On a plus side, the structure of import distribution in the 1990s showed a clear increase in the share of investment imports, which served to modernise and boost the production and export potential of the Polish economy. This was reflected in the modernisation of the structure of Polish exports to major partners in the following years (Table 18.8). The passenger car and furniture industries, reinforced by foreign capital, became one of the most dynamic industries in the Polish economy and in Polish exports. The above changes are confirmed by the list of goods dominant in Polish exports in 1989 and 2018 (according to Statistics Poland). In 1989, the main export commodities were: hard coal, hot-rolled finished products, and copper, while in 2018, the main export commodities were: car parts and accessories, passenger cars, and furniture. Analysing the commodity structure of Poland’s trade exchange with its main partners in 2005 and 2018, an assessment was also made of the degree of intra- and inter-industry specialisations of this exchange. For this purpose, the Grubel-Lloyd index was used, which follows the formula (Zieli´nska–Gł˛ebocka 1996; Ma´ckowiak 2003): n Bi =

i=1

[(X i + Mi ) − |X i − Mi |] n i=1 (X i + Mi )

(18.3)

where X i —Poland’s exports in the i section to a given country (countries), M i —Poland’s imports in the i section from a given country (countries), n—number of sections taken into account in the calculations. The size of the Bi indicator varies between 0 and 1. The Bi indicator equals 1 when the volume of imports equals the volume of exports in each commodity section under consideration, which is the case for a country that shows full intra-industry specialisation. Bi equals 0 when exports (imports) are not accompanied by imports (exports) in trade within each commodity section under consideration, which in turn refers to a country with full inter-industry specialisation. This indicator may also show the evolution of specialisation in international trade. An increase in the indicator (to a range or within a range of 0.5–1) over the period considered is supposed to indicate the development of intra-industry specialisation, whereas a decrease in the indicator (within a range of 0–0.5 or up to this range) is meant to indicate the development of inter-industry specialisation. The calculations were made for the CN section. The results are presented in Table 18.9.

18 Changes in the Spatial and Commodity … Table 18.9 Index of intra-industry and inter-industry specialisations in trade between Poland and main partners in 2005 and 2018

459

Trade partners 2005 2018 Change in the years 2005–2018 EU

0.82

0.82

+0.00(12)

Germany

0.78

0.85

+0.07

Russia

0.14

0.20

+0.06

Source Own calculations based on Foreign Trade Statistical Yearbooks for 2006 and 2019, Statistics Poland, Warsaw

The development of economic cooperation between Poland and its main trade partner Germany in the 1990s reflected a high degree of complementarity in terms of the supply of production factors and varied efficiency of their use (Ma´ckowiak 2013a: 78). At that time, the trade between these countries was dominated by inter-industry trade, whose characteristic feature was the occurrence of qualitative asymmetry to the detriment of Poland. Polish exporters specialised in land, labour, and raw materialsintensive products, often little processed; Poland had a comparative advantage in the trade in such commodities. Polish imports from Germany were dominated by capital-intensive products, highly processed and technologically advanced. A similar situation occurred in Poland’s trade with most of the then EU countries (EU-15). The liberalisation of trade with the EU as a result of Poland signing the Europe Agreement, Poland’s accession to the OECD, the inflow of foreign capital (Weresa 2001: 71–83) and Poland’s accession to the EU were all processes that contributed to the reduction of relative differences in resources and prices of production factors between Poland and Germany and Poland and the entire EU. As a result, the structure of Polish exports to Germany and the EU as a whole was modernised (Table 18.8) and made more similar to that of intra-EU trade. There was an intensification of intra-industry trade (particularly visible in relation to the automotive industry), characteristic of industrialised countries. In the years 2005–2018, the rate of intra-industrial trade with Germany increased (Table 18.9). The high level of the index in exchange with the whole EU at that time (Table 18.9) shows the real integration of Poland with this group of countries. It is worth noting, however, that despite an increase in the share of chemical industry products (considered as a driver of technological progress) in exports to the EU and Germany in the period 2005–2018, the share of these products in exports was still significantly lower than in imports (Table 18.8). Among other changes that took place in the structure of Poland’s trade with the EU and Germany in that period, the following merit special attention: an increase in the share in exports and imports of agri-food products and a decrease in the share in exports of metallurgical products and mineral products (Table 18.8). The structure of the Polish–Russian trade in the 1990s was characterised by a significant decrease in the share of exports and imports of electrical machinery products (including the effect of the collapse of the Comecon and the gradual shift of the Polish manufacturing system to Western technologies) and a clear increase in the share in exports of agri-food products (Ma´ckowiak 2003: 117–118, 121–122). In the following years, the above trends in the structure of exports to Russia were reversed— i.e. the share of products from the electrical machinery and chemical industries grew

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and the share of agri-food products fell (Table 18.8). Although the rules of trade with Russia changed after Poland’s accession to the EU, as Błaszczuk-Zawiła notes (2014: 27), this had little impact on the size and structure of Polish–Russian trade. An important factor was the economic situation in Russia. In the relatively strong dynamics of exports of electrical machinery products in 2005–2018 (taking into account the drop in exports in 2009 and 2014–2016), a large role was played by international corporations and by Polish companies collaborating with them. The relatively weaker dynamics of Polish exports of agri-food products than in the case of electro-machinery products in that period was caused by numerous non-tariff barriers applied by Russia to these exports. The changes in the structure of Polish exports to Russia in the period 2005–2018 were also influenced by the decrease in the share of wood and paper products (Table 18.8). In 2018, as a result of the above transformations, about 68% of Polish exports to Russia were highly processed products (from the electrical machinery and chemical industries) (Table 18.8). The structure of imports from Russia was completely different, with an exceptionally strong concentration, as about three quarters of Polish purchases in 2005 and over two thirds in 2018 concerned mineral products (crude oil and natural gas) (Table 18.8). Hence, the results of Polish imports from Russia were determined by changes in world prices of raw materials exported by Russia. Among the remaining commodity groups, the import of miscellaneous products (mainly works of art, collector’s items, and antiques) and metallurgical products was of the greatest importance in 2005–2018 (Table 18.8). The exchange with Russia therefore took place according to inter-industry principles (Table 18.9). Russia’s special place in trade with Poland stemmed both from the country’s importance in importing mineral products into Poland and from its potential extensive markets.

18.7 Summary The launch of the transformation of the social and economic system opened up the Polish economy to international ties through, among other things, a dynamic increase in trade exchange, which was particularly evident in the second decade of the transition period. The strong dynamics of exports was reflected in a significant increase in the role of exports in the creation of Poland’s GDP and an increase in Poland’s share in world trade between 1989 and 2018. The inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) to Poland contributed to the development of production, modernisation of the Polish economy and resulted, from 2002 onwards, in the predominant share of entities with foreign capital in the value of Polish exports. This was mainly due to a much stronger export orientation of entities with foreign capital than domestic companies, resulting from the high competitiveness of these entities (often branches of transnational corporations) and their extensive production and trade networks in leading markets.

18 Changes in the Spatial and Commodity …

461

The spatial and commodity structure of Polish foreign trade changed in the period under review. These changes resulted mainly from the process of transformation of the entire Polish economy and structural transformations in the global economy. The general trend of changes in the geographical structure of Poland’s foreign trade was towards closer integration with the economies of highly developed countries, mainly European Union member states. The strong geographical reorientation of Polish foreign trade from east to west in the first half of the 1990s was a result of the collapse of the eastern market (liquidation of the Comecon Council) and the qualitative changes taking place in Poland along with the ongoing process of transformation of the Polish economy. Since 1990, Polish foreign trade has been dominated by EU countries, with Germany being the main partner. The liberalisation of mutual turnover as a result of the Europe Agreement (the effect of creating and shifting trade), followed by Poland’s accession to the EU (Poland also became a member of the customs union) were factors determining the tightening of Poland’s trade links with EU countries. The changing shares of the analysed groups of countries (primarily including EU countries, Central and Eastern European countries, and developing countries) and individual countries in Poland’s foreign trade in the period from mid-1990s to 2018 were also a consequence of the geographically diverse dynamics of Poland’s trade turnover, related to the changing global economic situation and Poland’s main trading partners. The trade policy applied by Russia towards Poland (numerous non-tariff barriers in Polish agri-food exports) was also important in the case of the dynamics of exports to that country. The reason for the relative weakening of German dominance in Polish foreign trade, especially in exports in the period 2003–2018, should be related primarily to the intensification of Polish exports to other EU countries (after Poland’s accession to the EU), mainly to the Visegrad Group countries (this led to an increase in the share of these countries, primarily the Czech Republic, in Polish exports). Secondly, the degree of diversification of the directions of Polish exports has clearly increased at that time, although it is still (as of 2018) lower than Poland’s imports. The steadily growing share of China in Polish imports over the period under review was largely responsible for the growing deficit in Poland’s trade balance with developing countries. The growing surplus of intraEU trade since 2005 demonstrates the importance of the absence of trade barriers for the competitiveness of Polish exports. The first years of transformation highlighted the low competitiveness of many Polish goods. This is why there was a clear fall in the share of exports of electromechanical industry products previously sold mainly to the markets of socialist countries. However, the share of exports of products from the light industry and the wood and paper industry increased; products from the mining industry were relatively important. The strong dynamics of investment imports in the 1990s contributed to the modernisation of both the Polish economy and the structure of Polish exports in subsequent years. The passenger vehicle and furniture industries, strengthened by foreign capital, became one of the most dynamic sectors in Polish exports. The share of chemical and agri-food products increased. The products of the light and mining industries lost their importance. In the exchange with the main partner Germany and

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other EU countries, in the period 2005–2018, there was an intensification of intraindustry trade (especially visible in the automotive industry), which proves the real integration of Poland with this group of countries. At that time Poland’s exchange with its main trading partner outside the EU, i.e. Russia followed inter-industry principles. An attempt to explain the geographical distribution of Poland’s foreign trade turnover by means of the gravity model (taking into account in the study mutual trade turnover of 13 countries, i.e. Poland and 12 main trade partners in its exports) showed a strong negative correlation of the distance with the volume of turnover and a significant positive impact of the GDP of an importing and exporting country on the level of mutual exchange. It was found that in 2018 Poland used the potential export opportunities in its trade with Germany, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Hungary, Slovakia, and Spain. These opportunities were not fully tapped in terms of trade with Russia, USA, Sweden, France, and Italy.

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Chapter 19

The Ins and Outs of the Labour Market Józef Orczyk and Marcin Wo´zniak

Abstract At the beginning of the 1990s, the Polish labour market suffered from several common problems that face a transition economy. Due to the sudden introduction of the twin forces of supply and demand, the unemployment rate grew dynamically together with inflation. Many households wavered on the cusp of the poverty line. At that time, a large number of Polish citizens decided to migrate towards rich western economies. In 2004, when Poland accessed the European Union, the unemployment rate was still high and persistent. As a result of the opened borders, the migration outflow rose again. Since that time the situation has started to change slowly. During the Great Recession of 2009, the Polish economy resisted a global breakdown and managed to reach the level of 5.1% growth of GDP in 2018 which was the highest amongst the EU countries. Since 2011, there has also been an increase in the migration inflow to Poland. At present, Poland is willingly chosen as a destination country by economic migrants especially from Eastern Europe. Therefore, the aim of this chapter is to investigate and statistically assess the factors that shape the Polish labour market and related migration flows. Regression analysis suggests that demographics as well as institutional and income variables seem to have a major impact at regional level in this respect. In the medium term, this may lead to the rise of the more dynamic (wealthier) and more stagnant (poorer) parts of Poland in terms of economic development. Keywords Labour market · Migration · Unemployment · Transition economy · Panel models

J. Orczyk WSB University, Powsta´nców Wielkopolskich 5, 61-895 Pozna´n, Poland e-mail: [email protected] M. Wo´zniak (B) Faculty of Human Geography and Planning, Adam Mickiewicz University, B. Krygowskiego 10, 61-608 Pozna´n, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Churski and T. Kaczmarek (eds.), Three Decades of Polish Socio-economic Transformations, Economic Geography, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06108-0_19

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19.1 Introduction The situation on the labour market is created by the ratio of the number of jobseekers to the number of jobs. Changes in these relationships are influenced by endogenous and exogenous variables. Their significance is not only short but also medium-term. When dealing with the labour market and migration from, and immigration to, Poland in the post-accession period, it is also worth taking into account more historically distant phenomena. Such phenomena not only had an impact on the assessment of the entire transformation of the labour market in Poland, but also affected its course and the reactions of the entities shaping them. In Poland, the period of 1947–1990 was dominated by the so-called socialist, or centrally planned and managed, economy; therefore, a regular labour market was absent at that time. The economic system then assumed maximisation of employment as the foundations of economic prosperity and the dictate of the state in determining remuneration. The number of employees in Poland had increased steadily since the end of the war to the beginning of the eighties. The peak of employment throughout the entire post-war period was reached in the early eighties, despite the fact that emigration from Poland intensified in the seventies. Those times were dominated by the so-called settlement emigration, mainly to Germany. That said, during the 1980s another form of emigration intensified; one that can be described as the emigration of necessity and opportunity. Its source lay in the political situation in Poland, as well as in the deep economic crisis, including the living conditions of the population. As a result, there was an unwritten consent from the Polish authorities to let the citizens leave the country, as well as social willingness to help immigrants from Poland in Western countries. Approximately 1.3 million inhabitants, i.e. around 3% of the total population, left Poland. According to estimates from 1981 to 1988, over 16% of emigrants were people with higher education. Poland was abandoned by over 70,000 highly qualified specialists (engineers, doctors, economists and scientists) at that time. Meanwhile, it was mainly young people who emigrated; they did not see the possibility of pursuing a professional career ensuring good living conditions in Poland. After the rapid political changes in 1990 and the related economic transition, the situation changed radically. The labour market had to be rebuilt to adapt to the market economy. In response, the Polish economy faced high structural unemployment, and emigration became one way to reduce it. However, it had other characteristics than the emigration in the eighties. It was mostly short term (usually several months), spontaneous economic emigration to European countries, organised with the help of family members, friends or private intermediaries, often without any attempt to legalise work. The migrants were mostly people who had lost their jobs as a result of the collapse of the enterprises in which they had previously worked or whose income was not enough to support their family. Most of those outgoing were employees undertaking various ad-hoc low-skilled jobs. The most numerous group of emigrants was that of young men. At the end of the nineties, it was estimated that about 550,000 Polish citizens per year worked abroad, and about one quarter of

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Fig. 19.1 Unemployment rate in Poland 01.1991–03.2020. Source Own elaboration based on Statistics Poland data

them did so illegally. The scale of this emigration was variable, whilst the regions or towns of origin were quite clearly defined. It is also worth noting that at the same time, there were quite frequent returns from abroad of people with qualifications and acquaintances that they wanted to use in their home country.1

19.2 Labour Market Performance and Migration Flows The labour market in Poland in the ’90s was characterised by a rapidly growing unemployment rate that reached 17% in 1994 (Fig. 19.1). The reality of the early years of the transition economy was painful for a large share of Poles who had lost their jobs overnight, had to face hyperinflation or deal with “wild” privatisation (Slay 2000). However, at that time Poland was perceived as an emerging market success story at the EU level—mainly due to the neoliberal Balcerowicz Plan that assumed shock treatment to put the national economy on the straight path to the free market (Adam 1994). Unfortunately, it was hardly a consolation for the average citizen struggle to make ends meet. In the beginning of 2000s, Poland was still a country with a very high and persistent unemployment rate reaching 20% which was the highest in the EU at that time. The long-term unemployed2 constituted about 40% of job-seekers. This state of affairs had serious economic, social and psychological consequences amongst Polish society, and resulted in an extensive GDP gap, deterioration of human capital and social marginalisation of individuals as well as entire groups (e.g. Szylko-Skoczny 2004).

1

The section was based on the following studies: Kozielska (2014), Kolarska-Bobi´nska (2007), Nowak-Lewandowska (2005) and Stola (2001). See references for further details. 2 According to Polish law, long-term unemployed is a person who has been seeking a job for more than 12 months.

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Fig. 19.2 Unemployment share (%) amongst the active population in the EU. Source Own studies based on the Labor Force Survey, Eurostat

Luckily, since 2004 (EU accession) there has been a continuous improvement in the economic conditions and labour market performance. The unemployment rate dropped to 8.8% in September 2008. Unlike other European countries, even the financial crisis of 2007–2009 did not significantly dent the Polish economy and after a period of slight increase, the unemployment rate started to fall again to the lowest historical level of 5% in the end of 2019. For comparison purposes, in Fig. 19.2 we present unemployment throughout the EU in three time perspectives. In general, there has been an overall improvement in the majority of national labour markets; however, Poland made the biggest shift during 2004–2019 (Δ 15%). The indicator reflects the scale of economic changes in Poland since EU accession. It is worth mentioning that the process of Poland’s accession to the European Union started at the end of the nineties and was associated with major changes in citizens’ awareness as well as in the conditions of real migration. This was expressed not only by certain institutional changes but also by the fact that the baby-boomers of the early eighties entered the stage of economic activity. In the circumstances of continued structural reforms in Poland, this caused difficulties in finding a job and contributed to an increase in unemployment. The low level of remuneration of large groups of employees in the country did not stimulate an increase in employment in services and the scale of internal migration. The diversity of income favoured an increased scale of migration outflow. As a result, upon accession, one of the most spectacular phenomena was the mass migration outflow of Polish citizens (mainly young people) towards Western European countries (e.g. Grabowska-Lusi´nska 2004; Okólski and Salt 2014). The introduction of the free migration regime was a turning point for many citizens who started to look for better jobs and living opportunities abroad—Fig. 19.3. The total migration outflow between 2004 and 2018 from Poland was estimated at 2,000,000–2,500,000 people (Census 2011; NBP 2018) and is perceived as the largest movement in the contemporary history of the EU (Kaczmarczyk and Okólski 2008). According to the Eurostat data, until 2004 the most popular emigration destination

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Fig. 19.3 Total migration outflows from Poland (above 5000 citizens, the EU countries). Source Own studies based on Eurostat data

had been Germany with 326,000 Polish citizens. After joining the EU, Poles spread all across Europe and become an important part of the labour force amongst leading European economies. In 2019, Polish emigrants numbered 919,000 in England and Ireland and 775,000 in Germany (second place in the ranking). As a result, by 2008 Poles had become the most numerous group of emigrants in Great Britain and Ireland. The number of Polish citizens also increased amongst Scandinavian countries. In other words, the growth in migration outflow from Poland occurred mainly in relation to the countries that had (also) opened their labour markets for new member countries after 2004. In this case, emigration was both temporary and permanent. Poles initially undertook simple jobs mainly, not only to earn, but also to increase the chance of using their vocational qualifications. It is worth noting the differences in the structure of emigrants’ education. In the case of Great Britain, there was a dominance of young people, mostly men with secondary education. Their advantage was basic knowledge of English and the ability to quickly adapt to the labour market demand. Those who worked in their own professions were mainly people with vocational education and partly with secondary and higher education. In the case of Germany, where a large number of people left in search of work, it was still mainly circular emigration, i.e. related to periodic returns to Poland. For this destination, there was a prevalence of people with lower formal education, but also with more advanced vocational training. In relation to other countries, the gender structure of Polish migrants was more evenly distributed. The exception was Italy, where the majority of emigrants were women. The period of the rapid increase in the number of people leaving Poland in search of work after joining the Union ended in 2007. According to estimates, in 2007 there were 2270 thousand temporary residents abroad (including 1870 thousand within the EU). This means a 250% increase when compared to 2004. The change took place in 2011. At that time, there was another increase in the number of temporary emigrants from Poland, which lasted until 2017. At that time, over 2.5 million Poles, i.e. around 10% of the working age population, stayed abroad for more than 3 months, of whom 2.1 million worked in EU countries.

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It is worth noting that the growth dynamics of number of temporary emigrants in 2011–2017 were, however, much slower than in 2004–2008. Whilst in the years 2004–2007 immigration increased by more than a million people, in 2010–2017 it increased by more than half a million individuals. Norway became a significantly more popular work destination in those years. During this period, there was also a steady increase in the number of Polish emigrants in Germany and the Netherlands. In the case of Great Britain, 2018 (Brexit) was a kind of watershed—there has been a decrease in the number of Poles working periodically in this country, whilst earlier this phenomenon had occurred in relation to Ireland. Since 2019, we have been observing a gradual reduction in the number of temporary emigrants from Poland. Surveys amongst those leaving Poland for more than three months (Chmielewska et al. 2019) indicate that the most frequently declared reason for leaving the country was the desire to obtain a higher income along with the prospect of returning to Poland. Other reasons were disappointment or fatigue with the economic situation in Poland, especially difficulties in finding a job. The declaration of willingness to discover another culture and language was also significant. It may be interesting that a relatively small percentage of respondents declared family as a reason for leaving. In turn, the dynamics of immigration to Poland were completely different than those connected with emigration. For a long period after 1990, temporary emigration to Poland was marginal. Also the scale of official immigration was not high. This changed after Poland’s accession to the European Union. In the case of Ukraine, a major inflow of migrants began upon intensification of the country’s conflict with Russia, which led to a clear reduction in the wage ratio in Ukraine compared to that in Poland. In 2016–2018, the average earnings in Ukraine fell below the minimum wage in Poland. The jump in employment of Ukrainians and other immigrants was accompanied by an increase in overall employment and the national income of Poland. It was associated with two aspects: a) a significant increase in the share of immigrants in employment, especially in the seasonal jobs and services; b) some legal facilitations of seasonal immigration of Eastern European residents to Poland, which favoured the legalisation of work (especially in the sphere of insurance). As a consequence, wages in the economy were maintained at a lower level, which was related, amongst others, to the low level of salaries of immigrants. In 2019, despite the anti-immigration rhetoric of the government, Poland became the most popular target destination for many Eastern-European citizens that perceived it as a part of Europe. A synthetic reflection of the importance of economic immigration to Poland is the fact that, according to official data, the money transfers of Ukrainians and other foreigners working in Poland since 2016 exceeded the money transfers of Polish emigrants to Poland.3 Figure 19.4 presents the most popular migration inflows for Poland in 2019. As a summary of this section, the general evolution of the Polish and EU labour markets shall be illustrated and interpreted with the Beveridge curve (e.g. Blanchard and Diamond 1990). The curve expresses the negative correlation between 3

There is a general agreement that the most profitable migrants from the perspective of the origin country are short-term immigrants. They accumulate capital abroad but spend it in their homeland.

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Fig. 19.4 The main directions of migration inflows to Poland in 2019. Source Own studies based on the Office for Foreigners data

the number of vacancies and the number of unemployed (Bouvet 2012). Interpretation of the position of the curve in a given time makes it possible to identify the moment of the business cycle at which an economy is situated; in the long term, in a two-dimensional system coordinates it “loops” in the opposite direction to that of the clock (Benati and Lubik 2014). In Fig. 19.5, an empirical Beveridge curve for Poland and the EU was plotted with starting and ending time labels. Both unemployment and vacancy rates are subject to large fluctuations in Poland and European Union with the cross correlation coefficient of about -0.25 which is widely explained by economic theory (e.g. Hornstein et al. 2005). During the last 10 years, the Polish economy shifted down and left towards the origin of the coordinate system. These fluctuations were the derivative of changes in the condition of firms (job creation and job destruction processes) as well as the labour market dynamics (the evolution of the labour force share). The observed shift is connected with a drop in the unemployment rate as well as the decrease in vacancy ratio. Thus, the equilibrium of late 2019 is the result of higher employment, relatively high labour demand and a small base of unemployed persons. Due to the short time period, the general “looping” tendency of the curve has not been observed in the case of Poland. At the same time, the EU countries came almost a full circle with the equilibrium point at 2019 close to that from 2007 just before the financial crisis. It may indicate the peak of the business cycle and forthcoming recession at an EU level that would be strengthened with the recent COVID-19 pandemic.

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Fig. 19.5 Empirical Beveridge curve for Poland and the EU-28 average for 2007Q1–2019Q4 (Because of data availability, the time span 2007–2019 is presented). Source Own studies based on Eurostat data

19.3 Revealing the Ins and Outs The general analysis of the indicators from the previous section demonstrates that the Polish economy has grown by leaps and bounds mainly since the EU accession in 2004. The fact is that the recent GDP growth is one of the highest in Europe and, in parallel, the unemployment rate is at a low-historical level. Eastern-European immigrants are likely to come to Poland more than ever before and significantly contribute to the performances of the national labour market. Even the recent COVID19 global pandemic shock doesn’t seem to be hitting the Polish economy particularly harshly in the short-run. All these phenomena may provide strong evidence for the good performances of the Polish labour market and indeed are widely used in public debate. However, some deeper insight into the background must be made to get a wider perspective. The fact is that Poland’s economic situation results from a few economically important external factors that have their origin in the near or more distant past. Moreover, the simultaneous occurrence of these factors was mainly the result of fortunate coincidence rather than deliberate action. First of all, the demographic situation in Poland is still highly beneficial. The huge baby boom of the 80s entered the labour market in the early 2000s with lofty aspirations connected to education, work, standards of living and consumption (e.g. Włodarczyk and Sikorska 2017; Czarnik et al. 2019). This resulted, inter alia, in large-scale mortgage lending as well as a rise in the general level of indebts. A large

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capital flow was pumped into the national economy and together with the increase in economic activity and bloom in the real estate sector, it has impacted its boost. The second are income factors that primarily include salaries which, despite the dynamic growth of recent years, still remain amongst the lowest in the EU4 (Eurostat 2019). Moreover, the wage share in GDP was 10% lower than the EU average (World Bank 2018) which is the evidence of a dispersion in income distribution5 (e.g. Bengtsson and Waldenström 2018) in Poland. The final issues are institutional factors that arise from inconsistent and shortterm social policy. Social expenditures in Poland were mainly connected with the pension system and were disproportionately high compared to the age structure of the population (Sawulski 2017). Consequently, smaller expenditures were allocated to family assistance, unemployment benefits, health or assistance for the disabled, for example. If compared with Western economies, Poland was tailing behind. As Castelli (2018) suggests, institutional factors could have also massively contributed to the migration outflow. This situation changed somewhat in 2017 when the Polish government introduced the Family 500+ program,6 although it is too early to assess the potential impact of the scheme on the migration flow due to data accessibility. These factors shape the overall performance of the Polish economy and labour market. Also, the combination of these phenomena has vicariously caused a massive migration outflow from Poland that started after the EU accession, as well as the recent migration inflow. A challenging economic and political situation in Ukraine has induced a migration inflow to Poland. Together with the increasing demand for low and medium skilled workers in Poland, it has impacted its further dynamics. As a result, GDP growth in Poland is also an effect of extensive low-wage employment (also of foreign workers) in labour-intensive jobs. A large share of such jobs in the economy in the long term may be connected with the deterioration of human capital (Schnabel 2016), a rise in income inequality and a less competitive position of this economy internationally (Hansen 2001).

4

With a 10.7 Euro hourly wage, Poland was between Croatia (11.1 Euro) and Latvia (9.9 Euro). There were lower wages only in Bulgaria (6 Euro), Lithuania (9.4 Euro) and Romania (7.7 Euro). Poland was far behind Western European countries such as Germany (35 Euro), France (36.6 Euro) or Denmark (44.7 Euro). 5 The Gini coefficient for Poland in 2017 was 29.7 whilst the recent estimate points 32.1 in 2018. It was the first such large increase in the observed data 2004–2018 (World Bank). 6 The program assumes a constant monthly income of 500 PLN (~113 EUR) per every child in the family until they are 18 years old.

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19.4 Regional Determinants of (Permanent) Migration 19.4.1 The Data The majority of studies on the determinants of Polish migration are undertaken at a national level (e.g. Kaczmarczyk 2014; Ambroziak and Schwabe 2016 amongst many others). They underline the role of unemployment, low wages and unsatisfactory living conditions that encourage people to migrate to richer countries. These factors are commonly presented in the migration context; however, their role may be overestimated whilst other more sophisticated mechanisms may also come into play in the case of Poland (Miłaszewicz & Siedlikowski 2016). Moreover, the regional economic differences in Poland are significant enough to additionally make the migration determinants vary in the overall impact on migration flows across regions. Data on regional migration flows as well as explanatory variables for 16 Polish regions were extracted from Statistics Poland (GUS)—Local Data Bank (https://bdl. stat.gov.pl/). The data set covers the time span 2004–2018 and focuses on the period after the EU accession. It is worth mentioning that the data on migration flows are underestimated as they contain only the registered migrants who declare permanent residence (either in Poland (inflow) or in the destination country (outflow)). The statistical data shows only the core of Polish migration—determined people who aimed to move permanently abroad with no perspective of coming back. The real scale of migration is larger because a significant number of migrants in central and Eastern Europe prefer a short-term and non-permanent stay in the destination country (Kaczmarczyk 2006). Another point is that since accessing the EU and introducing a free migration regime there has been a problem with reliable estimation of migration flows in the Schengen Area (Fihel et al. 2012). However, registered data provide a reliable scale of dynamics and time trend of the phenomena so they can also be used for wider inferential purposes. The summary of data was visualised in Fig. 19.6. As seen above, permanent migration outflow was mainly condensed in the regions of western and southern Poland with Silesia as a leader in the rank. It reflects certain historical regional features that already existed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They were related to the continuity of foreign relations facilitating the process of finding a job or acclimatisation abroad—especially in the case of seasonal emigration to Germany, France or the Netherlands. In turn, recent studies conducted in Poland (e.g. OECD 2018; GUS 2019) quite clearly show that temporary migrants were mostly residents of small towns and villages in which getting a job was a major problem. The scale of outflows from given cities was also connected with commuting to work and the level of urbanisation—the lower it was, the more people were looking for additional work abroad. Finding a job abroad became an important impulse for others to leave the country. The consequence was a significant diversification of the scale of migration outflow amongst local communities even within the regions. In turn, migration inflow was much more evenly distributed with the main destinations in southern-western, central and northern Poland.

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Fig. 19.6 Total permanent regional migration flows from and to Poland in 2004–2018. Source Own studies based on Statistics Poland data

In the next step, we divided the explanatory variables (Table 19.1) into groups of three factors elaborated in the previous section. Thus, the independent variables are: labour force share and unemployment rate (proxy for demographic factors), minimum wage and family benefits (as proxy for institutional factors); average wages and GDP per capita (proxy for economic factors). The next figure (Fig. 19.7) visualises migration flows for 16 Polish regions in years 2004–2018.7 As one can easily observe, large outflows that occurred in the 2005– 2009 period slowed down during the next years and even levelled out around 2011. This was followed by another increase in outflow. In turn, since 2016 we can observe a constant increase in the number of immigrants followed by a subsequent drop in emigration in all Polish regions. The regional data for 2019 are still unavailable; however, they would probably show an even more dynamic rise in migrant inflow (as reported preliminarily by Statistics Poland). Nevertheless, despite the increase, the migration outflow was twice as large as the inflow during the same period.

19.4.2 Estimation Details In this section, we develop and compare two econometric models to identify and quantitatively assess the determinants of migration outflow and inflow: (a) panel model with Polish regions as units and (b) aggregate model for the Polish economy. The distinction between regional and aggregate models allows us to investigate the role of regional differences that are, as it seems, significant in both: the inflow and outflow of migration in Poland (as shown in data). 7

The data for 2015 are not available in the public statistics. However, as the trend in data is straightforward we took an average of 2014 and 2016 as a representative.

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Table 19.1 Permanent regional migration flows per 1000 citizens with its determinants used in the econometric models Var

Symbol

Mean

Standard deviation

Unit root test p-value

Factors

Number of immigrants per 1000 citizens

M_i

0.368

0.15

0.000

Dependent variables

Number of emigrants per 1000 citizens

M_out

0.673

0.65

0.000

Average wage

a

3 300 PLN (~740 EUR)

764

1

GDP per capita

g

35 696 PLN (~15 11,858 700 EUR)

1

Share of working-age population

l

0.63

0.014

0.96

Unemployment rate

u

12.94

4.79

0.28

Family benefits per 1000 inhabitants

b

56.89

17.51

0.99

Minimum wage share in average wage

w

0.42

0.055

0.887

Proxy for income factors

Proxy for demographic factors

Proxy for institutional factors

Source Own studies based on Statistics Poland data

The first step in the estimation procedure was to test the data against stationarity (Kwiatkowski et al. 1992). We made a panel modification of the unit root test as proposed by Im and Pesaran (2007). The number of lags for each variable and each spatial unit was computed with the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) as recommended by Ng and Perron (1995). In Table 19.1 we gathered some descriptive statistics together with the results of the unit root test. As one can see, all independent variables contain deterministic trends. As a common procedure in such cases, we took the logarithm of our data to ensure stationarity (Kwiatkowski et al. 1992). In the case of the aggregate model of migration flows for the Polish economy, we used a general linear specification of the form: y = α+ βx + ε. Therefore, the final model came to: ln M = α + β ln(w) + δ ln(a) + γ ln(g) + η ln(u) + ζ ln(l) + ϑ ln(b) +  (19.1) Then, to develop the regional model, we continued with the general specification of panel regression given by Alison (2009): yit = αit + βitT [xit ] + εit + μi , where y is a dependent variable, x is the vector of regressors, i = 1, … n is the individual

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Fig. 19.7 The total permanent migration flows per 1000 of inhabitants in 16 Polish regions in 2004–2018. Source Own studies based on Statistics Poland data

index and t = 1, … T is the time index; ε is a random disturbance term of mean 0 (idiosyncratic error) that is assumed to be independent from other variables in the equation. In turn, μ is the individual error component, which can be either correlated or not with the regressor.8 Having this, our panel model of migration flows for 16 Polish regions can be written as: ln Mit = αit + β ln(wit ) + δ ln(ait ) + γ ln(git ) + η ln(u it ) + ζ ln(lit ) + ϑ ln(bit ) + εit + μi

(19.2)

Formula (19.2) is the “unobserved effect” model that combines two separate error components (individual and time specific) (Allison 2019). It is flexible, robust, and can investigate specifications of each group in a panel (Dieleman and Templin 2016). Furthermore, it deals with panels with a short sample size and produces a smaller estimation error (Debarsy et al. 2012). However, in the panel model μi may induce a correlation with idiosyncratic error that makes Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) estimates biased; therefore, it is 8

In the case of correlation the model is called “fixed-effect”; if the correlation is not present, the model is referred to as a “random-effect”.

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recommended to use other estimation techniques (Croissant and Millo 2008). In that situation, one of the recommendations is to apply the first difference estimator that takes the first lag of each variable that eliminates the constant term and individual error component: Δ yit = βΔ x it + Δ μit . Another important issue is the choice between fixed or random effects estimators (Bell et al. 2019). The former refers to the situation when panel group means are fixed whilst the latter considers them as random samples. Authors must also assess the presence of time, individual or both types of effects (Wu & Li 2014). During the last decade, several econometrics techniques have been developed to test for and counteract against these issues (see Baltagi 2021 for further details).

19.4.3 Estimation Results In total, we estimated 6 models (3 models for “migration outflow” as a dependent variable and 3 models for “migration inflow” as a dependent variable). The explanatory variables remained fixed in both specifications because, as we have previously elaborated, they may successfully explain both phenomena. We estimated the panel model (2) with both fixed and random effects estimators as well as first-difference model (FD).9 Next, we used the Hausmann (1978) approach to assess the role of spatial dependencies and the Lagrange multiplier test to check the presence of time effects. As the Hausman test excluded the presence of random effects, we rejected this model specification and accepted a fixed effects estimator together with the FD model. Then, we used the Wooldridge (2002) test for serial correlation in the residuals in fixed effect and first difference models. The test values indicated the existence of serial correlation and confirmed that the OLS estimator would be inconsistent. We also tested (2) against the presence of heteroskedasticity with the Breusch and Pagan (1979) test. The variance of perturbations in the panel model was not constant, and so the assumption was violated. Therefore, we had to use a robust covariance matrix of parameters for fixed effects according to the Arellano (1987) approach that allows a fully general structure with respect to heteroskedasticity and a cross-sectional correlation in the panel data (Millo 2017). The aggregate models were estimated as a time-series linear model which is a slightly modified ordinary least squares technique with greater support for temporal modelling (Hyndman and Athanasopoulos 2018). In Table 19.2 we present a summary of the estimation of aggregate and panel models for migration inflow and outflow. In brackets we have put p-values for the significance of each variable. It must be remembered that these results are obtained from the data on permanent emigration and immigration. Therefore, they explain the migration of people who have officially declared permanent residence abroad. 9

For the computations we used the R programming language. The regression script was mainly based on the R “plm” package that supports computations on panel data. See Croissant and Millo (2008) for further details.

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Table 19.2 Regression results for migration outflow (M_out) and inflow (M_inf) Var

Aggregate

Panel—first difference (FD)

Panel—fixed effects (FE)

M_out

M_inf

M_out

M_inf

M_out

M_inf

Interc

−26.19

−0.65

−0.20

−0.18

–

–

log(a)

14.66 (0.17)

−0.85 (0.81)

1.18 (0.41)

1.28 (0.18)

−2.21 (0.12)

−1.83* (0.05)

log(w)

−2.714 (0.635)

−0.46 (0.73)

−0.02 (0.97)

−0.39 (0.61)

−2.04** (0.002)

−0.34 (0.67)

log(g)

−7.62 (0.601)

−1.80*** (0.00)

4.81*** (0.000)

2.35*** (0.000)

4.31*** (0.000)

1.777*** (0.001)

log(u)

0.08 (0.88)

−0.53*** (0.000)

−0.68*** (0.000)

−0.007 (0.67)

−0.20 (0.10)

−0.31* (0.03)

log(l)

−9.22 (0.21)

13.07*** (0.000)

−9.91*** (0.000)

5.05* (0.04)

−2.22 (0.34)

8.76*** (0.000)

log(b)

5.37** (0.004)

−0.09 (0.30)

4.33*** (0.72)

−0.59* (0.05)

3.04*** (0.000)

−0.74 (0.67)

0.72

0.39

0.47

0.24

0.48

0.38

R2 testa

–

–

0.002

0.001

0.000

0.000

Hausman test

–

–

0.000

0.000

0.000

0.000

AIC

383

197

120.536

−188.214

173.608

−67.31

Wooldridge

a

Wooldridge’s test for serial correlation in fixed effects panel models and first difference test procedures in panels as elaborated by Lin and Wooldridge (2019)

The diagnostics of the models differ in a few important details. When we take into account the panel models: the FD model has slightly lower R2, although it shows a better match according to the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC). Regarding migration outflow, a significant positive factor common for the FD and FE models is GDP per capita. The higher the GDP, the more people seek for better alternatives abroad. An explanation of this fact is that if wage aspirations cannot be satisfied by internal migration anymore (e.g. moving to a more prosperous region), people tend to seek job opportunities abroad. For that reason, in general, we observe larger permanent emigration from wealthier regions. A second common and extremely important factor according to FE and FD models is the number of families under the social care system—the more of them there are, the higher the emigration flow. In fact, the larger their number, the lower the general socio-economic status of families. Consequently, as revealed, the desire to improve the family’s financial situation may be one of the most important drivers behind the permanent migration outflow from Poland. Other important factors that contribute to migration outflow is average wages (FE model) and percentage of working-age population (FD model). In that case, the relationships are negative. Unsurprisingly, the higher the wages, the lower the emigration (relatively strong relationship). However, a decrease in emigration was not

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expected to correlate with a drop in the working age population; therefore, we looked for an explanation in the raw data. As it appears, the working-age population in Poland began to decrease steadily in 2007/2008 and resulted in a negative contribution, in our estimation. We can conclude that the demographic situation of Poland is not as beneficial as it was 10 years ago, and this may in fact decrease the migration outflow nowadays. When we compare panel models with migration inflow as a dependent variable, we can notice that the R-squared values are lower and the AICs are higher than in case of migration outflow, and so the models seem to be a worse fit. However, similarly as in the previous case, the Fixed Effects model seems appears to be a better choice. Significant variables are GDP per capita (the higher GDP, the more immigrants arrive); labour force (the higher the number, the higher the migration inflow). Two other factors that may contribute to inflows are wages and unemployment rate. The aggregate model explains the migration outflows with the institutional factors, mainly “families under social care system” which is the only significant variable. In case of inflows, the model stresses the role of economic factors (GDP) and demography (labour force share and unemployment rate).

19.5 Conclusions This chapter describes the evolution of the Polish labour market and migration flows in the EU context over the last 30 years (1990–2020). The main focus is the postaccession period. A rapid drop in unemployment rate, GDP growth and increase in salaries may argue in favour of the prosperity of the Polish economy and labour market. However, in-depth analysis reveals some ins and outs that are connected with low wage share in GDP, increase in the share of low-paid labour-intensive jobs, huge migration outflow and increasing social discrepancies. As shown, changes of migration streams to and from Poland in the years 2004– 2019 have resulted from different combinations of economic, demographic and institutional factors. The analysis of the range and role of these factors permits the distinction of some subperiods, which have mostly influenced the scale of temporary migration. The changes in permanent migration flows were much smaller in scale but have similar tendencies. In the years 2004–2007 the main factor that influenced the migration outflow from Poland was unemployment. Insufficient labour demand was mainly an effect of previous structural changes in the economy. In addition, at the beginning of the twenty-first century a large cohort of young people, born at the beginning of the eightieths, started to look for a job. The difficulties to get a job, low level of salaries and wages in Poland stimulated an increase of emigration, initially to Great Britain and Ireland. Then, the crisis of 2008–2010 had an impact on the scale of emigration—some people returned to Poland or looked for job opportunities in other countries, mainly in the EU. In turn, the number of emigrants stabilised successively after 2010 due to fewer difficulties in

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getting a low paid job in Poland. This was mainly the effect of diminishing numbers of people entering the labour market and slow increase in the number of employed, but still with a low share of salaries and wages in the national income. The situation shifted after the election in 2015. By 2019, the unemployment rate had sharply declined to one of the lowest levels in the UE. This was an effect of increasing economic activity, the diminishing number of youths entering the labour market and institutional changes in social policy (pensions schemes and social welfare). As a result, real wages increased. The share of salaries in national income also grew slightly. The Polish labour market became attractive to migrants from East Europe, particularly from Ukraine. Finally, in 2017 Poland became the leading OECD country in terms of employment of temporary economic immigrants. A regression analysis indicates that the standard of living in general may be the major driver for both migration outflow and inflow in Poland. People tend to migrate from regions with lower GDP to regions with higher GDP. In turn, people from regions with higher GDP tend to choose another country as no better destination in Poland is possible. Similarly, immigrants are more likely to come to wealthier regions. This may lead to the rise of the more dynamic (wealthier) and most stagnant (poorer) regions in Poland in terms of migration flows. Hence the positive value of the GDP coefficient in both panel models. Wages themselves are not the major drivers of the core of Polish migration either regionally or nationally. This finding expands the results of Miłaszewicz et al. (2016) and supports the role of other potential factors that attract emigrants. We also extend the earlier research by Roszkowska (2009) and provide evidence on internal migration drivers in Poland and its direction. In that case, such an extremely significant factor was connected with institutional family support. Another interesting issue was that the panel models captured the impact of particular factors in a different way than the aggregate models, especially if comparing the coefficients’ signs and significance. These results stress the role that the regional diversity of labour markets plays in Poland and, as an implication, the variety of factors that may contribute to migration flows. Finally, it needs to be said that the recent pandemic situation and new economic reality that the world is facing will bring unprecedented challenges of uncertainty in the near future. When it comes to Poland, in June 2020, the Central Bank estimates a recession of up to 5% of GDP by the end of 2020. A massive number of Ukrainian citizens have already returned to their homeland and the unemployment rate has increased for the first time in a long time. Fortunately, we suppose for a short period. Once again, the economy has proven to be a complex and unpredictable system.

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Chapter 20

EU Regional Policy and Its Implications for the Development of Polish Regions ˙ Paweł Churski and Piotr Zuber

Abstract The aim of the chapter is to present the transformations of Polish regional policy that have taken place over the last 30 years and their impact on the functioning of the state. In doing so, two major issues are analysed: (1) the process of creating and implementing the legal and organisational system of regional development processes in Poland, together with identifying and evaluating its changes in thematic concentration and territorial focus over the years and (2) the characteristics of the effects of the regional policy, paying attention to both their spatial and institutional consequences, including state decentralisation, the professionalisation of administration and the increase in stakeholder participation in programming and implementing public policies. The analysis covers the period 1989–2019, which is divided into three formation stages of the Polish regional policy model: 1989– 2004, the pre-accession period; 2004–2011, the first years of EU membership, and the elaboration of a new paradigm of regional policy in Poland; and 2011–2019, the implementation of an integrated territorial approach, with Poland as the biggest recipient of funds under the EU budget. The spatial scope of the analysis covers three territorial levels: the EU, Poland and voivodeship (NUTS2), although sub-regionallevel trends are also analysed where appropriate. The results of the analysis form the basis for formulating proposals and recommendations on the direction and methods for the post-2020 intervention of national regional and EU Cohesion Policy in Polish regions. Keywords Regional development · Cohesion policy · Regional policy model · European Union · Poland P. Churski (B) Faculty of Human Geography and Planning, Adam Mickiewicz University, B. Krygowskiego 10, 61-680 Pozna´n, Poland e-mail: [email protected] ˙ P. Zuber Department of Local Development and Policy, University of Warsaw, Krakowskie Przedmie´scie 30 D, 00-927 Warsaw, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Churski and T. Kaczmarek (eds.), Three Decades of Polish Socio-economic Transformations, Economic Geography, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06108-0_20

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20.1 Theoretical Foundations and Changes in the Regional Policy Paradigm The concept of regional policy is defined as a public intervention with the aim of countering those consequences of spontaneous regional development that lead to deepening socio-economic inequalities in space and that may result in the appearance of areas of stagnation that become permanently marginalised over time. Its theoretical basis is built on the eternal dilemma indicated by authors of regional development theory who, analysing the mechanisms and patterns of spatial differences in development processes, understand them either as phenomena taking place because of disturbances or as an inevitable occurrence resulting from the natural features of spontaneous socio-economic development (Gorzelak 1989). The first theory is based on the hypothesis of uniform development which assumes that the natural state of the economy is balance and the pursuit of achievements, as emphasised, among others, by neo-classical and neo-Keynesian theories and phase models. They are theoretically founded on classical theories of growth and development that were developed in the second half of the 1950s (Solow 1956; Myrdal 1957; Hirchman 1958) which, since the 1970s, have been adapted to the regional level (Richardson 1973). The second theory is based on the hypothesis of uneven development and assumes that imbalances in the economy are the driving force behind development that is exploited, inter alia, in theories of growth poles, polarisation and endogenous development. This is based on principles that emphasise the importance of the ‘territorial component’ of development. Its origins can be found in economic geography (Hettner 1927; Whittlesey 1954), and of fundamental importance in this field are the concepts of growth poles, cores and peripheries that are foundational to the theory of uneven development that indicates that its polarisation and diffusion are proper (Hägerstrand 1951, 1952; Isard 1960; Boudeville 1964; Friedman and Alonso 1964; Paelinck 1965; Friedmann 1967; Hägerstrand 1967; Boudeville 1972). However, over the years there has been a change in the paradigm of regional policy understood as an agreed pattern of behaviour based on an accepted way of interpreting reality and the rules that govern it (Khun 1962). The original approach used for many decades was a compensatory paradigm based on the simple assumption that developmental differences can be reduced by helping the most vulnerable areas (Baldwin et al. 2003). The lack of satisfactory outcomes of such actions resulted in the polarisation–diffusion paradigm being put into practice in regional policy. It is based on the assumption that targeted development intervention is needed that will, on the one hand, allow growth poles to develop, thereby generating the foundation of a region’s development potential, and, on the other, create the conditions for the diffusion of development effects ever further into the surrounding spatial areas (Churski 2014). The dilemma of choosing between a compensatory and polarisation–diffusion paradigm should be seen as being the same as the choice between an economic policy based on a centralised-conservative approach and one created according to the principles of decentralisation and pro-competitiveness (Hausner 2001). Political controversies and the operational challenges of this approach have

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prompted further attempts to find out how to optimise development intervention methods, which led to the spread of place-based policy. This is based on the fundamental assumption that programming and implementation of intervention activities need to take into account the heterogeneity of space and individual areas’ specificity of territorial capital, which should be the basis for planning a dedicated intervention (Barca 2009). Despite the universalism and objective advantages of the place-based paradigm, within which both compensatory interventions and those aimed at creating conditions for the polarisation and diffusion of development can be made, it faces serious obstacles in operational implementation. It requires a continued search for more effective and efficient operational approaches that limit the scale of spatial development diversity (Churski et al. 2020a). The beginnings of using regional development control practically to counteract the negative spontaneous consequences of socio-economic development processes can be found in the global economic crisis at the turn of the 1930s. In response to its consequences, the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt prepared and implemented the New Deal in the USA, which was based on widespread state interventionism (Szlachta 1990). Another important American experiment was the USA’s largest regional development programme, launched in the 1960s—the Appalachian programme, whose effects unfortunately fell far short of expectations (Gorzelak 1997). Post-war policy on the European continent was, as with all socio-economic processes, subordinated to the consequences of the continent’s political division. In Western Europe, which was developing under parliamentary democracy and a liberal market economy, various activities were undertaken within the economic policies of individual countries, e.g. the Cassa per il Mezzogiorno programme (Carey and Carey 1955), and the idea of real economic integration within the EEC (Manzela 2009). In Central and Eastern Europe, regional policy was subordinated to the limits of a centrally planned economy operating under a socialist system and thus took the form of a regional policy that was defective, just as the market was. Poland, too, found itself in such conditions for 45 years. These differences quickly led to the dominant position of the European Communities in shaping and practically employing a regional policy paradigm to counteract the spatial inequality of socio-economic development in Europe. Europe’s experience after 2004, i.e. when Central and Eastern European countries and regions began to integrate with the European Union, largely began to determine the direction and extent of changes in public development intervention in the new member states, including Poland. This chapter presents the changes in Polish regional policy over the past 30 years and their impact on the functioning of the state. In the first step, the main stages of the transformation of European regional policy were initiated, starting from the noninstitutionalised ad hoc compensatory intervention of the 1960s to modern ‘Cohesion Policy 4.0’. Then, we present a synthesis of the conditions in which the functioning of Polish regional policy developed under socialism and a centrally controlled economy. Against this background, we discuss the consequences of European regional policy’s influence in transforming Polish practice in this field. We would draw your attention to two aspects. On the one hand, the impact that the European Union’s Cohesion Policy had on the development and transformation of Poland’s national model of

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regional policy is discussed and systematised. On the other, selected examples of the positive impact of European regional policy intervention on the level of development of Polish regions are presented, paying particular attention to the pattern of its spatial diversity. Summing up the analysis and using its results, a recommendation is made regarding Polish regional policy for the 2020+ period.

20.2 From Regional Policy to Cohesion Policy 4.0: The European Context Over the past several decades, European regional policy has changed significantly. Initially, it was seen as a limited instrument, which financially and in terms of its potential was to influence the transformation and development of problem areas. Then, after the late 1990s, it was seen as the most important European instrument for compensating for the functioning of the Free Market, especially in the poorest regions—the least prepared for socio-economic integration. In the following decades, a heavy emphasis was placed on supporting competitiveness in all European regions (the main implementation instrument of the Lisbon Strategy and Europe 2020 Strategy), which had a major role in supporting the cohesion and integration of the new member states that joined after 2004. In the recession that followed the Global Financial Crisis of 2007–2009, regional policy was recognised for its role in providing financial capital to regions and countries experiencing the greatest economic difficulties. At the same time, however, it was strengthened as an instrument for forcing the EU’s desired reforms and structural changes by the obligation of using funds and the promotion of a place-based territorial approach whereby diversified development potentials of all European regions are used in the process of development and EU integration. The rationale and role of the European Cohesion Policy should be seen primarily in the context of European integration processes. The principles and manner of its implementation are, however, the product of a multidimensional discussion and negotiation process between the European Commission, other European institutions, member states and other actors whose influence and role in the European project, and thus also in shaping the principles of regional policy, have been changing over the last few decades. The idea of conducting a regional policy at the European level in the first 20 years after the Paris Treaty that established the European Coal and Steel Community was controversial and, despite the interest of the Italians, was resisted by other community members. This was largely due to the adoption of the liberal assumption that building the Single Market would even out regional differences and a reluctance to increase European Institutions’ involvement in targeting territorial imbalances which, as it was thought, should be solved primarily at the level of the member states, even though certain types of areas had admittedly worse development conditions.

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The awareness of growing regional differences and the negative territorial consequences of the collapse of traditional industries (including coal mining) formed the basis for developing interest of the member states in European-level cooperation on regional development already in the 1960s. However, it is only the establishment of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) in 1975 that can be considered the first step towards creating the real European regional policy. This is directly linked to the 1973 accession of Great Britain, Ireland and Denmark to the European Economic Community (EEC), and the desire—particularly in the UK—to find new sources of compensation for the contribution paid to the community budget. For other countries, such as Italy or Ireland, the prospect of additional support for poorer regions and those in need of significant industrial restructuring through investments in infrastructure and companies was obviously of foremost interest. Despite the later reforms of the ERDF (in 1979 and 1984), aiming to increase the Commission’s participation and the importance of the European perspective in the projects the ERDF participated in, until 1988 the fund was mainly an instrument for implementing national regional policies with community mechanisms playing a small (but gradually increasing) role throughout the process. Regional policy became a real European policy in the mid-1980s, when it was assigned an important role in the vision of completing the construction of the common market. The accession of Greece (1981) and then Spain and Portugal (1986) into the EEC and the common understanding that further market liberalisation and closer integration would contribute to the washing out of resources from poorer and structurally weak areas gave grounds for the Single European Act and its chapter on Economic and Social Cohesion that set out the Union’s measures to reduce disparities between various regions and the backwardness of the least-favoured regions (Article 130a, Single European Act). This paved the way for the European Commission to propose to double the expenditure on cohesion activities and to create a coherent system for implementing the European regional policy (the first Delors Package) whose key principles remain in force until today, despite later changes in perceiving the policy’s role and importance in achieving the objectives of the entire community. These key principles include a long-term programme approach, geographical and thematic concentration, the obligation to rely on the results obtained (mandatory monitoring and evaluation), additionality and partnership. European Cohesion Policy has been programmed since the beginning as a policy of mixed community–national nature, which included incentives to prepare regional programmes (at the level of NUTS II) alongside national ones, and to agree on them directly with the Commission.1 The policy supporting the socio-economic cohesion of Europe has thus become a regional policy not only because it tackles regional disparities and the problems of poorer regions requiring structural changes, but also because it has promoted decentralisation through the involvement of regional authorities in its programming and implementation. This resulted from the desire to strengthen partners other than central governments (in accordance with the assumptions of the theory 1

Additionally, in the 1990s, Community Initiatives managed directly by the Commission were implemented (initially, there were 11 of these, and 9% of ERDF resources were allocated to them).

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of European integration) but also from the expectation that public pro-development measures would become more efficient because the intervention of European funds (and other associated national resources) could suit better the needs and potential identified locally with the participation of a network of partners. However, it should be remembered that as confirmed by research results of recent years (RodriguezPose 2019) strengthening the efficiency of public measures through decentralisation must be subject to many precautions, including individual countries’ initial degree of fiscal independence, tradition of cooperation, organisational culture and the quality of administration. Generally, despite the direct management of EU programmes, poorer regions have turned out to be less prepared to undertake comprehensive and far-sighted development measures, which has meant that the inflow of European funds has not led to a change in development path, but has instead perpetuated peripheral phenomena. Due to the continued deepening of European integration (including the entry into force of the Economic and Monetary Union in 1999) and the associated expectation that divergence processes would accelerate in the EU, in the first half of the 1990s the Cohesion Policy was further strengthened. This was manifested, among others, in the establishment of the Cohesion Fund2 under the Maastricht Treaty (which entered into force in 1993), and, as proposed by the Commission (the second Delors Package, in 1993), the expenditure on the entire policy3 was nearly doubled, in particular the allocations to the EU’s poorest regions. The European Commission was required to submit reports on the EU’s socio-economic cohesion every three years, and a Committee of the Regions was created to bring together regional and local authorities from all the EU countries, which, while remaining formally an advisory body to European institutions, has for years played a significant role in promoting the principle of partnership and defending the Cohesion Policy, including the decentralised model of its conduct. There were also some changes in how policy objectives and implementation were defined that did not significantly affect its shape as determined in 1988: e.g. the programming system was simplified, and the possibility was added to finance activities from a new support fund for the fisheries sector (the Financial Instrument of Fisheries Guidance), for the education sector, for the health sector and for measures supporting innovation, science and technology. The importance of actions on the environment was reinforced in line with the findings of the Rio de Janeiro Conference, emphasising sustainable development (Bachtler 2013). After the accession of new member states (Sweden, Finland and Austria) to the EU in 1995, a new target for sparsely populated northern areas was also added. As could be observed from the very beginning, the regional policy gradually expanded its thematic scope to cover almost all spheres of public activity: this strengthened its potential for impact and helped it become perceived as the EU’s 2

Its task is to temporarily support the poorest EU countries with less than 90% of the EU’s average GNI (until 2004, this was Spain, Ireland, Greece, Portugal) in further structural adjustments by investing in large infrastructure projects in the sphere of transport, environment and energy. 3 Raising commitment appropriations from 6.2 billion in 1992 to 32.6 billion in 1999.

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most important policy, but also drew strong criticism concerning the lack of focus on the most important factors of regional development. Despite the fact that the European Social Fund operated from the beginning in all EU regions, the regional policy compensatory function was clear—80% of ERDF resources were directed to the poorest areas as defined by European indicators (below 75% of EU-average GDP per capita in PPS), i.e. to Greece, Portugal, Ireland and poorer regions of Spain and Italy. The focus for the next reform (1999) of European regional policy, which in the meantime achieved status as the EU’s largest financial policy (with the allocation of nearly 42% of EU budget resources in 1999), was on the further simplification of the programming and implementation system, on seeking methods to increase its efficiency and effectiveness and on the approaching EU membership of Central and Eastern European countries. In accordance with the reforms proposed by European Commission in the Agenda 2000 document, this resulted, among others, in a reduction in regional policy objectives, a decrease in the number of Community Initiatives (i.e. programmes directly managed by the Commission) and the introduction of a reserve of funds for those programmes that achieved their intended outcomes. The participation of the member states in regional policy programming was increased de facto by giving them the right to determine, under objective 2 (reconversion and structural adjustment), which areas were subject to support, and which can be given a role in designating managing authorities. On the other hand, the role of the Commission has also increased, because of the need to introduce the N + 2 automatic decommitment rule. This direction towards strengthening the Commission’s powers in regional policy that was then set out continues until today and fundamentally changed the initial assumption that the policy was subject to shared and decentralised management (in the sense of the decisive role of the regional level). In the early years of the twenty-first century, the European Union realised that, despite the acceleration of integration processes, it was losing its traditionally high position in creating innovation and technology not only to the USA but also to new, fast-growing Asian countries. This led to the agreement on the Lisbon Strategy (2000, revised in 2005) that set out to increase the innovativeness of the European economy through the use of EU policies and better coordination of member states’ activities in this area. In relation to regional policy, this implied the need not only to ensure better efficiency and implementation, but also to reconcile the expectations of new member states and the existing main beneficiaries (who promoted the policy’s rather traditional, redistributive vision) with the expectations of a number of EU countries (also in line with European Commission proposals) who saw it as a source for investing in innovation, technologies, the digital economy, education, human resources and the development of more competitive enterprises. This need to balance what appeared initially to be contradictory functions influenced the shape of Cohesion Policy in the EU’s next long-term financial perspective 2007–2013. A large part of the Cohesion Policy budget was allocated to the poorest areas (which included almost all regions of the new member states). At the same time, however, a number of incentives and regulations were introduced to increase spending on the spheres considered to be of key importance to the competitiveness of the entire EU. These were such

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practices as minimum spending levels (earmarking) in areas such as innovation and environmental protection within regions of specific types. A fairly high degree of flexibility in calculating these levels was left to the member states, which was widely used by those who preferred to invest in the underlying infrastructure still considered to be the main driver of development by the poorer regions. The socio-economic crisis in Europe after 2009 revealed that many of the Cohesion Policy’s existing investment strategies in economically lagging regions (particularly in Southern Europe) have proven unsuccessful, and attempts to increase investment in human resources, innovation and entrepreneurship have not yielded the expected result in terms of increasing the productivity of economies. Southern European countries were particularly painfully persuaded of this—the largest beneficiaries of Cohesion Policy to date, including Greece in particular—but it has also changed the perception of the role of Cohesion Policy at the EU level. In the budget negotiations for 2014–2020, many countries questioned its key role in the development of the EU, proposing its budget be significantly reduced and the role of central management mechanisms be increased. The Cohesion Policy was robustly defended, especially by those new member states that had had much better results in using Cohesion Policy funds to shift their economies onto pro-efficiency tracks and by the favourable positions of Germany, Italy and several other countries, and it thus retained its important role in implementing the EU budget (and Poland obtained even higher allocations) but in return its European dimension was strengthened (and thus its pro-decentralisation and subsidiarity functions were clearly damaged from the outset). In addition to closely linking its activities with the objectives and implementation system of the Europe 2020 Strategy, ex-ante conditionalites were introduced that made the transfer of European funds dependent on improving the quality of legislation or on preparing strategies necessary for legally compliant European investment activities in key areas such as public procurement, transport, environmental protection, human resources, innovation and more. The Cohesion Policy gained a greater political role (since 2011, meetings of the General Council for Cohesion Policy Ministers have periodically been held), while at the same time, it was associated with the European Semester process, i.e. the mechanism that was introduced in 2011 in response to the economic crisis and that was designed to force legal and institutional reforms in member countries and to harmonise national policies in order to promote the foundations of long-term development. Another trend that has been increasingly visible in Cohesion Policy since the middle of the first decade of the twenty-first century is strengthening the territorial dimension, understood as the programming of integrated public intervention in geographically designated functional units such as cities, rural and mountainous areas or islands (and not mainly in the level of regions and entire member states as had previously been the case). Territorial cohesion was included as an additional dimension of cohesion in the Lisbon Treaty (which came into force in 2009), which provided a formal point of reference for creating the mechanisms of this support. In 2007, in Leipzig, the member states adopted the ‘Territorial Agenda of the EU’ as

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well as the ‘Lepzig Charter on Sustainable European Cities’4 (a political declaration by member countries regarding policy towards cities) indicating the objectives and ways of including the spatial dimension in development activities at the level of the EU and individual member countries. In parallel, the DG Regio chaired by Danuta Hubner ordered a number of studies on the territorial dimension in Cohesion Policy, including the famous Fabrizio Barca report (Barca 2009). The report showed that a place-based approach (i.e. a comprehensive mix of activities undertaken in conditions of multi-level management for local and functional units in which local government representatives and social partners play a decisive role) was a condition for increasing the policy’s efficiency and for maintaining its special character in contrast to other European policies. Owing to a diversity of concurrent ideas for how to reform the Cohesion Policy and increase its efficiency5 even despite the fact that in the 2014–2020 legislation: • a new instrument was created to support the territorial dimension (Integrated Territorial Investments); • an obligation was formulated to allocate funds for activities in cities (6% of ERDF); • the need was underlined to better adapt instruments to the baseline situation of each supported region; The territorial dimension did not grow in importance in the Cohesion Policy to the extent postulated by Barca and some member states. One might even say that focus was on sectors that are understood as priorities from the European point of view and not for particular territories. This is disadvantageous primarily for economically lagging areas, which show a different mix of needs than the EU’s leading regions. In addition, in many regions, an evident historically rooted institutional weakness (European Commission 2017) has become apparent (not only in relation to the implementation of Cohesion Policy)—without strong supervision and transfer of knowhow at a European or national level, those regions are not able to programme and implement investment and organisational activities that bring about the desired structural changes towards increasing competitiveness in the long term. This has strengthened the trend towards more centralised management of development processes at EU and national levels and towards weakening the position of regions in its programming and implementation in favour of an increasing participation of other partners, e.g. large cities.

4

The next ‘Territorial Agenda of the European Union 2020. Towards an Inclusive, Smart and Sustainable Europe of Diverse Regions’ was adopted in 2011 in Godollo, Hungary, and the document for the period up to 2030 is currently being developed. In 2016, the ‘Urban Agenda for The EU. Pact of Amsterdam’, which defined the objectives and principles of EU and member states’ activities for the sustainable development of cities, was immediately adopted. 5 Cohesion policy at that time was discussed, e.g. as an instrument for: achieving Europe-wide objectives enshrined in the Europe 2020 Strategy; promoting reforms in the member states through strong link with the European Semester process; and improving strategic orientation of national policies and the quality of national legislation through a set of ex-ante conditionalities.

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The economic crisis in Europe after 2009 (which was particularly strongly felt in southern EU countries), divergence processes among large urban metropolises benefiting from globalisation, the common market and the majority of other regions and cities in Western European countries (which are losing resources despite their high GDP per capita and inhabitants’ quality of life) made practitioners and the academic community aware in the mid-2020s that the Cohesion Policy’s existing mechanisms are insufficient to support the desired structural changes, especially in economically lagging regions, under the conditions of the current model of neoliberal capitalism. A Cohesion Policy operating on a system shaped in the second half of the 1980s, even in countries that have experienced uninterrupted growth for many years and are its major beneficiaries (such as Poland), cannot counteract agglomeration forces and ensure socio-economic cohesion between the few growth poles and the growing numbers of regions and locations that are losing their socio-economic functions and are unable to create new, competitive jobs. The perception that globalisation and further integration processes and their accompanying phenomena such as migration are a threat to maintaining inhabitants’ well-being has led to heavy criticism of European integration processes and then, in many places (in particular those that are fairly prosperous but losing their economic position), to resident dissatisfaction and to separatist and populist tendencies emerging in the public space. This ‘revenge of unhappy places’ has resulted in Brexit, among other things (Rodriguez-Pose 2018). In the sphere of socio-economic policy, this forced individual member countries and—with some delay—the European Commission also to pay more attention to social equality issues. The question also arose of how to build Europe’s competitive strength in response to this new political and social situation and global mega trends, such as the technological transformation known under the term ‘Industry 4.0’ or climate change, in the context of a crisis of confidence in the current integration model that does not provide EU residents a sense of economic security. This is where the European Commission’s proposals on the shape of the future EU budget (for 2021–2027) and additional activities financed from loans for EU member states to rebuild and acquire resistance to structural shocks in response to the COVID-19 pandemic (Recovery and Resilience Facility) assume increased EU involvement in the building of a zero-emission economy (the Green Deal), technological and digital transformation and support for the development of education and human resources. It seems, however, that despite many studies prepared by the European Commission and academic circles justifying the need to consider the territorial dimension more broadly in achieving EU goals for competitiveness, technological transformation, social issues and promotion of the idea of European integration (Bachtler et al. 2019), these proposals do not sufficiently appreciate that need. This is partly because it is still not universally well understood among political decision-makers and this manifests itself in, for example, the lack of agreement on a vision for the continent’s spatial development at the European Council level. The decentralised management system that has been promoted by the Cohesion Policy for 30 years is also losing significance. In financial terms, instruments and policies of central management are being strengthened, increasing the role of the European Commission and the member states and thus weakening the role of territorial local governments—regional ones

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in particular—in implementing European policies. This may further weaken residents’ interest in European integration and the ability to choose the mix of activities appropriate to the specifics of individual territories. However, in accordance with the postulates of the academic community (Bachtler et al. 2019), Cohesion Policy will be more closely linked to the implementation of pan-European objectives and increasingly used as an instrument for coordinating national policies and harmonising law. The fund transfers will depend on the implementation of specific recommendations formulated by the EU Council as part of the European Semester (Country Specific Recommendations), as well as on the fulfilment of the conditions required to efficiently implement investments (enabling conditions) specified in the regulations of the Cohesion Policy. The implementation system is being simplified and support for developing the institutional potential of both regions and cities is being increased, which was previously identified in academic works as a significant barrier to development. The territorial dimension of the Cohesion Policy is also being strengthened—there is a requirement to allocate 6% of ERDF resources to actions in urban areas, and thematic objectives are being reduced significantly (from 11 to 5)—one will be a territorial objective allowing part of the allocation to be directed towards implementing integrated development strategies in any type of region. A clear territorial orientation will be also achieved by the innovation policy, which maintains the obligation (in existence since 2014) for countries and regions to prepare an innovation strategy (Smart Specialisation Strategy) as the basis for planning the place-based restructuring of ecosystems and the promotion of re-industrialisation. Aside from the Cohesion Policy, but being programmed with it, the new Just Transition Fund is being programmed at the level of areas dependent on fossil energy sources that require assistance in industrial reconversion. Whether all these ideas for promoting the territorial dimension according to place-based theory help the Cohesion Policy, despite the reduced allocation and shift towards more centralised implementation, to prove its usefulness in rescuing the EU after 2020, time will tell—a lot will depend on individual countries’ ability to use Cohesion Policy as an instrument for modernisation and structural change, and not just as a source of financing planned public investments.

20.3 The Polish Experience of Feeble Regional Policy in a Centrally Controlled Economy The post-World-War-II division of the world pushed Poland6 into the USSR’s sphere of influence, and a socialist system and the principles of a centrally controlled economy imposed the restrictions of the post-war development model in the years 6

Decisions taken in Tehran (1943), Yalta (1945) and Potsdam (1945) by US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and USSR leader Joseph Stalin did not take into account the interests of individual countries, including Poland, emphasising the clear dominance of the ‘Big Three’ in the international discourse of the time.

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1945–1989. The situation was not improved by the fact that the integration processes in Central and Eastern Europe were not real and were limited to their formal dimension, which led to the creation of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA), associated with socialist bloc states subordinated to the political and economic hegemony of the USSR (Bokoff 2010). It should be emphasised that both this organisation and the framework of the national economic policies of socialist countries ignored regional policy issues. For ideological reasons, existing and often growing differences were not exposed. The ruling doctrine was, after all, of the even distribution of production power. Under such conditions, activities to control development processes became about as defective as the market operating under the constraints of a centrally controlled economy. There were no conditions for intra-regional policy to develop because regions were deprived of authority and financial sovereignty. Regional policy was limited to its interregional dimension and in this respect was implemented by centralised long-term investment plans, whose assumptions involved contributing to implementing the political programme of the ‘nation’s leading power’, i.e. the communist party. Their importance as an instrument of public intervention based on the objective identification of individual areas’ needs arising from the level and nature of their development was marginal (Gorzelak 1989). Furthermore, unlike the countries of the European Economic Community, Poland, like other socialist countries and their regions, did not benefit from any of the joint development programmes offered by the CMEA. This deepened the development distance between Poland and Western European countries, at both the national level and, more so, the regional and sub-regional levels (Kukli´nski 1976). However, these facts did not mean that the planning work in Poland was completely suppressed. Owing to the political restrictions, the work done concerned more the sphere of spatial planning and to a lesser extent the challenges of strategic planning. Selected achievements included the following (Mikołajewicz 2007): • a 1946 decree on national planning and spatial development that created a system of institutions for planning and carrying out spatial planning within the new, postwar Polish borders, which was unfortunately repealed in 1949 when the entire planning sphere was subordinated to the Soviet model, • the revival of the planning system in the post-1956 political thaw, leading to the system of planning institutions at regional and local levels being restored and academic institutions dealing with the economy and spatial policy being established, including the Committee for Spatial Development of the Country at the Presidium of the Polish Academy of Sciences (1958) [Komitet Przestrzenny Zagospodarowania Kraju przy Prezydium Polskiej Akademii Nauk], that was disrupted, or even restricted, by the 1975 reform of territorial divisions that abolished poviats (LAU1) and in 18 large voivodeships replaced regional plan workshops, voivodeship city planning workshops and offices for municipal engineering studies and projects with poorly staffed spatial planning offices fragmented across 49 small voivodeships, • the adoption of the law on spatial planning in July 1961 replacing the decree of 1946 and introducing essential spatial planning regulations at all levels that

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allowed local spatial planning to develop dynamically and the Polish city planning school to gain worldwide recognition, • the development of the country’s spatial development plan in the first half of the 1970s that anticipated Poland’s development using a concept of nodes and belts, • examples of integrating the planning process by adding elements of economic analysis and economic calculus to the tools used in city planning.

20.4 The Impact of EU Regional Policy on the National Development Policy Model in Poland Poland is a country whose undoubted socio-economic success7 over the past thirty years has been built on the positive outcomes of several interdependent political, economic, social and cultural processes. From the beginning of the 1990s onwards, the process of European integration played a major role in supporting these processes, including the taking-root of broadly understood liberal democracy (though its foundations are currently under pressure from new political concepts), the transformation of the economic system and changes in social values and norms. The prospect of participating in the European Union and, since 2004, full membership have proven to be not only a source of benefits in the economic sense, but also a source of norms and procedures affecting the way public policies are programmed and implemented, the way administration functions and how it interacts with society and new behavioural social and political trends. One of the instruments that transferred money, norms and behaviours to Poland was (and is, though to a lesser extent) the EU’s Cohesion Policy. The following areas of the EU Cohesion Policy’s strategic impact can be identified: • the socio-economic development of Poland and its individual areas; • the model according to which the state functions and implements public policies; • the promotion of the idea of European integration among society. The impact of the EU’s regional policy on Poland’s socio-economic development, including the regional dimension, is discussed in Chap. 5. The subject of analysis therein is the strategic programming and institutional system of development policy, including in particular its integrative component, which is regional policy at the national level. Issues related to promoting the idea of European integration have only been partially raised. The Polish Model of Development Policy: Elements The development policy model is the name we give to the set of legal and procedural solutions (laws, regulations, guidelines and procedures relating to coordination, cooperation with partners, management, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, etc.), programming solutions (strategies, programmes, projects and the objectives and 7

It is measured by the change in value over the past 30 years of indicators such as GDP per inhabitant, the share of medium and highly processed products in exports or unemployment rates.

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the instruments for their implementation), organisational solutions (role and duties of individual public institutions) and established practice of conduct (organisational culture) used by the state to implement modernisation and development goals and tasks, including in designated administratively, or functionally defined, territories. In Poland, this model was largely shaped by the EU’s Cohesion Policy, whose impact is still overwhelming in terms of the rules and regulations of implementation (due to the large share of EU funds in the implementation of regional policy in Poland, and generally in all pro-development public activities). However, some of its basic elements, such as the institutional system of coordination and governance, and programming (goals, priorities, instruments), are also strongly rooted in the own ideas and practice of transformation of the Polish institutional and legal system, the evolution of theoretical approaches in European and Polish academia and the changing development factors and conditions that change over time, largely due to globalisation and integration processes in the EU. The Stages of the Formation of the Polish Development Model Polish development policy, including regional policy, has evolved significantly over the past thirty years: from the abandonment of all territorially oriented actions in the early 1990s, through the gradual restoration of its significance and the role of public policies in the system due to the decentralisation of state management (in 1999, 16 local government voivodeships were created) and participation in the European Cohesion Policy, to the situation at the turn of the second decade of the twenty-first century, when regional policy became a key government policy setting objectives for the government’s entire socio-economic policy and the methodological standards of implementation of public policies. At present, we seem to be in a period in which regional policy is still an important part of the state’s activities, but it no longer plays that huge inspirational role in Europeanisation processes or the programming of Poland’s socio-economic development that it did just a few years ago. This is demonstrated, among others, by the National Regional Development Strategy 2030 (National 2030) adopted in 2019, and the symbolic change of the name of the Ministry of Investment and Development to the ‘Ministry of Funds and Regional Policy’ [Ministerstwo Funduszy i Polityki Regionalnej]. The periodisation of the formation of Polish development policy in the literature is usually based on the individual terms of the European Union’s Multiannual Financial Frameworks (MFF) under which the EU budget is agreed and regulations for implementing European policies are adopted, including those concerning the Cohesion Policy. The rules and procedures for implementing the EU’s Cohesion Policy and for the functioning of national management and implementation systems (in particular in countries such as Poland that utilises the highest share of its financial resources) are undoubtedly changing to the rhythm of successive MFFs. However, the Polish development policy model has some noticeably original features that distinguish it from the systems operating in other countries. They have not necessarily been shaped in line with the logic of EU multiannual budgetary periods (see Table 20.1). Of course, the time limits of proposed phases are arbitrary—they are determined by events that

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Table 20.1 Stages of development of the Polish development model Number Period

Milestone

Programme elements

Institutional elements

1989–1998 Restoration of local government (1990) From 1992, EU accession process Pre-accession programmes; regional policy task force (1994); and structural policy task force (1995)

Preparatory analytical works; Development of concept of inter- and intra-regional policy

Lack of legal basis for conducting regional policy Analytical work done by Central Office of Planning System for implementing pre-accession programmes outside administration (development agency); major role of UKIE (Office of European Integration Committee)

II

1999–2004 Establishment of 16 regional units and entrusting regional-level development policy to voivodeship local governments Establishment of regional development division among governmental spheres of occupation

Primacy of measures supporting country’s competitiveness over compensation measures

Implementation of voivodeship contract system (support for intra-regional policy) Construction of administrative centre for regional policy and EU Cohesion Policy

III

2004–2008 Poland’s accession to EU—implementation of Cohesion Policy in Poland begins; In 2006, 16 ROPs were created and their management entrusted to voivodeship governments

Objectives and priorities in line with Cohesion Policy objectives Primacy of efficiency on coherence within national policy framework Cohesion dimension seen in European context (additional programme for Eastern Poland)

Centre’s major role in taking over the methodological output of Cohesion Policy and organising planning system for development Increasing role of regional local governments with simultaneous disappearance of regional policy financed from national sources (continued)

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502 Table 20.1 (continued) Number Period

Milestone

Programme elements

Institutional elements

IV

2009–2016 Organising system for conducting development policy Establishing Poland’s development management system (2009) and amendments to Act on principles for conducting development policy National Regional Development Strategy 2020 National Spatial Development Concept 2030 New EU 2014–2020 framework promoting implementation of Europe 2020 Strategy while also introducing instruments to support territorial development at scales other than national and regional

Territorial dimension becomes equivalent component of development policy (new instruments)—promotion of territorial approach at European level Support for diffusion from large cities as a means to ensure more balanced development in territorial systems

Shared government/local government implementation system 2009, practical beginning of implementing 2007–13 framework Peak role of regional local government in development policy Gradual increase in importance and role of local entities, in particular large cities

V

2017 onwards

Attention given to concentration of development in agglomerations, demise of cities and increasing inequalities in sub-regional systems

Increasing role of the central Government in conducting development activities at expense of voivodeship local governments

Strategy for Responsible Development (2017) National Regional Development Strategy 2030 (2019)

Source Own compilation

occurred at a specific time but whose occurrence was preceded by many preparatory actions. The Role of Regions A lively discussion has been raging in Poland since the mid-1990s on the objectives of the socio-economic development policy, including those relating to the spatial dimension. While immediately after the collapse of a centrally planned economy,

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there were no conditions for conducting an active pro-development policy,8 and even less so for a more territorially oriented one,9 quite soon in official government documents one could find the need to focus on supporting the processes of a broadly understood structural and institutional modernisation of the state management system and, after the financial potential (expected to be brought by European integration) was reached, to introduce comprehensive actions focussed on, first, rebuilding and, later, on developing the competitiveness of the Polish economy. From this perspective, the condition for the effective use of EU funds was considered to be the creation of regions that were ‘visible on the map of Europe’ and capable of undertaking modernisation and development activities on their own account using their own and EU resources and coordinate national resources at the disposal of sectoral ministries at a regional level. This philosophy was the basis for the establishment of 16 large territorial units in 1999—voivodeships of shared selfgovernmental/governmental character (in place of the existing 49 small voivodeships headed by a government representative). The voivodeship local government was legally obliged to conduct a development policy based on voivodeship strategies, and although it was not possible that day to equip it with its own financial resources adequate to the entrusted tasks and expected level of activity regarding socio-economic policy, in the following 15 years, it consistently expanded its responsibilities and, consequently, its political significance. A gradual increase in the voivodeship local governments’ sphere of responsibility in conducting development activities was mainly associated with the process of strengthening its role in managing and conducting EU-funded development measures,10 although, in the initial period after 1999 in particular, attempts were made to establish national instruments of regional policy in the form of voivodeship contracts that would ensure additional financing from state budget resources to implement regional development strategies. Immediately after the establishment, they were conceived as a government agreement with local governments to implement jointly activities conducive to the development of voivodeships—their role was gradually limited to providing a legal mechanism for transferring budget funds to co-finance key investments under EU regional operational programmes (ROPs). A breakthrough in the process of strengthening voivodeship local governments came with the preparation and entrusting management to voivodeship local governments of 16 regional operational programmes under the 2007–2013 financial framework, which was dictated not only by the desire to further decentralise the state’s function but also—and perhaps above all—their inability to increase their own revenues 8

Owing to the priority given to deregulation, and to building a capitalist economy and the mechanisms of representative democracy, e.g. in the form of introducing territorial self-governance at the local level and expanding it to new levels in 1999. 9 Apart from a few attempts at protective activities and the increase over time in funds from preaccession programmes initially supporting institution-building and structural changes. 10 Measures that strengthen the role of voivodeship government in development processes include, in addition to participating in managing EU funds, increasing responsibility for conducting environmental protection activities (supervision of Voivodeship Funds for Environmental Protection since 2010) and in public transport (regional railways, regional companies) since 2008, and many others.

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and—not insignificantly—the good results achieved by implementing the first integrated regional development programme of the Integrated Regional Development Operational Programme (IROP) in 2004–2008 managed by the Ministry of Economy, Labour and Social Policy (and since 2005, the Ministry of Regional Development) and implemented with the participation of voivodeship governments. While reflecting on the impact of regional policy on the Polish development model, an interesting fact is that DG REGIO’s initial response to the proposal to decentralise the management of such significant part of EU funds was negative—they were afraid of the lack of adequate administrative preparation and difficulties in ensuring coordination at the national level. In the subsequent 2014–2020 framework, the voivodeship government’s scope of responsibility was further expanded to include the direct management of a large part of the ESF measures, and the funds at their disposal grew. Currently, voivodeship governments are responsible for the use of over 52% of all ERDF and ESF funds, which considering the scale of these funds (in total EUR 28 billion) and their share of EU funds in total public development measures in Poland (over 80% according to the Commission in 2018 and approx. 55% according to the Ministry of Investment and Development) gives them a very strong, though not dominant, position in the national development policy system. However, it should be noted that under the current financial framework, the regulations for European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) emphasis increasing the importance of programming actions related to various types of territories, including those determined on the basis of functional or morphological criteria, such as cities and rural or mountain areas. This increased the role and importance of entities other than government and regions (in particular the local governments of large cities) in the Cohesion Policy and thus in the entire national development policy. Strategic Development Process Management Centre According to the assumptions of the 1990s, creating and then gradually strengthening the role of the voivodeship local government in development activities created the conditions for conducting intra-regional policy, whose goals should be defined in regional strategies. The second, complementary assumption was to strengthen the government’s activities in the sphere of regional policy by creating a strong centre for programming and implementing European policy and for coordinating the sectoral activities of various ministries and governmental agencies—a centre capable of conducting an active interregional policy. From the perspective of the last twenty years, this can be assessed as having largely succeeded—such a centre was established,11 and with some reservations, it can be said that until recently (and we will return to this later) it acted as a strategic coordinator of development policy assigned to it. 11

A key position in the institutional system for programming and conducting development policy at the national level was played by those ministries that served the minister in charge of regional policy. Starting from 1999, they were the ministries of economy; economy, labour and social welfare; regional development; infrastructure and regional development; development; investment and development; and, today, regional funds and policy.

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A characteristic feature that distinguishes Polish strategic coordination solutions from most solutions in other European countries is the fact that this centre also played a key role in creating methodological and organisational foundations for programming and implementing the entire national development policy. The prenucleus of the centre, in the form of Department in the Ministry of Economy, started operations in 1999 from performing limited tasks related to national regional policy (which was connected with the creation of 16 voivodeship local governments in the same year) financed from national sources. However, it very soon assumed the key role in the preparation and coordination of activities of the entire government administration and voivodeship local governments in regard to the EU’s Cohesion Policy including negotiations, programming, management and implementation. It kept its key position in the Polish administrative system in regard to the development process (formulation of the policy, management and coordination) for almost two decades not only due to the implementation of the largest development programme in Poland’s history financed largely from the EU sources and legislation supporting this process (modified several times over the time),12 but also to a competent cadre of apolitical officials built from scratch, recognised for many years by all political sides (as manifested in the stability of employment of technical management) and had the ability to mediate between various development partners—national, regional and local—representing not only public but also academic, business and civil society institutions. Of course, in fulfilling this last role, what was helpful was the requirement to adhere to and creatively adapt the partnership principle, which mandates dialogue and cooperation when implementing EU co-financed programmes, in the form of monitoring committees and steering groups when developing strategies and plans, selecting projects and so on. After beginning to implement operational programmes for the Cohesion Policy in 2004, it quite quickly became clear that spending enormous financial resources under the Cohesion Policy was becoming a fundamental problem. It was quickly recognised, therefore, that national institutions, the law, procedures and the programming system should be adapted as soon as possible to ensure effective and optimal spending (which was taken in the first period to mean spending ‘in line with the objectives of European Cohesion Policy’). That was the reason for the fast Europeanisation of the practice of conducting public policies that were most dependent on Cohesion Policy funding such as regional policy, transport policy, rural areas, environmental protection and human resources support. In terms of strategic planning, an attempt was made to use the example of Ireland, which in the 1990s had already prepared national development plans that had treated the European Cohesion Policy as one of the many instruments of the state’s development activities. However, this did not turn out to be easy without providing an appropriate legal basis and strengthening the bargaining power of the minister responsible for regional

12

NB: strengthening its position vis-à-vis other entities—which could be considered a classic example of technocracy securing its interests or, if you prefer, strengthening the possibilities for implementing strategic assumptions by the government.

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development.13 It quickly turned out that hundreds of national strategic documents in force at that time (strategies, plans, programmes) had been prepared according to financial allocations and not in line with newly gained know-how about methodology of its preparation and thus simply became unnecessary. In 2005, in order to strengthen the coordination and programming centre for the Cohesion Policy, new government created the Ministry of Regional Development, and in 2006, the Act on the principles of conducting development policy was adopted, specifying precisely the programming system and the role of individual actors (including local governments) in implementing development policy (modified later several times). On its basis, the minister responsible for regional development was entrusted with carrying out work for the special Committee of the Council of Ministers charged with implementing the National Cohesion Strategy.14 The next milestone on the road to building the Polish development management model was the preparation of a comprehensive proposal regarding the reform of the strategic programming system, including the system of national documents and their interconnectivity, strengthening the strategic coordination system in relation to territorial activities and organising the role of EU documents in the national planning system from the perspective of Poland’s membership in the EU. After being accepted by the government (representing a different political approach than the previous one, but continuing the same path in regard to strengthening strategic planning and the country’s coordination systems of management), the proposal (Ministry of Regional Development 2009) became the basis for introducing amendments to the Act on conducting development policy and for preparing a system of inter-coordinated long-term and medium-term documents, including those concerning particular areas in which horizontal actions were concentrated. Using EU funds, the centre expanded the system for cooperation into academic communities and institutions such as Statistics Poland (GUS), which made it possible to broaden knowledge on development processes and monitor them in various cross-sections. It developed a more far-reaching evaluation system than ever seen before in Europe. As a result, it also gained a significant position in the European Union as was evident during the discussion on the shape of the Cohesion Policy after 2013. In the years 2009–2015, this strengthened development process management centre (the Ministry of Regional Development, then the Ministry of Infrastructure and Development) had a key impact on the shape of the country’s overall development strategy (and its implementation through the management of sectoral programmes and a key decision-making role in a number of actions at the regional level), as well as on sectoral policies and regional actions. This made it 13

This type of document had already been created in 2004—the assumptions of the National Development Plan under the guidance of Prof. Hausner—but due to the change of the Government, the programming basis for EU funds became the National Cohesion Strategy 2007–2015 that was the basis for the European Commission’s approval of the Community Support Framework, and that did not too far exceed the area and types of measures supported by the Cohesion Policy. 14 Formally, the committee was called Coordination Committee for National Strategic Reference Framework 2007–2013 (Narodowe Strategiczne Ramy Odniesienia (and the National Development Strategy (Strategia Rozwoju Kraju)) and is still in operation under the changed name the Coordination Committee for Development Policy (Komitet Koordynacyjny ds. Polityki Rozwoju).

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possible to efficiently implement a range of strategies adopted by the government (including regional development strategies) and investment projects co-financed by the EU that implemented both their own provisions and documents negotiated with the European Commission. The influence of this strategic centre on governmental socio-economic policy began to decrease in the latter half of the second decade of the twentieth century. This was due to not only individual ministries mastering the methodological aspects of the EU’s Cohesion Policy in terms of how to programme and conduct development activities (which naturally weakened the coordinator’s dominant position in the transfer of knowledge), but also to an increase in national budget revenues and thus a reduction in the degree of individual ministries’ dependence on EU funds, and later also a change in socio-economic policy after a new government was formed in 2015. Paradoxically, in this period the minister managing the regional development policy formally attached the greatest importance to the management system within the government administration: between the end of 2015 and the beginning of 2018, the centre functioned as the Ministry of Development and was managed by the Minister of Development and from the end of 2017 also by the Minister of Development and Finance with the rank of Deputy Prime Minister. This helped, among other things, strengthen the system of inter-ministerial coordination, making Poland’s representation in European structures more coherent in the key areas of the investment process,15 and preparing the Strategy for Responsible Development (SRD) (2017), conceived as a medium-term comprehensive planning document combining socio-economic, territorial and institutional dimensions and defining new challenges and development goals. Following the adoption of the strategy, the government also accepted the commitment to update the existing nine horizontal strategies, including regional development strategies. The SRD and its resultant strategies use the EU methodology to identify the objectives and specific implementation tasks arising as new challenges. Specific development objectives are identified, taking into account the context of the European Union, more dependent on national resources in their implementation. This was only partially successful—the approach allowed several new national initiatives financed by national resources (including refundable funds) to be launched, but at the same time, it weakened the possibilities for its provisions to be implemented using EU funds because operational programmes can be modified midway through the 2014–2020 financial perspective to only a very limited extent. As it turned out after three years, many of the key projects identified in the strategy proposed by individual ministries based on domestic capital and know-how turned out to be ineffective (e.g. building a million electric cars, launching the construction of high-speed trains or a sea ferry based on Polish capital), raising doubts as to the quality of their implementation. It is significant that changes in the government’s duties meant that the minister responsible for regional development lost significance in 2019 (and the ministry is now called the Ministry of Development Funds and 15

Inter alia, by strengthening the Coordinating Committee of the Council of Ministers for development policy in existence since 2012 and the institutional linking of responsibility for the cohesion policy strategy and Poland’s participation in the European Semester process.

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Regional Policy) to the minister of the economy, whose ministry, which also covers activities in the field of spatial development, is called the Ministry of Development (although officially, responsibility for coordinating development policy remains with the Minister for Regional Development). In this way, at least in the semantic sense, the nearly twenty-year-long close relationship between regional policy, EU funds and the system of coordinating all structural activities at the government level has ended. At the same time, this means that the importance of territorially targeted measures (and, to some extent, the importance of regions in all development activities) was reduced and reflects the actual state of European Cohesion Policy having lost its decisive role in modernisation processes in Poland. Efficiency or Equality? Owing to the specific role that the regional issue plays in Poland (which is incomparably greater than in any country that joined the EU after 2004) and the priority given to assumptions regarding the modernisation of Poland based on the decentralistcompetitive model (Hausner 2001), the main reference point for national regional policy was always the socio-economic situation in the EU, its individual countries and regions: the intra-national context and the compensatory aspect of public policies, were not strongly emphasised and de facto remained so until 2017 (SRD). It can be considered that this document marks the time when it was recognised that the processes of the systemic transformation and adaptation of European patterns were completed and new factors, including growing territorial and social inequalities, should began to play a more visible role in conducting socio-economic policy (including regional). Analysing the most important planning documents created over the last twenty years, regarding both the country’s socio-economic development (including those for programming the use of EU funds) and spatial issues (medium-term documents of socio-economic development; national regional development strategies from 2000, 2010 and 2019; the country’s spatial development concepts from 2005 and 2010), it can be seen that throughout this period there has been an attempt to find a balance between, on the one hand, implementing the strategic goal of modernisation and strengthening competitiveness of the country set in the mid-1990s and, on the other, compensatory measures. Achieving that strategic goal involved investing in development factors that would help increase competitiveness in the global and European system (i.e. in human resources, enterprises, innovations, selected technical and social infrastructure) on the country-wide level (efficiency); meanwhile, the compensatory measures for many years took the form of protective measures for specific disadvantaged social groups, sectors or regions based on the belief that the range of differences is quite narrow in Poland compared to other EU countries. With regard to space, the Polish development model from the 1990s until recently emphasised above all the need to use territories’ own resources in the development processes of the entire country. Since 1999, the reference point for national regional policy has been the voivodeships and their local governmental authorities being responsible for the development of individual regions. Partly under the influence of an EU policy that, influenced by the new paradigm of OECD development and the

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place-based concept (Barca 2009), accentuated more strongly since the beginning of the second decade of the twenty-first century than previously16 the need for integrated activities on other spatial scales, Poland’s strategic documents (National Strategy for Regional Development 2020, National Spatial Development Concept 2030) too have emphasised the more in-depth diagnosis of phenomena and the creation of instruments to influence non-regional functional areas. Work on these documents included preparing a concept of areas of strategic intervention that primarily covered sub-regional areas17 in which activities should focus on supporting their further development or overcoming existing barriers. Throughout the second decade of the twenty-first century in addition to the area of five voivodeships of Eastern Poland having the status of one of the poorest areas in the EU and receiving additional support since 2007 in the form of special operational programme, the government also proposed a delimitation regarding: – functional areas of voivodeship cities in which the European Integrated Territorial Investment instrument operates, leaving the initiative in this respect to voivodeship local governments (2012), – areas (mainly rural) threatened by permanent marginalisation as designated at the scale of counties (powiat) Strategy for Responsible Development 2020 (2017), – medium-sized cities losing socio-economic functions Strategy for Responsible Development 2020 (2017). ´ askie Voivodeship in these areas, as it requires They also suggested including Sl˛ special support in terms of restructuring and reducing dependence on coal and coalbased energy. Such areas were designated due to the recognition of negative social and political consequences related not only to an increase in disparities between regions (which was to some extent a calculated cost in terms of accelerating the development of the entire country), but also to the negative aspects of agglomeration processes that caused (according to assumptions) economic activity to concentrate in the largest cities and negative socio-economic phenomena in medium-sized cities that are losing their functions and peripheral areas designated on a sub-regional scale. These conclusions were in line with observations made at the same time by the Commission and many researchers regarding the impact of globalisation and the process of European integration (e.g. European Commission 2017). This opened the way for an increase in the government’s commitment, contrary to the prevailing 16

European Cohesion Policy has always mentioned as its subject not only regions, but also other territories with special characteristics, such as post-industrial, rural or border areas, but in fact, except for cross-border cooperation activities, the entire implementation system was based on implementing national and regional programmes set at NUTS level II. After a long break in the operation of Community Initiatives, it was only in the 2014–2020 perspective that a special instrument was proposed for supporting cooperation between various actors in implementing development strategies, which was integrated into the mainstream, namely a support programme called LEADER that had successfully been used since 1988 for local action groups in rural areas. 17 On a regional and national scale also the area of five voivodeships of Eastern Poland, and, since ´ askie Voivodeship. 2019, also Sl˛

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consensus for over 20 years, to direct territorial intervention in favour of cities and peripheral areas: in 2017, the implementation of the Support Package for MediumSized Towns was launched. It consisted in preferentially distributing EU funds under national and regional programmes and additional funds for implementing financial pro-development projects from the domestic resources of the Polish Development Fund and other disbursers. In accordance with the provisions of the National Strategy for Regional Development 2030 (2019) adopted in September 2019 and the outline of the Partnership Agreement specifying the use of EU funds in Poland after 2021, an operational programme has been proposed for implementation that will be put into effect at the national level and dedicated to areas marginalised at the sub-regional scale. This indicates that the division into intra-regional policy (implemented by voivodeship local governments for the development of their own voivodeships) and interregional policy (run by the government for the development of regions) is becoming a thing of the past as the system acquires features in which an increased role in conducting regional policy is played by the government, public institutions and local entities at the expense of the voivodeship government. Institutional Issues in Development Policy Issues that have been raised in political and scientific discourse since the 1990s relating to increasing economic efficiency and the state’s functioning through decentralisation (on the local and then regional level) have also contributed to the major role of institutional issues regarding shaping the Polish development model. Theories of social capital and those concerning the role of institutions in development processes (and, recently, place-based theory) have influenced all Polish programming documents on the institutional sphere (alongside activities in the sphere of enterprises, infrastructure and human resources), where the aim should be to improve the quality of administration, to promote various forms of cooperation and to ensure flow of know-how between EU programme partners and beneficiaries. Institutional support solutions (e.g. in the field of cooperation between regions or cities) based on the Cohesion Policy have become the foundation for implementing many programmes and projects and for promoting the construction of a multi-level cooperation system involving various partners at the successive stages of development policy programming and implementation. One of the effects of this approach is that over the past twenty years it has been possible to build a fairly well-functioning system of cooperation between the government and voivodeship local governments concerning the implementation of regional policy.18 Also, ITI has helped build cooperation between local governments within the metropolitan areas of the largest cities, which had not previously been successful. Along with the increased EU interest in urban issues, current measures relate mainly but not exclusively to cities (e.g. Cities Partnership Initiative, support in developing regeneration projects, etc.) and 18

Although one should now question whether this good cooperation will continue, as the whole process has been politicised and it has been announced that the government administration will participate more in directly implementing development programmes operating on sub-regional scales, i.e. in an area until recently considered to be part of the intra-regional policy under the domain of voivodeship local government.

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are implemented with the participation of cooperation networks of cities such as the Association of Polish Cities or specialised institutions (e.g. the Institute of Urban and Regional Development).

20.5 EU Regional Policy Intervention in Shaping the Development of Polish Regions The economic effects of the transformation in Poland can be considered spectacular. This is evidenced by the fact that Poland’s GDP doubled in the twenty-five years after 1989 (i.e. by 2015) when the wide-ranging reforms in the political system began. The scale of changes taking place in this respect puts Poland in the leading position. Slovakia is second in this ranking, with a 70% increase in GDP compared to 1989. In the case of the Czech Republic, the increase was 41%, while in the same timeframe, GDP increased by only 28% in Hungary and by 11% in Bulgaria, and in Croatia, there was practically no change. The pace of these changes was also distinctive. For over two decades, Poland has grown on average 4% per year—faster than other Central European countries. Macro-economic trends set Poland apart not only from Europe. In the last three decades, Poland’s total economic growth was close to that seen in South Korea and was greater than in Chile or Malaysia. Importantly, given the outstanding figures and dynamics, Poland’s economic growth was highly stable. No slowdown cycle in Poland saw negative GDP growth, and the Polish economy was the only one in the European Union not to record a recession even during the global financial crisis of 2008 (Łaszek 2015). These positive changes have resulted in an increase in the living standards of Poles and a civilisational leap of sorts that Poland made in less time than initially assumed. Of some significance to the macroeconomic growth was the intervention of the European Union aid, which initially, in the 1990s, came to Poland through the PHARE programme, then during the membership negotiations (2000–2004) took the form of pre-accession programmes PHARE II, ISPA and SAPARD made available by the European Commission to countries negotiating membership conditions, and finally, structural and investment funds upon Poland’s accession to the European Union. The average annual allocations of these funds increased in value at a geometric rate, quickly becoming the primary source of financing for national development policy, including Poland’s regional policy (see Fig. 20.1). While these transfers in the 1990s were worth an average of around EUR 200 million a year, their current average value exceeds EUR 10 billion a year, which is an unprecedented increase of 5000%. The effects of this intervention are not limited to the implementation of projects approved for funding. Their results and impact, confirmed by MaMoR2 and HERMIN models (Musiałkowska 2009), had much wider consequences that translated into the aforementioned trends of economic growth, increased numbers of jobs and reduced unemployment. They also constituted an important factor in improving the Polish economy’s resistance to crisis phenomena, ensuring that the number and value of public investments implemented

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Fig. 20.1 Average annual transfers of European Union budget funds to Poland. Source Churski (2018)

in the country remain at a consistently high level. The guarantee that they would be financed meant that their implementation was not threatened by cyclical fluctuations and even held true in the times of the global financial crisis. It should be emphasised, however, that the Polish economy has now reached the saturation level, and further access to European public funds has ceased to bring economic growth and lower unemployment (Brandsma, Kancs 2015), which indicates the need for judicious allocation of these funds in order to maximise their long-term development-oriented effects (Churski 2018). Without questioning the successes in terms of the macro-economic impact of European Union Cohesion Policy interventions, it should be noted that it is very difficult to discern spatial differences in the impact that European regional policy instruments have had in Poland. The results of research by Gorzelak and Sm˛etkowski (2019) prove that the European Union Cohesion Policy’s effect in reducing the scale of development convergence in Poland in sub-regional system has been very limited and primarily demand side.19 The per capita allocation of the European Union’s Cohesion Policy funds can be seen to correlate with the level of economic development measured by GDP at the sub-regional level (NUTS 3) for the period 2010–2015, but at relatively low values (the r-Pearson correlation index was only 0.32 after excluding 19

Two effects of publicly funded financial development intervention transfers should be distinguished: demand side, which is periodic in nature and associated with the temporary activation of income multipliers stemming from implemented investments, and supply side, which is more permanent and is associated with a long-term improvement in the efficiency of production factors (improved qualifications, technological progress, acquisition of new markets, etc.).

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Fig. 20.2 Distribution of the value of Cohesion Policy projects by poviat in 2007–2015. Source Gorzelak and Sm˛etkowski (2019)

Warsaw as a clear outlier). There was a similar level of co-occurrence between allocation values and growth rates. Very importantly, however, the relationship between the dynamics of sub-regional development and the scale of funds obtained from the European Union’s Cohesion Policy expressed as a proportion of regional GDP was not statistically significant. This confirms the limited impact this intervention had in shaping economic growth rates at the sub-regional scale. The absorption of European funds was relatively largest in the strongest areas, which, with their advantageous institutional equipment, were more effective in acquiring projects than economically weaker areas. However, this did not significantly increase their development dynamics. The spatial distribution of acquired development support is even more mosaic-like at the local level (see Fig. 20.2). This falsifies the hypothesis that absorption of the European Union’s Cohesion Policy funds improved regional convergence of per capita GDP in Poland. One might even risk the thesis that if such a relationship were to occur, it would instead increase the polarisation of development in Poland. The indicated regularities are also confirmed by the results of another study identifying the impact of Cohesion Policy on the economic growth of regions and the change in development disparities between regions (Dubownik et al. 2019). Using the geographically weighted regression method, as well as selected measures of volatility (coefficients of variation, Hoover and Gini), the values of GDP indicators for 2006 and 2015 were compared with current prices, leading to the conclusion that while European Union programme funds from the 2007–2013 budget were being spent, GDP levels in both voivodeships and sub-regions did not decrease, but increased. Therefore, there was beta divergence at the level of both voivodeships and sub-regions. This leads to the conclusion that the European Union funds allocated to the Cohesion Policy and the Common Agricultural Policy did not result in the evening out of development differences within the country and/or that their impact did not offset the impact of other factors opposing convergence. Interestingly,

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Fig. 20.3 Interregional differences in economic growth in Poland in the years 2000–2013. Source Churski (2018)

development divergence was more evident in voivodeships than in sub-regions. This means that differences in the level of development occurred faster for entire regions than within regions. This allows the hypothesis that Cohesion Policy intervention aimed at supporting entirely economically weaker voivodeships is ineffective when compared to sub-regional intervention. Perhaps the growing differences in the development level between voivodeships result from varied institutional performance in the acquisition and use of EU assistance funds, mainly from Regional Operational Programmes. On the other hand, the slight increase in the differences between the levels of sub-regions’ economic development shows that in the analysed period there was no concentration of economic development in the centres of individual regions at the expense of the region’s periphery. This is also confirmed by research results regarding GDP growth dynamics in 2006–2015, when higher GDP growth of 106% was recorded in peripheral regions of voivodeships, while the growth dynamics of central sub-regions of voivodeships was around 70%. The observed changes in GDP lead to the conclusion that there is a positive tendency for central areas’ economic dominance over peripheral areas to decrease in the intra-regional system, which is not seen in the relation of strong voivodeships to weak voivodeships at the interregional level in Poland (see Fig. 21.3) (Churski et al. 2020b). It is also worth paying attention to the patterns of spatial and thematic differences in how the absorption of European funds was distributed among territories in Poland. Understanding the flows of absorption and taking into account the typology of development differences at the sub-regional level as well as aspects of socio-economic development, one can see interesting relationships resulting from endogenous territorial capital conditions. They are determined by location specifics and the level of socio-economic development. The most developed areas, which can be equated with growth areas (83 units constituting 22% of all poviats [LAU2 in Poland]), obtained almost half of the available EU’s Cohesion Policy funds in 2004–2010 (Churski et al. 2015a). These were urban areas, including the capitals of all agglomeration

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areas, as well as poviats where large economic entities dealing in raw materials are located (e.g. Zagł˛ebie Lubi´nsko-Głogowskie, Bełchatów, Turoszów, etc.) or that have distinctive location advantages (e.g. energy, chemical industry, location on the Oder or Vistula). The largest shares (50% or more) of domestic absorption in these areas relate to strengthening the innovative economy and business environment and to developing technical and social infrastructure. Considering per capita values and referencing them to the national average, development intervention in these areas— population and settlement aspects aside—was always above average. Its per capita value stood out especially for the innovative economy and business environment, as well as technical and social infrastructure (see Table 20.2). On the one hand, this confirms growth poles’ better institutional capacity and financial opportunities to acquire and implement large and costly infrastructure investments, and on the other hand, it underlines the specificity of these areas’ development conditions, which allows the economy’s innovativeness to be shaped, and business environment institutions and their offer to develop. This is especially visible in the case of large cities and their functional areas. In the economically weakest areas of Poland, which are identified with areas of stagnation, another situation obtains (Churski et al. 2015b). This class of poviats (LAU2) forms a set of 126, which constitutes 33.2% of all poviats and at the same time is home to 24% of the Polish population. This is a very internally diverse group of units that occur in less developed Eastern Poland as well as in other regions of the Table 20.2 Volume and structure of Cohesion Policy interventions in growth areas in Poland in 2004–2010 Aspects

Poland Total

Growth areas (Poland = 100%)

Poland per capita

Growth areas per capita (Poland = 100%)

Population and settlement

PLN 14.5 billion

PLN 5.4 billion (37%)

PLN 380

PLN 368 (97%)

Labour market and economic structure

PLN 8.5 billion

PLN 3.4 billion (40%)

PLN 224

PLN 236 (105%)

Technical and social infrastructure

PLN 26 billion

PLN 13 billion (50%)

PLN 696

PLN 900 (130%)

Financial situation and level of affluence

PLN 27 billion

PLN 12.1 billion (43%)

PLN 728

PLN 829 (114%)

Economic innovation and business environment

PLN 9.2 billion

PLN 5.5 billion (60%)

PLN 242

PLN 375 (155%)

Total

PLN 86.7 billion

PLN 39.1 billion (45%)

PLN 2,271

PLN 2,710 (119%)

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country. Their common trait is their agricultural character and very often a peripheral location in the region, in the belt of cross-border areas in the interregional system, which in many cases have an internal peripheral character. These units managed to obtain not even 20% of the Cohesion Policy funds made available in Poland in 2004– 2010 (see Table 20.3). These areas have the largest share in the national allocation for implementing projects to improve population and settlement aspects. Their per capita value is the only one to exceed the national average. A significant share, with a per capita value similar to the national average, also applies to interventions related to the state of the labour market and the structure of the economy. The obtained results indicate that despite having weaker institutional and financial possibilities, beneficiaries in areas of stagnation took up the challenge of reducing infrastructural deficiencies. The basic orientation of pro-development activities was that they balanced the situation on local labour markets where unemployment was highest. This was done both by implementing projects to create new jobs and by undertaking projects to raise and adapt workforce qualifications to the needs reported by the demand side of the labour market. The presented facts prove that the impact of the European Union’s Cohesion Policy instruments is a very important factor of economic growth in Poland and that has Table 20.3 Volume and structure of intervention of Cohesion Policy in stagnation areas in Poland in 2004–2010 Aspects

Poland Total

Areas of stagnation (Poland = 100%)

Poland per capita

Areas of stagnation per capita (Poland = 100%)

Population and settlement

PLN 14.5 billion

PLN 3.63 billion (25%)

PLN 380

PLN 406 (106%)

Labour market and economic structure

PLN 8.5 billion

PLN 1.95 billion (22.9%)

PLN 224

PLN 219 (97%)

Technical infrastructure and spatial availability

PLN 26 billion

PLN 5.58 billion (21%)

PLN 696

PLN 624 (90%)

Financial situation and level of affluence

PLN 27 billion

PLN 4.71 billion (16.9%)

PLN 728

PLN 527 (72%)

Economic innovation and business environment

PLN 9.2 billion

PLN 1.38 billion (14.9%)

PLN 242

PLN 154 (63%)

Total

PLN 86.7 billion

PLN 17.27 billion (19.9%)

PLN 2,271

PLN 1,931 (85%)

Source Churski et al. (2015b) Source Own calculations based on data from the Ministry of Regional Development, as at 31 December 2010

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resulted in positive socio-economic development, especially on the macro-economic scale. In the case of regional and sub-regional effects, the effectiveness of interventions in reducing the scale of development convergence remains a serious challenge. This favours the ongoing search for effective and efficient ways of programming and implementing intervention measures that will measurably reduce the scale of regional and sub-regional development inequalities.

20.6 Conclusions and Recommendations for the Period 2020+ In the last 30 years, the regional policy in Poland has been a very important instrument for the transformation of the political system and socio-economic development. This position was achieved thanks to several factors: 1. 2.

3.

4.

5.

effective absorption of EU funds—first, pre-accession and since 2004 transferred to Poland under the EU’s Cohesion Policy; assimilation and creative adaptation of the mechanisms and procedures of the EU’s Cohesion Policy to the Polish conditions, which resulted in both improved efficiency of various public policies (such as regional, transport, public procurement, environmental protection, labour market and education) and improved functioning of institutions directly involved in its programming and implementation; building an efficient partnership system for programming, managing and coordinating regional processes at national and regional levels supported by cooperation with the scientific and expert community from Poland and around the world; decentralisation of the state, including the establishment of the regional government in 1999, which increased the efficiency of the state’s development activities and allowed policy interventions to be adapted to regional needs; a comprehensive approach to socio-economic and territorial development issues, which enabled development policy objectives to be formulated in the context of the transformational needs of the Polish economy as a whole (efficiency primacy) and at the same time paying attention to the situation in poorer areas implementing interventions tailored to local needs and potentials (subsidiarity and territorially based policy principles).

The European Cohesion Policy, although its importance is currently diminishing in the hierarchy of European budget, can and should continue to be seen in Poland as an important development factor and an instrument for responding to the new challenges of globalisation, technological transformation, climate change or the problems with further European integration. This is determined not only by the still huge scale of

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transfers possibly reaching 2% of GDP,20 but a proven effective and efficient legal and institutional system for the coordination, programming and implementation of EU programmes, distinguished positively from other policies that have not undergone such a significant Europeanisation of methods of action (e.g. the health sector). Regional policy should continue to be very closely linked to the government’s socio-economic policies—the territorial dimension should be seen as crucial for a successful structural transformation of the whole country as a whole, as well as for individual regions, for infrastructure development, education, human resources development, capacity building for innovation or for improving the institutional quality of the functioning of the state. This is important not only because of European funds but also due to its potential to mobilise financial, human and institutional resources of different actors: national, regional, local, academic or business partners. The adaptation, in line with the place-based policy approach, of the intervention to the specificities of different territories is a prerequisite for improving the efficiency of any public policy. As regards the objectives to be achieved, the regional policy of the state should not focus only on transfers of funds to socio-economically disadvantaged regions and places, which, in the context of globalisation and the common market, will not result in a reversal of negative trends—instead, the aim should be to support the implementation of comprehensive strategies for the development of areas of different spatial scales (cities, functional areas, regions) prepared by local authorities and aimed very clearly at promoting structural changes conducive both to the zero-emission economy (because this will determine the competitiveness of the European economy), the development of innovation, human resources and the strengthening of the productivity of companies. For the assessment of the quality of such strategies and the transfer of funds for its implementation, the system of territorial contracts (initially functioning as voivodeship contracts and existing since 2000 but not currently fulfilling its role) can be adapted. Given the strong tendency towards the fragmentation of activities of the Council of Ministers and individual ministries, the following is required to maintain a strong role of regional policy in the hierarchy of Polish public policies: 1.

2.

20

preserving and strengthening the role of the minister responsible for regional policy (and the ministry serving him or her) concerning mechanisms of interministerial coordination as regards the territorial dimension of the socioeconomic policy of the government: preparing a medium-term strategy for the transformation of the economy towards Industry 4.0, digitalisation, energy transition and a zero-emission economy with support instruments for the creation of territorial ecosystems in different regional arrangements. It also seems appropriate to prepare a new strategic National Spatial Development Concept, which could present an integrated vision of the country’s socio-economic and spatial development with a

Poland will also obtain substantial transfers in the form of grants and loans from the new EU Next Generation temporary emergency recovery instrument helping the member states to fight COVID-19 pandemic negative socio-economic impacts and rebuild economic resilience in the longer term.

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time horizon at least 2040 taking into account and referring to new development factors and mega trends; strengthening dialogue and restore trust between the government and regional and local governments by: a. b. c.

4.

519

increasing income-based resources for sub-regional development activities, modifying compensation systems and increasing the powers to coordinate sectoral activities carried out by different ministries and government subsidiaries established on the territory of communes and regions;

implementing programmes to strengthen institutional capacity to conduct development activities by creating new mechanisms for cooperation between the various actors of the development game—local (including cities and rural areas) and regional governments, the scientific community and international institutions while paying special attention to the weaker participants.

References Bachtler J, Oliveira Martisns J, Wostner P, Zuber P (2019) Towards cohesion policy 4.0, regional studies policy impact books. Taylor and Francis, Oxon Baldwin R, Forslid R, Martin P, Ottaviano G, Robert-Nicoud F (2003) Economic geography and public policy. Princeton University Press, Princeton. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt7skht Barca F (2009) An agenda for a reformed Cohesion Policy. A place-based approach to meeting European Union challenges and expectations. Independent report prepared at the request of Danuta Hübner, Commissioner for Regional Policy Bokoff MS (2010) The framework of trade in the council for mutual economic assistance [thesis]. University of Connecticut, Mansfield Boudeville JR (1964) Note sur l’intégration des espaces économiques. Cahiers de l’I.S.E.A. Institut de Science Economique Appliquée 153(14):5–74 Boudeville JR (1972) Aménagement du territoire et polarisation. Editions M.-Th. Génin, Paris Brandsma A, Kancs D (2015) RHOMOLO: a dynamic general equilibrium modelling approach to the evaluation of the European Union’s R&D policies. Reg Stud 49(8):1–20. https://doi.org/10. 1080/00343404.2015.1034665 Carey JPC, Carey AG (1955) The South of Italy and the Cassa per il Mezzogiorno. Western Polit Q 8(4):569–588 Churski P (2008) Czynniki rozwoju regionalnego i polityka regionalna w Polsce w okresie integracji z Uni˛a Europejsk˛a (Factors of regional development and regional policy in Poland during the EU integration), Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu, Pozna´n Churski P (2014) The polarization-diffusion model in the changes to the cohesion policy—the consequences to the direction of the growth policy. In: Churski P (ed) The social and economic growth vs. the emergence of economic growth and stagnation areas. Bogucki Wydawnictwo naukowe, Pozna´n, pp 13–27 Churski P, Borowczak A, Perdał R (2015a) Struktura inwestycji finansowanych ze s´rodków unijnych a czynniki rozwoju w obszarach wzrostu w Polsce (Structure of EU-funded investments vs development factors in the areas of growth in Poland). In: Małuszy´nska E, Mazur G, Musiałkowska I (eds) Polska—10 lat członkostwa w Unii Europejskiej (Poland—10 years of EU membership), Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Ekonomicznego w Poznaniu, Pozna´n, pp 183–199

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Churski P, Borowczak A, Perdał R (2015b) Czynniki rozwoju obszarów stagnacji w Polsce a ukierunkowanie interwencji s´rodków unijnych (Development factors for economic stagnation areas in Poland in light of targeting the EU structural investments). Studia Obszarów Wiejskich, Tom 37, Wiejskie obszary funkcjonalne, Komisja Obszarów Wiejskich PTG, Instytut Geografii i Przestrzennego Zagospodarowania PAN, Warszawa, pp 115–130 Churski P (2018) Cities and contemporary challenges of regional development policy three key messages from the Polish laboratory. Presentation by invitation on 12th World Congress of RSAI, Goa, India Churski P, Herodowicz T, Konecka-Szydłowska B, Perdał R (2020a) European regional development and socio-economic changes—contemporary perspectives. Economic Geography Series, Springer (in print) Churski P, Adamiak Cz, Dubownik A, Szyda B (2020b) La política de cohesión en tiempos de globalización: Aprendiendo de la experiencia de Polonia. Universidad de Jaén, Departamento de Economía, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y Jurídicas, Jaén (in print) Dubownik A, Rudnicki R, Szyda B, Adamiak Cz, Kali´nski K (2019) Fundusze Unii Europejskiej, jako czynnik rozwoju regionalnego (EU funds as a factor of regional development), Studia KPZK PAN, Monografia, tom 1/193 European Commission (2017) My region, my Europe, our future: seventh report on economic, social and territorial cohesion. Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg Friedman J, Alonso W (1964) Introduction. In: Alonso JFW (ed) Regional development and planning. MIT Press, Cambridge, pp 1–13 Friedmann J (1967) A general theory of polarized development. In: Ford Foundation, Urban and Regional Development Advisory Program in Chile, Santiago Gorzelak G (1989) Rozwój regionalny Polski w warunkach kryzysu i reformy (Regional development of Poland in the conditions of crisis and reform). Rozwój Regionalny, Rozwój Lokalny, Samorz˛ad Terytorialny, 14, Wydział Geografii i Studiów Regionalnych, Instytutu Gospodarki Przestrzennej, Uniwersytet Warszawski, Warszawa Gorzelak G (1997) Polityka pomocy regionalnej w liberalnej gospodarce—Appalachy (Regional aid policy in a liberal economy—the Appalachians). In: Drobczy´nska A (ed) Jednolito´sc´ i róznorodnos´c w polityce rozwoju (Uniformity and diversity in development policy). Wydział Nauk Ekonomicznych Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, Warszawa, pp 5–25 Gorzelak G, Sm˛etkowski M (2019) Rozwój regionalny, polityka regionalna (Regional development, regional policy). Raporty, Forum Obywatelskiego Rozwoju, Warszawa Grosse T (2007) Czy Polska Potrzebuje Narodowej Strategii Rozwoju Regionalnego (Does Poland need the National Regional Development Strategy). Studia Regionalne i Lokalne 4(30):31–47 Hausner J (2001) Modele polityki regionalnej w Polsce (Models of regional policy in Poland). Studia Regionalne i Lokalne 15(5):5–24 Hägerstrand T (1951) Migration and growth of cultural regions. Lund Stud Geogr B(3) Hägerstrand T (1952) The propagation of innovation waves. Lund Stud Geogr B(4) Hägerstrand T (1967) Innovation diffusion as a spatial process. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago Hettner A (1927) Die Geographie—ihre Geschichte, ihr Wesen und ihre Methoden. Breslau Hirschman AO (1958) The strategy of economic development. Yale University Press, New Haven Isard W (1960) Methods of regional analysis: an introduction to regional science. Wiley, New York Kukli´nski A (1976) Planowanie rozwoju regionalnego w krajach europejskich (Regional development planning in European countries). Pa´nstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Warszawa Khun T (1962) The structure of scientific revolutions. University of Chicago Press, Chicago Łaszek A (2015) Nast˛epne 25 lat. Jakie reformy musimy przeprowadzi´c by dogoni´c Zachód (The next 25 years. What reforms do we need to make to catch up with the West)? Forum Obywatelskiego Rozwoju, Warszwa Mikołajewicz Z (2007) Geneza i rozwój planowania przestrzennego oraz polityki regionalnej w Polsce (Origins and development of spatial planning and regional policy in Poland). In: Kauf S (ed) Polityka Regionalna w okresie transformacji—cele, do´swiadczenia, perspektywy (Regional

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policy during the transformation—objectives, experiences, perspectives). Uniwersytet Opolski, Opole, pp 55–92 Manzella GP (2009) The turning points of EU cohesion policy. In: Working Papers. European Investment Bank, Luxembourg Ministry of Regional Development (2009) Ministry of Regional Development in cooperation with the Chancellery of the Prime Minister and the Team of Strategic Advisors of the Prime Minister, Warszawa 2009 Musiałkowska I (2009) Wykorzystanie Funduszy Strukturalnych w Polsce po 2004 roku (Use of Structural Funds in Poland after 2004) In: Konopacki S (ed) Polska pi˛ec´ lat w UE (Poland five years in the EU), Wydawnictwo Ibidem, Łód´z, pp 223–257 Myrdal G (1957) Economic theory and underdeveloped regions. Hutchinson, London National Strategy for Regional Development 2020 (2010) Ministry of Regional Development, Warsaw National Strategy for Regional Development 2030 (2019) Ministry of Regional Development and Investment, Warsaw National Spatial Development Concept 2030 (2011) Ministry of Regional Development, Warsaw Paelinck J (1965) La théorie du développement régional polarisé. Cahiers de l’I.S.E.A. Institut de Science Economique Appliquée 159(15): 5–47 Richardson HW (1973) Regional growth theory. Macmillan, London Rodriguez-Pose A, Wilkie C (2019) Making the most of decentralisation In: Olechnicka A, Herbst M (eds) Równo´sc´ czy Efektywno´sc´ Rozwoju. Eseje inspirowane dorobkiem naukowym Grzegorza Gorzelaka (Equity or development efficiency. Essays inspired by the scientific output of Grzegorz Gorzelak), Warszawa, pp 294–318 Rodriguez-Pose A (2018) The revenge of the places that don’t matter (and what to do about it). Cambridge J Reg Econ Soc 11(1):189–209 Solow RM (1956) A contribution to the theory of economic growth. Quart J Econ 70(1):65–94 Strategy for Responsible Development 2020 (2017) Ministry of Development, Warsaw Szlachta J (1990) Gospodarka regionalna w Stanach Zjednoczonych Ameryki Północnej (Regional economy in the USA). Instytut Planowania, Akademia Ekonomiczna w Poznaniu, Pozna´n Whittlesey D (1954) The regional concept and the regional method. American Geography, Inventory and Prospect, Syracuse

Part V

Poland’s Development in the Face of Global Challenges

Chapter 21

Spatial-Economic Prosilience: A Signpost Framework for Poland Peter Nijkamp

Abstract This modest essay provides retrospectively a ‘helicopter’ perspective on economic development in Poland. It aims to position the socioeconomic performance outcomes of Poland over the past decades in the general context of economic planning. It seeks its methodological orientation in resilience theory and economic policy analysis. It argues that territorial capital and institutional reform play a central role in the relatively favourable achievements of the Polish economy since the beginning of this century. Keywords Economic development · Economic policy · Capability · Resilience · Prosilience

21.1 Introduction The socioeconomic fortune of nations and regions has never shown a static picture. Nations and regions are always in a state of flux, with different short-term and long-term amplitudes. In the socioeconomic history of our world, there has never been a nation or area that was always outperforming all others. Similarly, there has never been a region that had always the lowest position on the socioeconomic welfare ladder. The winners and losers may even change positions. The socioeconomic history of Poland and of its regions does not deviate from the above sketched development of the economies of nations and regions. From a country with a problematic economic performance in the post-WWII era, Poland has shown a remarkable growth performance in the past decades even though the differences in the socioeconomic outcomes of several Polish regions remain a source of concern. The economic growth in Poland is by no means uniformly spread over all regions and cities so that spatial equity problems remain a source of concern (see also Kourtit et al. 2017; Tiganasu et al. 2019). P. Nijkamp (B) VU University Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV, Amsterdam, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Churski and T. Kaczmarek (eds.), Three Decades of Polish Socio-economic Transformations, Economic Geography, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06108-0_21

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The favourable socioeconomic achievements of Poland are clearly associated with its political and institutional reform—from a communist centralism to a market economy—after the fall of the Iron Curtain and after its entry into the European Union in 2004. It is clear that institutional reform has facilitated a rapid economic development in this country, an observation that is in agreement with the seminal books of Olson (1982) on the rise and decline of nations and of Acemoglu and Robinson (2012) on the causes of failure of nations. It is therefore plausible that— next to cultural factors (see Tubadji et al. 2016)—institutional transformation has been one of the key factors in shaping a new economic system in Poland. We will interpret this phenomenon in this essay from a resilience viewpoint, followed by a capability interpretation.

21.2 Setting the Scene The history of the economic geography of our world does—as mentioned above— not show a robust development of nations and regions. Periods of stable economic growth and rising prosperity are succeeded by shocks and fluctuating socioeconomic patterns of welfare. Such a dynamic and evolutionary profile of nations and regions may be caused by exogenous determinants (e.g. banking crisis, migration shocks, Brexit, pandemics) or by endogenous drivers (e.g. cultural factors, entrepreneurial inertia). However, the complex force field of economic dynamics should not only be positioned in the restrictive domain of economics or economic geography but also in the wider context of institutional support systems, technological innovations, demographic developments (including ageing and migration), international political tensions or trade wars. The question is, therefore, under which conditions are nations and regions able to provide a proper response to many uncertain stressors. In this context, the notion of resilience plays a critical role in understanding the forces at work as well as the necessary recovery trajectories towards a new equilibrium, after an external or internal perturbation. One of the first regional science publications on resilience (see Reggiani et al. 2002) links this concept to evolutionary thinking and provides a conceptual overview of the constituents of resilient economic systems. This was later on elaborated in operational terms inter-alia by Martin and Sunley (2015), with a view to the need to develop a testable and measurable resilience indicator for an economy. Nowadays, the resilience concept has in Europe received a more practical policy-laden meaning of a greener, more digital, more equal, more inclusive, and healthier development (European Commission 2020). We note that in the context of research and policy on economic, social, technological and political dynamics, the resilience concept is playing increasingly an important role as a signpost for sustainable and balanced development of nations, regions or industries. It has stimulated a wealth of studies and publications. Very recently, a new publication has come to the fore, namely ‘The European Atlas of Resilience’ (see Banica et al. 2021). This Atlas maps out the multidimensional complexity of European nations and regions in colour maps and figures. It is a rich source of

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empirical information on the resilience (capacity) in Europe, based on a multidimensional visualisation, a multilevel representation and multi-shock causality analysis of evolutionary socioeconomic patterns in Europe. Several glaring facts from this Atlas regarding the dynamic evolution of Poland will be presented in Sect. 21.3.

21.3 Resilience Facts on Poland The Resilience Atlas of Europe starts with a collection of several stressors and shocks (e.g. EU Enlargement, Economic and Financial Crisis, Ukraine Crisis, Refugees Crisis, COVID-19 Pandemics). It then identifies the national and regional systems in Europe, followed by the design of a conceptual resilience framework, the identification and measurement of a multidimensional set of resilience performance indicators, the exploration of different shocks, the assessment of the resilience of the systems at hand, followed by an evaluation of the resilience capacity of European nations and regions. The maps on resilience performance contain five main categories, viz. (i) individual and social resilience, (ii) economic resilience (subdivided into business, labour market, financial and macro-economic and overall economic resilience), (iii) environmental resilience, (iv) institutional and governance resilience, and (v) democracy resilience, followed by an overall resilience performance map of Europe. The Atlas contains next also detailed information on resilience capacity (drivers, dynamics, capacity performance), followed by several thematic case studies (e.g. heat-wave patterns, national pandemic profiles, tourism dynamics, etc.). We will offer here a concise record on the resilience performance of Poland, based on information from this Atlas. Poland appears to possess an intermediate position on the individual resilience map of Europe (with some variation according to resistance and recovery indicators). Similar results for Poland are found for the social resilience map of Europe. Thus, the country appears to possess a robust middle position. For economic resilience, we find a slightly above average outcome for Poland, but there are striking differences at a regional scale of the country for all factors involved (such as business and labour market). Clearly, regional inequality is rather prominent in Poland. Next, for environmental resilience, we find again a varying position of Poland, with a slight underperformance. Thus, there is clearly scope for further environmental improvement in the country. Institutional resilience appears to be also on an average level for Poland but again with a significant variation at regional scales. For governance resilience, the Polish system appears to score above average. This reflects some successful outcome from an institutional perspective. And finally, for democracy resilience, Poland scores relatively low, which is no wonder in the light of the recent discussion in Europe on the solidity of the democratic system in this country.

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We may thus conclude that various types of resilience show varying patterns for Poland and its regions over the past decades, whilst their recovery patterns show also quite some variety. With the exception of democracy resilience, Poland appears to be an average performing resilience player in the European landscape. An important question is of course how to govern or control the ever changing socioeconomic landscape of the Polish space economy. This will be discussed in the next section.

21.4 The Art of Economic Resilience Policy As mentioned above, the economic arena of countries and regions is permanently changing. To manage or control such changes, various types of policy responses or interventions can be distinguished. In the first place, we may distinguish pro-active policies (which are future-oriented and often normative in nature) versus re-active policies (which come only into force if certain undesirable outcomes call for a change in policy). The first type of policy calls for a high degree of agility amongst policymakers and is more risky, given the many future uncertainties in the economy. The second type of policy bears less risks but is more passive and may lead to delayed responses (with high costs involved). The question which class of policy strategy is desirable depends also on the degree of policy intervention, ranging from ad hoc or daily measures to long-range or strategic policy measures. In this context, it may be relevant to refer to the theory of economic policy articulated by Nobel laureate Tinbergen (1956). In his fundamental approach to rational economic policy, he makes a distinction between three types of policy interventions or approaches: (i) quantitative economic policy, (ii) qualitative economic policy and (iii) structural (or transformational) economic policy. The first class refers to ongoing adjustments of given policy instruments as a result of a regular government control of the economy (e.g. changes in taxes, shifts in subsidies or rise in entrance fees for university students). The second class refers to more essential intervention mechanisms by introducing new policy instruments (e.g. children allowances, restraints on foreign labour migration). And finally, the third class of policy approaches covers fundamental or systemic changes in the decision mechanism of the economy (e.g. decentralisation or transfer of power from national to regional or local authorities or transformation from a centralised economy to a market economy). It goes without saying that the latter type of policy approach is directly related to the Polish economy after the fall of the Iron Curtain and the subsequent fall of the communist regime. Such fundamental institutional regime switches usually incorporate high transaction and adjustment costs, before the economic benefits of a higher efficiency in the economic system concerned can be reaped. This is clearly manifested in Poland after the abrupt transformation from a centralised regime to a market system. It is noteworthy that most contributions to economic policy in the literature address the first category (i.e. quantitative policy). This is clearly witnessed in Tinbergen’s (1956) so-called fixed-target approach, in which policy instruments have to be determined such that they reach exactly the pre-specified policy targets. In subsequent

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contributions to economic policy by Theil (1964), a flexible optimisation approach (based on quadratic penalty functions for deviations from a desired growth path) is adopted, but the final goals of economic policy are still to achieve an optimal quantitative value of policy instruments. Similar developments can be observed in subsequent quantitative studies in the context of linear (or nonlinear) programming models and multi-objective optimisation models, which for decades have dominated the field of operational research and management studies and, which became highly popular in the 1980s and 1990s. It should be noted that after the transformation of the Polish economy—approximately almost one generation ago—many policy-impact studies (both ex post and ex ante) have been undertaken, but that a more integrative full-fledged econometric analysis of the Polish space economy has not materialised, leave aside the development of optimisation studies. A comprehensive multi-region multi-sector resilience modelling analysis of the Polish economy would no doubt provide a clear guidance to economic policy-making. A field where solid quantitative modelling of complex spatial-economic systems has been more successful is formed by regional science, in which in particular the focus has been laid on modelling regional disparities and regional potentials (see e.g. Capello and Nijkamp 2019). A good illustration of such integrated quantitative and modelling analyses can be found inter-alia in Fonseca and Fratesi (2017), whilst a fundamental theoretically-oriented quantitative approach can be found in Andersson and Andersson (2019). It would certainly be a great benefit to the Polish space economy if such advanced policy-oriented approaches would also be adopted in Poland so as to get a better understanding of the complex transformation mechanism—its backgrounds, internal and external drivers and its impact—in the Polish space economy. The next section will be devoted to a further explanation of the ‘span of control’ in the economy in Poland, based on a resilience interpretation in combination with a capability interpretation.

21.5 A Capability Interpretation of the Polish Economy As mentioned above, resilience offers a framework for a better understanding of shocks and challenges in the economy. In a recent article on spatial-economic dynamics and resilience, Aroca et al. (2021) introduced the concept of prosilience as a follow-up of the earlier resilience idea. Prosilience refers to pro-active change behaviour of an agent who after a shock or perturbation not only aims to recover but also—and in particular—to recover in a different and more robust appearance. So, prosilience refers to a new equilibrium which is qualitatively different from the original state of affairs. It is closely related to Tinbergen’s structural transformation; it reflects essentially the radical change in the development trajectory of the Polish economic in the post-communist era. In general, resilience studies related to political-economic transformations have been frequently undertaken for Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, but prosilience interpretations have hardly been given ample attention, neither methodologically nor empirically.

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A prominent question is now which are the determinants of a prosilience development strategy of a nation or region? Clearly, one might adopt the Schumpeterian perspective that economic stress leads to the stimulation and exploitation of creative entrepreneurial spirits, but then still the question remains on the nature of facilitating political or other basic background factors. It seems plausible that Sen’s (1979) capability theory provides a logical background and for understanding the forces and work. Capability refers to the facilitating potential of indigenous regional or national resources that may induce economic growth or development. Economic development—not only in terms of quantitative system’s growth, but also in terms of qualitative improvement—is not the result of a deterministic blueprint policy strategy but means a search for new opportunities under varying external conditions. The capacity to exploit and manage these determining background factors determines the outcome. This does not only hold for Sen’s study of developing economies but for any space-economy. Such background factors have extensively been studies in the framework of the ‘resourceful region’ concept (Nijkamp 2016). This concept articulates in general five fundamental drivers of new economic development (in particular, economic capital, human capital, environmental conditions, resource availability and institutional quality), which can be included in a so-called Pentagon model of the economy. Evidence-based quantification of such factors may allow for empirical testing of the validity of this capability approach (see also Banica et al. 2020). This type of quantitative economic policy would also be of great importance for the development issues articulated in the present study. The development of the Polish space-economy over the past thirty years exhibits a good image of a resilient economic system which has shown a remarkable economic performance. From a low-income country in the beginning of the 1990s, Poland has turned into a medium-income European country (with an average GDP per capita of above 15.000 euro) and with a robust average growth rate of the economy since its access to the EU of about 4–5% annually (even without a recession during the economic crisis of 2007–2011). Its labour market, performance is also remarkable, with at present an unemployment rate of about 4%. Clearly, the corona crisis has also affected the Polish economy but has thus far not led to disastrous outcomes. Of course, its dependence on the German economy—with a rather stable economic outcome—provides some robust performance outcomes, but there are also domestic outcomes which illustrate the strong capability (in the sense of Sen) of the Polish economy. The transformation towards a market economy has no doubt paid off, which means that the institutional reframing of economic policy-making has brought about a high degree of resilience of the Polish economy. Despite emerging issues like population ageing and relatively low innovativeness, the Polish structural transformation may be seen as a good example of successful prosilience. The Polish economy has managed to exploit the opportunities of the political-economic reform (‘fortune seeking’) through a market-oriented economic planning, in which territorial capital of the regions (including institutional adaptability) plays a key role.

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In retrospect, it is therefore a plausible proposition that the recent development of the Polish economy (both national and regional)—interpreted as a systemic transformation—may be modelled and interpreted in a structural prosilience framework that is characterised by an opportunity-seeking (or fortune-seeking) capability approach amongst all stakeholders in the Polish space economy.

References Acemoglu D, Robinson JA (2012) Why nations fall—the origins of power, prosperity and poverty. Profile Risks, London Andersson AE, Andersson DE (2019) Time, space and capital. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham Aroca P, Kourtit K, Nijkamp P, Stough R (2021) Prosilience trajectories of phoenix regions: a narrative on intelligent transformation of old mining areas. Eastern J Eur Stud (forthcoming) Banica A, Kourtit K, Nijkamp P (2020) Natural disaster as a development opportunity. Spat Econ Resil Interp Rev Reg Res 40(2):233–249 Banica A, Eva M, Iatu C, Nijkamp P, Pascariu GC (eds) (2021) The European atlas of resilience. Center for European Studies, IA Cuza University, Iasi Capello R, Nijkamp P (eds) (2019) Regional growth and development theories. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham European Commission (2020), Europe’s moment: repair and prepare for the next generation, communication/2020.456 final, Brussels Fonseca M, Fratesi U (eds) (2017) Regional upgrading in Southern Europe. Springer, Berlin Kourtit K, Suzuki S, Nijkamp P (2017) Effective clusters as territorial performance engines in a regional development strategy. Region 4(33):39–63 Martin R, Sunley P (2015) On the notion of regional economic resilience. J Econ Geogr 15:1–42 Nijkamp P (2016) The ‘resourceful region.’ J Region Res 36:35–61 Olson M (1982) The rise and decline of nations: economic growth, stagflation, and social rigidities. Yale University Press, New Haven Reggiani A, de Graaff T, Nijkamp P (2002) Resilience: an evolutionary approach to spatial economic systems. Netw Spat Econ 2:211–229 Sen A (1979) In: McMurrin J (ed) Inequality of what, the tanner lectures on human values. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 197–220 Theil H (1964) Optimal decision rules for government and industry. North-Holland Publishers, Amsterdam Tinbergen J (1956) Economic policy: principles and design. North-Holland Publishers, Amsterdam Tiganasu R, Pascariu GC, Nijkamp P (2019) Performance and innovation in the public sector in the European union countries. Transylvanian Rev Adm Sci. https://doi.org/10.24193/tras.S12019. 6,94-123 Tubadji A, Nijkamp P, Angelis V (2016) Cultural hysterisis, entrepreneurship and economic crisis. Camb J Reg Econ Soc 9(1):103–136

Chapter 22

Polish Cities: The Search for Development Concepts Adam Radzimski, Lidia Mierzejewska, and Kamila Sikorska-Podyma

Abstract Polish cities have undergone numerous and significant changes in the past 30 years. They were primarily linked to the new political and socio-political situation in the country, in which a centrally controlled economy was replaced by a model based on the principles of democracy and the free market. Numerous reforms were carried out in the post-transition period, including the reinstatement of local governments, a reform of the spatial planning system and administrative reform. In a new globally interlinked landscape, some cities began to gain, and some started to lose, their development potential. These tendencies were further exacerbated by deindustrialisation and demographic shrinkage. Against that background, the purpose of the chapter is to look how cities try to adapt to the new situation. Based on the existing literature as well as plans and strategic documents elaborated by Polish cities, we situate urban responses to both local and global development challenges within a conceptual framework. In doing so, we examine the ways in which Polish cities (partially) adopted Western development concepts, transformed them to meet their needs and applied them to tackle their problems. Keywords Polish cities · Systemic transformation · Resilient city · Smart city · Slow city · Urban policy mobilities

A. Radzimski (B) · L. Mierzejewska · K. Sikorska-Podyma Faculty of Human Geography and Planning, Adam Mickiewicz University, B. Krygowskiego 10, 61-680 Pozna´n, Poland e-mail: [email protected] L. Mierzejewska e-mail: [email protected] K. Sikorska-Podyma e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Churski and T. Kaczmarek (eds.), Three Decades of Polish Socio-economic Transformations, Economic Geography, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06108-0_22

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22.1 Introduction Since the late 1980s, Polish cities have been subject to extensive changes the sources of which can be found in the political transformation. This change, also called systemic, or socio-economic, was related to a series of alterations connected to the political system, the transition from a centrally planned economy to the free market, the re-establishment of local governments, a reform of the spatial planning system and also to the change in social awareness, preferences, the system of values, etc. For cities, the systemic change meant entering a new path of development, determined by factors and conditions different from those in the past (Holmes 1997; Grabowska 2004; Eisler 2004; Szmytkowska 2008; Cudny 2011; Parysek 2017). The systemic changes coincided with a period of progressing globalisation and European integration as well as the observed post-modernist changes in the economic sphere, such as deindustrialisation, neoliberalism and the development of information society. Their impact affected development processes in many world cities, including those in Poland (e.g. Sassen 1991; Mc1999; Parysek 2004, 2005, 2017; Friedmann 1995). All these processes, often contradictory to one another, have influenced directly and structurally the growth of Polish cities, creating specific conditions for their transition from socialist to post-socialist ones (e.g. Cudny 2011; W˛ecławowicz 2016; Parysek 2017). As a result of these changes, some cities started to develop their potential, while others lost theirs (Haase et al. 2017). A sudden change in the functioning model of the economy and society became a source of problems for many cities, often felt to this day, as discussed more broadly by Mierzejewska and Parysek (2014) and Parysek (2017). Simultaneously, cities had to (and still need to) face new, numerous challenges. They can draw on the assumptions, models and development concepts prepared for cities in developed countries allowing for local determinants. In today’s world, urban concepts and models are subject to the global circulation of knowledge, called urban policy mobilities (McCann 2011). This circulation makes specific concepts very popular in a short time, disseminating from a narrow group of innovator cities to a wide group of adopter cities. As a consequence, cities growing in markedly different conditions can relate to very similar models in the development policy they follow. Along with the political transformation, Polish cities could also be found in the global circulation of urban policy mobilities, seeking a trajectory of development adapted to the changed reality. This chapter aims to look at how cities are trying to adapt to a new situation. Based on the existing literature, as well as plans and strategic documents elaborated by Polish cities, we situate urban responses to both local and global development challenges within a conceptual framework. What is mainly examined is how Polish cities adopted Western development concepts, transformed them to meet their needs and applied to tackle their problems. Today, it is highly developed cities that create ideas, concepts and development models, adopted later (in whole or in part) also by other cities. Particular attention has been paid to three such concepts, namely resilient city, smart city and slow city which seem to be the most relevant from the point of

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view of problems and challenges facing Polish cities, and which, unlike many other concepts which put emphasis on a specific development aspect (e.g. just city—social aspect, green city—environmental aspect, compact city—spatial aspect), are holistic in nature at the same time.

22.2 Polish Cities Under Transition: New Problems Require New Solutions For Polish cities, which developed in the conditions of the real socialism ideology for 45 years, the transformation turned out to be a serious challenge. The difficult systemic changes coincided with the globalisation processes mentioned earlier, in response to which cities had to adapt their economic and spatial structure to the requirements of a competitive global economy with specific economic effects (e.g. an increase in capital mobility, the monopolisation of the economy, polarisation of development resources) as well as social processes (a decrease in the quality of life, unification of culture, the loss of local identities, landscape unification, McDonaldisation of life, etc.) (Stryjakiewicz 1999; Knox and Mayer 2010; Karwi´nska and Kudłacz, 2017). Globalisation is perceived as the main driving force behind urbanisation and metropolisation processes. During the transformation, however, urbanisation took on different faces. Cities in the western part of the country experienced faster suburbanisation processes and large migration (from smaller to larger cities). This resulted in, among other things, the shrinkage of small and medium-sized cities, the depopulation of downtowns, growing revitalisation needs and also increasing transport problems connected to migration between cities and the suburban zone. In eastern Poland, on the other hand, the classical form of urbanisation dominated, consisting in migration from rural areas to cities (W˛ecławowicz 2016). Urbanisation processes were accompanied by the lack of effective provisions on planning, which deepened the chaos of inherited urban structures and caused growing pressure on the natural environment. In circumstances of globalisation, massive metropolises grew rapidly and became hubs for decision-making, diffusion of innovation, information, finances, science and culture (Parysek 2005; Szmytkowska 2008; Wdowicka, 2017.a, 2017). This meant that areas (also entities and part of the society) situated outside the influence of metropolises could not benefit from their advantages (Karwi´nska and Kudłacz, 2017). Poland’s accession to the EU structures in 2004 including the adoption of neoliberal policy and free market principles played a very important role in shaping the conditions for the development of Polish cities during the transformation (W˛ecławowicz 2016). As a result, Poland was granted access to EU funds, but it had to adapt also to the existing EU regulations. According to Castells (1993), subordination and providing development directions soften and mitigate the effects of a post-communist legacy. In the EU policy, emphasis is put on the role of tradition in

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contemporary history and the need to combine economic competition with cooperation and social solidarity. This contrasts with globalisation with its ahistoricism and universalising claims (Staniszkis 2001). Growing economic competition between cities has become a basic element shaping urbanisation processes and attractiveness of cities. The general pattern in Poland is that the investment attractiveness of cities decreases with the movement from west to east, as well as the quantitative and qualitative nature of urbanisation processes (W˛ecławowicz 2016). After 1990, cities in eastern Poland, whose potential was largely in a pre-industrial phase, paid less for structural changes, but at the same time have been less able to meet the requirements of an open, competitive economy (Sm˛etkowski et al. 2009; Karwi´nska and Kudłacz, 2017). OECD identified main challenges for Poland which included population ageing and the shrinkage of labour force, growing inequalities in urban areas as well as social problems, restructuring of industry, poorly developed transport infrastructure (e.g. traffic congestion in expanding cities), housing deficit and environmental issues (persistent sewage treatment problems, air pollution, low energy efficiency, etc.) (W˛ecławowicz 2016). Some of these challenges (especially those concerning demographic and social aspects) are common for Polish and European cities, and others (mainly those related to economic, transport and ecological aspects) are clearly more intense in Poland. In reference to the identified determinants, problems and development challenges, urban development policies should be formulated. The models and concepts of development adopted in the cities of Western countries which are in line with the overarching idea of sustainable development may also prove useful in this respect. Therefore, the following section looks at the reception of selected, currently very popular development concepts by Polish cities.

22.3 Urban Responses to Global Challenges: A Selection In global competition, greater chances of development are attributed to large cities and urban agglomerations. This puts small and medium-sized cities, which cannot compete in many respects with larger centres, in a rather difficult situation (Rondinelli et al. 1998; Ploeg and Poelhekke 2008). However, as certain problems and development challenges are common for many cities, some models and concepts are universal (resilient city), and some are dedicated to cities because of specific features such as the population number or development potential. This is so because in some cities, especially large ones, the priority for urban authorities will be to attract new investments and improve economic efficiency and competitiveness (smart city), while the attractiveness of others, especially smaller ones, may be built on the basis of better, healthier living conditions for residents (slow city). Better living conditions are primarily related to social, environmental and spatial spheres and are typical of smaller cities for the most part. As the size of a city increases, problems such

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as congestion or environmental pollution intensify (Jopek 2018). It is worth highlighting, however, that the concepts discussed below are not competitive to one another, but rather complementary (e.g. the implementation of smart city assumptions contributes to building city resilience, but also has some common features with the slow city concept).

22.3.1 Resilient City The resilience concept in relation to cities primarily means the ability to adapt and take appropriate actions in the event of various types of phenomena and crises, as well as the improvement in the quality of functions and services provided by a city, both in normal circumstances and crisis situations (cf. Desouza and Flanery, 2013; Melkunaite and Guay 2016; Mierzejewska and Wdowicka 2018). According to Godschalk (2003), a resilient city is one ‘(…) capable of withstanding severe shock without either immediate chaos or permanent harm’. In the world literature, the resilient city concept initially referred mainly to the issues connected to natural disasters, including especially the results of climate change which has been increasing for years (e.g. Vale and Campanella, 2005; Colten et al. 2008). Over time, the scope of the interest has been extended to other key world threats, including global economic and social changes, demographic changes, urbanisation processes and individual urban subsystems. Within intra-urban systems, the idea of resilience was developed, e.g. in the context of the social (e.g. Adger 2000) and economic component (e.g. Drobniak 2012 et al.), safety (e.g. Harrigan and Martin 2002), planning (e.g. Desouza and Flanery, 2013), management (e.g. Melkunaite and Guay 2016) and other subsystems. The resilient city concept is becoming more and more popular among global bodies of scientists and various public and private institutions. In 2013, the international network ‘100 Resilient Cities’ was established (active by 2019), founded and supported (organisationally, financially and substantially) by the Rockefeller Foundation (RF). This organisation prepared the City Resilience Framework (CRF) based on the four most important dimensions of the life of cities (and their inhabitants), and these were (1) leadership and strategy, (2) health and well-being, (3) economy and society and (4) infrastructure and environment. For each of these dimensions, the main objectives and the most important factors defined as indicators were specified, determining the level of resilience of cities and their subsystems (cf. Admiraal and Cornaro, 2019). According to the CRF, a resilient urban system is a system which has several key features: (1) draws on previous experience, applying acquired knowledge to make future decisions, (2) employs alternative solutions and flexibly uses available resources, (3) holds extensive public consultations, (4) integrates various systems and institutions, (5) and (6) has optimally designed/planned and managed redundant systems and (7) is able to adapt strategies to changing circumstances (http://100resilientcities.org/resources/#section-1).

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The Rockefeller Foundation in cooperation with the Arup company also created an Internet tool called the City Resilience Index (CRI). This instrument rests on the earlier described four main dimensions of the functioning of cities, on whose basis and with a set of over 150 questions the resilience level of a given city is determined. A list of basic dimensions, corresponding objectives and individual indicators has been included, among other things, in the RF and Arup reports published in the Internet (https://www.cityresilienceindex.org/#/resources). The index makes it possible to assess the resilience of individual cities and may be used by urban governing bodies for the preparation of a development strategy compliant with the idea of resilience. The development concept based on the idea of resilience may play a significant role in the development of Polish cities because of the need to counteract not only shortterm, intensive threats such as floods, but mainly negative long-term occurrences. The latter include progressive suburbanisation, depopulation and population ageing, deindustrialisation, chaotic spatial growth and other problems, including ecological (e.g. air pollution with smog), economic or social issues (cf. Mierzejewska and Parysek 2014). One of the extraordinary challenges of recent months has certainly been the COVID-19 pandemic caused by the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) for which Poland and other countries were not prepared.

22.3.2 Smart City In recent years, Polish cities have been eager to refer to the term smart city. On the one hand, this concept is perceived as a way to improve the effectiveness of planning and public governance; on the other hand, what is clearly indicated is its marketing importance in the process of building the image of a city pursuing the newest worldwide trends. As Hollands (2008) notices, in the case of a smart city, there is a self-congratulatory tendency, also observed earlier in relation to a ‘sustainable city’, which creates a unique undeniable paradox—which city would want to be recognised as ‘not smart’ or ‘unsustainable’? For similar reasons, smart city works well as a key to creating city rankings or benchmarking, such as the smart-cities.eu portal. The above-mentioned considerations place smart city close to the category of post-political terms, around which there is—often only superficial or even apparent—consensus (Cardullo and Kitchin, 2019). Like many terms gaining popularity at a high pace, smart city suffers from a lack of clarity and precision of meaning. It is frequently identified with an extensive ICT infrastructure. This is, nonetheless, a debatable way of thinking, because the mere fact of having technologically advanced infrastructure does not make a city smarter (Hollands 2008). Also, the notion of artificial intelligence often appears in the context of smart cities, which is in itself a contemporary catchword. However, despite the fact that there is no full agreement on the definition, there is a clear promise that the use of ICT will be able to solve problems in many areas, particularly in transport, energy efficiency or public safety.

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On the other hand, voices raising doubts and concerns about smart city projects are increasingly more visible in the public debate. The issues of data security and privacy protection are at the forefront of the debate. In the face of increasingly ambitious projects, such as a new waterfront neighbourhood in Toronto built by Sidewalk Labs, a company controlled by Alphabet Inc (inter alia the owner of the Google search engine), questions are raised as to whether such a post-political way of city planning does not undermine the foundations of democracy and civic society (Carr and Hesse 2020). Critics see projects of this kind as a kind of digital utopia, which illustrates the idea of surveillance capitalism (Zuboff 2019). Today’s economy is increasingly based on data, and smart city fits well into this business model by generating, processing and sharing big data. Yet, despite all the progress in the field of smart urbanism, few satisfactory answers so far have been found to questions such as Who should own the user-generated data? Who ought to have access to them? Should the data be available on a commercial basis, or should it be made available for the public as open data? (Kitchin 2014).

22.3.3 Cittàslow/Slow City The assumptions of a slow city (Cittaslow) concept fit into the slow philosophy and focus mainly on environmental questions and the quality of life. Great emphasis is put on endogenous development factors, a better use of hidden or misused development resources and the popularisation of the culture of good, harmonious life in small localities, as an alternative to the hustle and bustle, rush and globalisation (e.g. Miele 2008; Hergül and Kahveci, 2019). The idea of creating the network of cities the development of which would be based on the slow philosophy was initiated in 1998 by a mayor of Greve in Chianti in Tuscany (Italy). A year later, with the support of representatives of several Italian towns, the Cittaslow association was established with the logo of an orange snail carrying buildings on its shell. Over time, other towns from different countries, meeting the requirements of Cittaslow, joined the association, including centres from Poland. One of the basic criteria deciding about the membership in the association is the size criterion (max. 50 thousand inhabitants). The remaining criteria, the total number of which is 72, must be met at least 50% (Miele 2008; Blazy 2016; Hergül and Kahveci, 2019). Cittaslow is connected to the following eight principles (Knox 2005; Mayer and Knox, 2006; Nilssona et al., 2011): (1) preserving and promoting local distinctiveness or place identity, (2) ensuring the prosperity of inhabitants, especially by encouraging them to eat healthy meals and to enjoy them, (3) supporting traditional cuisine and gastronomy, (4) supporting local culture and heritage, (5) supporting and promoting local products, events, agricultural markets and small enterprises, (6) actions for a more sustainable environment, (7) supporting the creation of the networks of contacts between a community, enterprises and local authorities and (8) empowering local communities to participate in the decision-making process. Thus, the Cittaslow movement not only supports social, environmental and economic stability

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(Presenza et al. 2015), but also modern, grassroots and local governance. The effects of the implementation of the principles of a slow city should be a harmoniously functioning urban structure focussed on constant, stable, sustainable development (Radstrom, 2011). Cities belonging to the slow network are to be strong, local centres, recognising the development opportunities of preserving the unique nature of each of them (Szarek-Iwaniuk 2019). The development potential of small and mediumsized towns is usually an attractive geographical location, cultural heritage, natural landscapes, tranquillity, local and authentic craftsmanship, local products, traditions, customs and at the same time access to high-quality services and workplaces at the place of residence or in its close vicinity. The functioning of a city in the slow style does not mean a slowdown in growth. On the contrary, this means development by a continued improvement in the living standards of inhabitants, preservation of identity and local values while being able to rationally use modern technology and progress, especially in ecology (recycling, alternative energy sources etc.) (Antolak and Jaszczak, 2015; Zad˛ecka 2018). Therefore, it cannot be associated with underdeveloped, uncomfortable, unattractive places for young people (Knox 2005). This is a philosophy of modern life, lived with respect for values, history, culture, internal balance, joy of life, ability to rest and respect for the natural environment. There is a risk, however, that slow cities may fall victim to their own success. As they are small, attractive and enchanting, they can be easily overwhelmed by mass tourism. The more they are promoted as centres offering highquality life, attracting new residents and tourists, the faster they can lose their assets. The local community and urban authorities must be aware of these threats and take preventive measures. Slow city seems to be an interesting development concept for small and mediumsized Polish cities, especially those located in the less urbanised and industrialised north-eastern part of the country, and thus less attractive in terms of investments, but with great tourist potential due to their high natural, cultural values and related traditions.

22.4 Adaptation Strategies of Polish Cities The conditions in which Polish cities grow are markedly different from those of other Western European countries and outside Europe. These differences lie primarily in the effects of the political transformation on the economy, social relations and spatial planning. For this reason, when adopting models and development concepts from Western cities, specific needs, determinants and challenges of Polish cities should be taken into account.

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22.4.1 Resilient City in Poland The effects of the political changes made after 1989 have shown that Polish cities were neither prepared nor resilient for difficulties stemming from the administrativepolitical reform of the country. Individual cities faced different processes, negatively affecting their development. Some of them have experienced a crisis particularly in the economic sphere (e.g. Drobniak 2012, 2017; Drobniak and Plac, 2015) while others have gone through natural disasters and the effects of climate change, such as floods1 and periods of drought. Also in this respect, Polish cities have proved to be resilient to a limited degree, because since the end of the 20th century, the risk of overflows has considerably increased (Głosi´nska and Lechowski, 2014). After the crisis, which was the systemic change in the functioning of the country, Polish cities grew at different rates, in a different degree and scope, facing and coping with emerging challenges. Local governments are not always aware of the fact that building city resilience can contribute to stabilising and sustaining urban development, and consequently, it will increase the level of safety of its inhabitants. In order to assess whether the concept of resilient city is perceived as an antidote for crises and threats, what was analysed were the strategies for development of the largest Polish cities in terms of the number of inhabitants (over 500,000 people). These studies reflect the adopted development concepts (policies), specify their most important determinants, objectives and directions and are the basis for further studies carried out by relevant bodies. Properly planned and implemented strategies of urban development, including long-term ones in particular, give the greatest chance to increase the resilience of urban centres (cf . Mierzejewska and Wdowicka 2018). The research covered five cities, namely Warsaw (the capital with over 1 million inhabitants), Kraków, Łód´z, Wrocław and Pozna´n. In four of them, the strategies do not refer directly to the idea of a resilient city, or city resilience. The exception was Wrocław—a city that was seriously affected by the so-called 1997 Central European flood—whose development strategy included building city resilience to climate change as one of its priorities. Thus, specific actions are oriented towards the creation of an effective system to retain rainwater and snowmelt water. The lack of direct reference to the concept of a resilient city does not mean that the strategic objectives set in the analysed cities are not part of this idea. The conducted analysis shows that in all the five strategies, some of the aims, measures and programmes mentioned are related to the notion of resilience to a greater or lower degree. Among the most frequent ones are first of all: effective and sustainable transport and information systems, protection of existing resources (of the natural environment, municipal and others), improvement to the quality of the environment, greater resilience to climate change, access to resources necessary for survival, an increase in the level of safety, effective systems for management and planning, public participation and integration and the development of an urban sustainable knowledgebased economy. Although these objectives, measures and programmes are related to 1

One of them was the so-called 1997 Central European flood in southern and western Poland that severely affected Wrocław, among other cities.

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the resilient city idea, in the case of the discussed strategies, they result from different development concepts adopted by individual cities, including in particular the idea of sustainable development (Warsaw, Łód´z, Pozna´n) and smart city (Kraków, Warsaw, Pozna´n, Łód´z). A positive aspect, from the point of view of the resilient city concept, is that city authorities of the discussed centres are aware of existing and potential challenges, problems and threats (most widely discussed in the development strategy of Warsaw and Pozna´n), the need to take appropriate measures to address them, the need for public participation in decision-making processes and cooperation with different public administrative bodies at various levels. On the other hand, it is not that in all strategies the objectives translate into specific measures or programmes (Pozna´n, Kraków and to a limited extent Łód´z have such programmes as part of the strategy, and the relevant provisions of the Wrocław development strategy refer to specific measures). The question also arises as to whether, in view of the unstable legislative system in the country (selective and hasty changes made in the law), the prospective reduction of EU subsidies and recently also the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, Polish cities have a real opportunity to take significant steps to build resilience. Already now, from the perspective of a few months, an economic slowdown is visible, caused by the spread of COVID-19. Cities in Poland were not prepared for sudden, topdown, several-week-long restrictions, concerning free access to trade and service facilities, which led, among other things, to mass redundancies and bankruptcies of numerous companies. The pandemic also stopped international movements of people and goods, and more broadly, globalisation processes, which will certainly affect the development of Polish cities in the near and further future. The implementation of the resilient city concept should be based on a long-term, integrated development plan, the pillars of which are development strategies, studies of determinants and directions and local spatial development plans allowing for all urban subsystems and covering not only the main centre, but also suburban communes and poviats.

22.4.2 Smart City in Poland In Poland, controversies over the smart city concept are still on the sidelines of the mainstream debate, which is dominated by moderate optimism about the possibilities offered by new technologies. Polish cities seem to approach the very idea of a smart city in a quite selective way. Reference to the term can be found more often in specific projects than in strategic documents (Sikora-Fernandez 2018). There is a clear tendency to label almost every project that applies ICT as ‘smart’. On the other hand, there are no cities in Poland which would aspire to the role of global or European leaders of ‘intelligent urbanism’. The replication of the solutions once adopted and proven elsewhere is more popular, which makes Polish cities adopters

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rather than innovators in this field. In the EU report, Poland and also Eastern Europe were identified as an area with a small number of smart cities (Manville et al. 2014). The review of development strategies of the largest Polish cities (over 500,000 inhabitants) has shown that smart city is perceived as a potential trajectory of development. At the same time, however, it is noticeable that cities in Poland have been poorly prepared to implement this concept. The development strategy of Pozna´n has revealed that the city has development potential, yet it lacks necessary systemic solutions, especially those related to modern ones, such as technologies based on big data or the Internet. In Kraków, becoming a smart city was named one of the city’s primary goals, next to objectives such as ‘being one of the two main Polish cities’ and the status of a ‘European metropolis’. Meanwhile, in the development strategy of Warsaw, the smart city idea is as crucial an indicator of the city’s growth as the sustainable development concept. These kinds of declarations, however, generally translate very little into the proposals of specific measures, despite mentioning, for example, the ‘intelligent transport systems’, operating in Polish cities for at least several years.2 Therefore, on the one hand, what is visible is a pursuit of international trends and, on the other, a lack of ideas about how to translate these assumptions into practice. Pozna´n is an example of a city strongly intent on adopting the smart city concept in its strategic measures. The city accepts the possibility of implementing smart city projects that are part of the development strategy, provided that they meet at least two out of four criteria. These are (1) use of information and communication technologies (ICT), (2) innovativeness, (3) integration, understood as a smooth data flow and (4) inclusiveness, that is bringing entities outside the city hall into a project, such as public and private actors, inhabitants and NGOs. Moreover, six ‘areas’ of a smart city are indicated that are consistent with the model developed at Vienna University of Technology and used in the ranking of smart-cities.eu, also known as the ‘Smart City Wheel’. These are smart economy, smart people, smart governance, smart mobility, smart environment and smart living (cf. Smart City Pozna´n 2020). This approach suggests that Pozna´n, in adopting the smart city idea, does not decide on further modifications of the trend already observed in Western European cities. Further directions of the adoption of the smart city concept in Poland will depend on factors only partly technological in nature. While a technological lag may be a problem for smaller cities and towns (Stawasz et al. 2012), in the case of the largest cities it does not seem to be a significant barrier. Poland has relatively good rates of access to ICT, such as a broadband Internet or mobile devices. Individual examples show that it is also possible to implement leading IT solutions in Polish conditions. For example, some cities provide data on the location of public transport vehicles or city bikes, which can be used to create travel planning applications, for instance.

2

Intelligent transport systems are a broad category embracing various technological solutions which collect data about the behaviour of urban transport users (e.g. taking parking places in park and ride, delays in public transport, congested streets), if possible in real time. This information may be then shared with passengers and used also for planning changes in the organisation of transport.

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It can be expected that smaller cities and towns will also make up for the technological backwardness over time. The support from the EU structural funds may be important in this respect as well as a dedicated programme of the European investment bank and the wider use of solutions based on non-commercial licences (open-source). Other questions remain fully relevant, such as the organisational readiness of Polish cities to implement smart city solutions. The research has shown that there are only reasons for moderate optimism in this regard (Orłowski 2019). It is also difficult to determine to what extent Polish cities are politically ready to make smart city a broader part of their agenda. However, moving beyond the stage of declarations in strategic documents would require confronting the issues of privacy, data security and the role of civil society. In the absence of experience, it is difficult to say whether in the face of such challenges, Polish cities would adopt a proactive tactic of seeking constructive solutions, or a defensive one. A kind of side effect of the growing popularity of the smart city concept has been a significant growth of open data. This is a clear deviation from a post-socialist inertia of the transformation period in sharing data that used to be (and still is to some extent) an important barrier to the development of transparent local governance.

22.4.3 Slow Cities in Poland In 2006, the first localities in Poland joined the slow city network, and more than ten months later, the Polish Cittaslow network was established. The network covers 27 towns (the largest one has fewer than 25,000 inhabitants) with different socioeconomic development levels. As many as 21 of them lie in Warmi´nsko-Mazurskie Voivodeship, located in the north-eastern part of the country, in the area of the socalled green lungs of Poland. These towns are distinctive and attractive because of their rich past and related traditions. Many of them have historical buildings and urban patterns from different eras with various architectural styles, mediaeval fortifications, gates and towers or Gothic strongholds (Zad˛ecka 2018). A lot of them are situated in environmentally attractive areas, which provides a basis for the development of tourism. Despite great development potential, there is some concern about the possibility of putting it into practice. This concern is caused by the fact that, according to the analysis of strategic documents, the assumptions and principles of Cittaslow were not included in any development strategies either at a local or regional level. From this perspective, the action taken by the authorities of these towns may seem superficial (Gruszecka-Tie´sluk 2013). Only the Cittaslow network cities’ development strategy of Warmi´nsko-Mazurskie Voivodeship is in preparation, but at an early stage of development. However, this voivodeship’s governance is quite active on issue of slow cities. In agreement with the ‘Polish Cities of Cittaslow’ association, it included the ‘supra-local revitalisation programme of the network of Cittaslow cities of Warmi´nsko-Mazurskie Voivodeship’ for financing (financial support as part of the Regional Operational Programme for Warmi´nsko-Mazurskie Voivodeship within 2014–2020). For example, the activities planned in this programme are designed to

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restore the social, economic and cultural functions of degraded urban areas, adapt existing buildings and renew monuments and also activate the unemployed socially and professionally and counteract social exclusion (https://rpo.warmia.mazury.pl/art ykul/239/citta). Regardless of whether the slow city assumptions are included in strategic programmes, the membership of Polish cities in this network may bring them numerous benefits and increase their development opportunities, which is discussed in more detail by Szarek-Iwaniuk (2019). These benefits, however, may be gained only as a result of taking specific measures. In the case of Polish slow cities, in the economic sphere these measures usually include the valorisation of agriculture and food, support for local enterprises, promotion of healthy, local products and goods and also local craft and cuisine as well as raising awareness of a healthy lifestyle, with the wider aim of protecting the heritage of local culture (Zad˛ecka 2018). Commonly implemented revitalisation projects are helpful in this respect. Despite being attached to tradition, Polish slow cities also focus on the application of new, frequently innovative technologies in order to improve the quality of the natural and urban environment. For instance, energy-efficient lighting systems and renewable energy sources are used along with innovative building materials and systems increasing biologically active areas and those monitoring electromagnetic fields (Zad˛ecka 2018). Polish Cittaslow adopted some good practices worth following which include programmes engaging residents in the process of urban governance (Rejowiec Fabryczny, Lidzbark), improving living standards, including pro-health initiatives (free vaccinations in Lubawa, a pump room in Gołdap), promoting sports (Murowana Go´slina, Działdowo), help with daily functioning (campaigns for the disabled in Górowo Iławeckie, housing system in Ryn) as well as measures connected with the natural environment (e.g. Ichtiopark Kalety) and those using the historical potential of the place (Reszel, Lubawa). There are projects that improve aesthetics as well as cultural and recreational facilities, along with numerous social initiatives activating and integrating the inhabitants. It should be emphasised that similar action has also been undertaken in cities that do not belong to the association. The cities belonging to the Polish Cittaslow network also cooperate with one another. This primarily involves the implementation of shared promotional and educational projects, as well as the joint organisation of cultural and themed events (Szarek-Iwaniuk 2019). Despite adopting some measures consistent with the assumptions of the slow city concept, it turns out that in the case of Polish cities, the benefits of belonging to the network have been difficult to measure so far (Gruszecka-Tie´sluk 2013). The survey research conducted by Szczepa´nska and Pietrzyk (2018)3 has shown that respondents notice many potential advantages to the cities belonging to the Cittaslow association

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The research was conducted among the inhabitants of Mor˛ag—a Polish slow city, located in Warmi´nko-Mazurskie Voivodeship.

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(e.g. branding benefits, increased promotion, influx of tourists, higher living standards). However, other research4 has revealed that the vast majority of respondents do not associate a city’s membership of the network with an improvement in the quality of residents’ life or their socio-economic situation (Batyk and Wo´zniak, 2019). In their opinion, membership of the network has a minimal impact on reducing unemployment, development of entrepreneurship and the expansion or modernisation of technical infrastructure. Possible benefits are only related to the renewal of historic centres, creation of new or renovation of the existing urban greenery and the city’s monitoring. The implementation of the slow city concept seems to be more well-known and more willingly implemented; nonetheless, in practice, it encounters some difficulties. The most important are (1) the lack of understanding of the idea of ‘slow’—some people associate the network symbol (a snail) not only with slowness or a slow pace, but also with laziness and backwardness. In the era of fascination with technological development, consumption and better living standards, no one wants to be ‘slow’, and, moreover, no one wants to live in an ‘open-air museum’ town, and (2) the lack of involvement of residents, resulting often from ignorance about the membership of their town in the network, but also from not noticing any benefits of the membership for themselves (Gruszecka-Tie´sluk 2013). This is a critical problem, because local communities cannot be built without bottom-up initiatives. They, in turn, will not start until people can see the effects and tangible benefits of their town’s membership in the association. The adoption of the slow city concept is a great opportunity for the development of small and medium-sized cities in Poland. However, in order to take full advantage of this chance, it is necessary for local authorities to undertake much work, not only to meet further criteria of slow city, but mainly to overcome barriers and stereotypes inherent in people, to build social capital and civil society and to stop the outflow of the young, educated and active to larger cities. So far, it turns out that the membership of Polish cities in the Cittaslow network brings meagre benefits and is more of a typical promotional activity with the main aim to receive financial means from projects promoting the Cittaslow idea and the possibility of promotion through participation in various international events.

22.5 Lessons Learned One of the paradoxes of today’s globalised world is the contrast between the affirmation of locality and the uniformity of development visions. On the one hand, the local context is important and an effective exploitation of the specificity of a given place can be an asset distinguishing it from other places. On the other hand, it can be

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The survey research conducted among 100 inhabitants of 10 cities belonging to the Polish Cittaslow network.

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noticed that a lot of cities in various countries, which are different from one another in many ways, refer to very similar development models in their plans and strategies. As McCann (2011) indicates, urban policy models have become an element of global knowledge circulation today. Cities are divided into a narrow group of innovators that are role models and a much wider group of adopters. Between the first and the second group, there is a network of relations facilitating the spread of information, but most typically only in one direction. While innovators set standards of what can be recognised as good planning practices and urban policy, adopters try to match these patterns in a more or less effective way. In general, Polish cities tend not to act as innovators in the global circulation of urban policy models. It results primarily from their peripheral location in the global system of knowledge production, shown by Borén and Young (2016), who describe a passive reception of an idea of creative city in post-socialist cities. The role of the global core of knowledge production is attributed to the ‘Western’ world, more specifically to the Anglo-Saxon one. It is from the core that the concepts such as resilient city or smart city described herein come, whereas the slow city concept can be distinguished to some degree as the version from northern Italy. According to Stone (1999), the adoption of a policy model functioning in a different place can be free or imposed. In the first case, it results from the conviction of decision-makers that the success achieved by other entities applying similar solutions can be repeated. In the second case, a specific solution is imposed by senior decision-makers, such as state authorities or international agendas. The existence of an intermediate option seems also possible, where decision-makers adopt, at least declaratively, a given policy model, expecting that such an attitude will be positively received by entities responsible for the distribution of key development resources. It can be of major importance for Polish cities, where many projects depend on the structural funds of the European Union. Owing to the limited scope of the study, the review of the adoption of urban policy models by Polish cities presented in this chapter was selective. Nevertheless, some observations can be made. With regard to all the discussed models, the adoption was rather perfunctory. This is evidenced by the fact that the references to the described urban policy models do not appear at all in strategic documents, or they are very general. A certain exception is the smart city concept, which is clearly emphasised in the development strategies of the largest Polish cities or is even made a central element of their development vision. This trend is not only typical of Poland; in recent years, there has been a significant increase in interest in smart cities across Europe. Certainly, the answer to the question whether referring to a specific urban policy model is only an opportunistic choice, or whether it results from axiological reasons would require a detailed investigation of the motives of decision-makers. However, without resorting to speculation, one may risk the hypothesis that such a perfunctory adoption is, from the decision-makers’ perspective, a safe solution. It allows, on the one hand, demonstrating the ability to follow current European (global) trends

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and, on the other, avoiding dilemmas related to controversial projects, such as dataharvesting smart city projects, or slow city projects suggesting the abandonment of the idea of ‘development as growth’.

22.6 Conclusions This chapter makes an attempt to look at how Polish cities relate to selected urban policy models, such as resilient city, smart city or slow city in their development visions. The common feature of all these concepts is that they developed in the Western world, a hub of major contemporary ideas. The review of available sources, including primarily urban development strategies, has shown that the reception of the models mentioned is diversified. However, what prevails is something that can be described as a safe approach. It is reflected in the way Polish cities manifest their interest in the models of urban policies popular in the West by references in documents such as development strategies or the membership in international slow city networks. These types of declarations are not followed by actions which would provide a uniform, internally consistent strategy of development. The reasons behind this state of affairs would require further, in-depth investigation that would help to better understand decision-makers’ intentions. Nevertheless, the conclusion is that the caution of Polish cities protects them in some way from politically difficult decisions faced by cities taking the lead in the field of smart cities, for example. Although it would be easy to criticise this type of action as passive, paradoxically, it may be based on certain rational grounds.

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Chapter 23

Epilogue: COVID-19 Pandemic in Poland: The Course, Effects and Challenges Paweł Churski and Tomasz Kaczmarek

Abstract This chapter offers a diagnosis of the epidemic, demographic, political and socio-economic situation in Poland during the COVID-19 pandemic and the country’s development plans related to the post-pandemic period. In Poland, like in many countries around the world, there were several waves of the pandemic (until March 2020, until May 2021—three) which, as an extraordinary phenomenon, have had a major impact on life in the country. The consequences of the pandemic turned out to be significant, which made it necessary for the central authorities, local governments and numerous social organisations to introduce preventive and corrective measures. This section presents the political actions and the way the extraordinary crisis situation was managed as well as the overall results concerning the demographic, social and economic impact of the pandemic. The chapter concludes with a demonstration and assessment of the country’s development plans in the context of the most important challenges facing Poland after the pandemic. This is, first of all, the National Recovery Plan (NRP), adopted by the RP government, aiming at reinforcing economic and social resilience and building Poland’s economic potential for the future. The development of the NRP results from the European Recovery Instrument (Recovery and Resilience Facility—RRF). The final part of the chapter presents the post-transformational and post-COVID goals of the country’s growth and the related challenges concerning governance and planning. Keywords COVID-19 pandemic · Morbidity rate · Government measures · Demographic impact · Social situation · Economic consequences · Poland’s post-pandemic development challenges

P. Churski · T. Kaczmarek (B) Faculty of Human Geography and Planning, Adam Mickiewicz University, B. Krygowkiego 10, 61-680 Pozna´n, Poland e-mail: [email protected] P. Churski e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 P. Churski and T. Kaczmarek (eds.), Three Decades of Polish Socio-economic Transformations, Economic Geography, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06108-0_23

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23.1 Introduction At the time of writing this diagnosis of Poland’s development was written, 30 years into the political and socio-economic transformation (1989–2019), there appeared a new, unexpected factor that severely affected the rate of growth—the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, the picture of the transformation and its effects presented in the book concerns the pre-pandemic period which ended with a mostly favourable balance of changes, both in economic and social terms. After the crisis related to the economic restructuring in the 1990s, and especially from the moment Poland joined the EU in 2004, the GDP was growing, unemployment was falling, and a favourable trade balance emerged that included highly developed countries; from a labour-exporting country (mainly to Western Europe), Poland became an importer (primarily from Ukraine). The living standard was raising, which was manifested by a gradual improvement in the environmental, transport, housing and financial situation and generally enhanced life satisfaction1 . What was still unsatisfactory compared to the EU, however, were earnings in Poland, access to the housing market, the level and access to social services, in particular health care (which eventually led to disturbances in fighting the pandemic), and also the country’s decentralisation, especially into regional and metropolitan levels. Since the 1990s, favourable trends in demography have stopped, which translated into a negative natural increase, one of the world’s lowest fertility rates and the progressive ageing of the population, as well as a negative balance of foreign migrations. The diagnosis set out in this book is most likely neither as beneficial nor any longer as up-to-date as the authors of each study assumed. Therefore, the summing-up of 30 years of changes could not omit the extraordinary COVID-19 situation, which affected the social life and the economy of not only Poland, but the whole world. From the perspective of over one year, since the first days of the COVID-19 crisis, it has become clear that the pandemic consequences would be far-reaching, and adaptation policies and recovery plans would be necessary. This final chapter shows the COVID-19 pandemic course in Poland from March 2020 to May 2021, political measures and the way of managing the emergency situation in this period as well as the balance of over one year of the demographic, social and economic implications of the pandemic. The chapter concludes with the presentation and evaluation of the country’s development plans in terms of the most important challenges for Poland after the coronavirus crisis. In May 2021, the government announced the ‘National Recovery Plan (NRP)’. This is a comprehensive programme of reforms and strategic projects aiming at strengthening economic and social resilience and building Poland’s economy potential for the future. The development of NRP results from the EU’s Recovery and Resilience 1

Eurostat research from 2018 showed that the question about life satisfaction was positively answered by almost 70% of respondents from Poland, more than, for example, in France, Germany, Sweden or the Czech Republic (the average indicator for all EU countries was 62%). Compared to the years 2008 and 2013, Poland also recorded one of the greatest progress in terms of life satisfaction among all EU countries (Quality of life indicators - Eurostat online publication, 2020).

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Facility (RRF), which provides e750 billion to help the member states. Poland is the fourth largest beneficiary of this programme. In June 2021, the government also announced Poland’s development post-pandemic plan called the ‘Polish Deal’. This is to be a springboard for growth after the SARS-Cov-2 crisis financed by the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility. The main research methods are the following: 1.

2.

desk research, i.e. analysis of available sources of information, reports and scientific articles and journal publications on the course and consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, including comments of experts in the field of health care, the economy, social life and politics; analysis of available information on the health, demographic, social, economic and political situation, derived from official data such as Statistics Poland, ministries of Poland’s government, the National Electoral Commission and statistics on pandemic morbidity derived from the database ‘COVID-19 in Poland’ by Michał Rogalski.

The analysis of the above data and information constitutes the basis for conclusions on the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on Poland’s present development. In this context, the authors present post-transformational and post-COVID goals of the country’s growth and the related challenges concerning governance and planning at national, regional and local levels.

23.2 The Pandemic in Poland: An Account of the First year In order to describe the influence of the pandemic on social and economic processes, one has to provide basic statistics on coronavirus morbidity and mortality. The pandemic of COVID-19, an acute infectious respiratory disease, erupted globally in December 2019. The first case of infection appeared then in the Chinese city of Wuhan. The virus causing it was named SARS-CoV-2. As early as 5 March 2020, it was detected in 84 countries. In Poland, the first incident of the disease occurred on 4 March 2020 and the first death was noted on 12 March 2020. The state of epidemic emergency was in effect initially from 14–20 March 2020 and was introduced with the Ordinance of the Minister of Health as of 13 March 2020 on the declaration of the state of epidemic emergency on the territory of the Republic of Poland. The state of the epidemic was in force continuously over the subsequent months from 20 March 2020 (The Ordinance of the Minister of Health of 20 March 2020 on the declaration of the state of the epidemic). From March 2020 to May 2021, there were three waves of the pandemic in Poland (Fig. 23.1). Announcements and preparations for the next fourth wave are also underway (autumn 2021). The first wave was not particularly harsh in Poland in relation to other European countries (especially Italy, France, Spain). Nevertheless, the daily morbidity was consistently growing throughout March, and at the beginning of April 2020, it started to incidentally exceed 400 new cases per day (the seven-day

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Fig. 23.1 The COVID-19 pandemic in Poland from 1 March 2020 to 1 May 2021—morbidity per day. Source Data of the Ministry of Health

average was 300). In April, the situation regarding new cases stabilised at 350 per day and this level continued until May. The record number of morbidity during the first wave was observed in June 2020 (500–600 cases). After a short brake at the turn of August, the seven-day average exceeded for the first time 500 cases per day. Despite the fluctuations described above, the first pandemic wave was incomparably weaker than the second and third one (where the number of infections surpassed 15,000 per day in autumn and 25,000 in the early spring of 2021). After the temporary stabilisation in the first half of September 2020, the number of cases started to increase rapidly at the end of this month, reaching its peak in November (even up to 35,000 infections per day). The official morbidity rate (data on the number of deaths indicate an even higher number of unreported cases) was two orders of magnitude greater than for the spring wave. The situation in January 2021 was also far from stable (about 10,000 daily infections). Another peak fell on March and April 2021 (30,000–35,000 infections per day). During that period, the morbidity and mortality per 1,000 inhabitants in Poland were among the world’s highest. The highest number of infections was recorded on 1 April 2021: 35,251 and deaths on 8 April 2021: 954. The morbidity in Poland at the end of the third pandemic wave on 10 May 2021 according to the data of the Ministry of Health (https://www. gov.pl/web/zdrowie/covid) was as follows: 2,835,000 infections, including 70,000 deaths and 2,576,000 of the recovered (worldwide, respectively: 158 million infected, 3.3 million deaths and 94.4 million recovered).

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On 15 January 2021, the Ministry of Health started the process of central registration for vaccination against COVID-19. By 10 May 2021, the total number of people vaccinated with at least one dose was 10,260,000, of which two doses were administered to 3,503,000 people. This meant that the proportion of Poles vaccinated with at least one dose was 26.8%, and the percentage of those with two doses was 9.1. According to these data, herd immunity against the coronavirus in Poland was to be acquired at the earliest in the third quarter of 2021 with an optimistic vaccination course.

23.3 Political Leadership and Crisis Management During the Pandemic Shortly before the emergence and spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland, it became clear that this was a challenge in terms of crisis management on an unprecedented scale. Moreover, the pandemic was accompanied by a very important presidential election (held once every five years). The pre-election campaign in the first half of 2020 concentrated public attention to a great extent and determined the political discourse on fighting the pandemic. Owing to the fact that Poland is a homogenous country with a unitary territorial and administrative system, the burden of managing the fight against the pandemic and its results fell mainly on the central state authorities—legislative power of the parliament and executive power of the government (the Council of Ministers) with a (regrettably) limited engagement of the RP president as a head of the country (except for the presidential campaign). The efficiency of the management also depended, although to a lesser extent due to the balance of political power, on the cooperation between the governing coalition and the opposition parties. As the governing coalition has a majority of seats in the main chamber of parliament—the Sejm and the president come from the same political circles (with power to sign acts of law), the legislative process was relatively fast. The only problem with management was to find common ground with the upper house of parliament—the Senate, with a slight majority of the opposing parties. The measures against the COVID-19 pandemic at the central level involved various areas, including the establishment of crisis management institutions, changes in law, reorganisation of health care, organisation of social life and forms of communication, changes in the functioning of transport and the economy along with the functioning of production plants and entities rendering services, development of programmes to support the economy and finally the collection and transmission of information about the health situation as well as communication between the authorities and citizens. The second level of the pandemic management involved local government made up of three tiers: communes and poviats (local level) and voivodeships (regional level). As Poland is a unitary country, its local governments are

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limited to planning local and regional development as well as to providing municipal and some social services (health, welfare). Therefore, local government units were primarily implementing acts of law and central ordinances and complementing the measures of government agendas within their financial and organisational possibilities as well as the engagement of the residents (social organisations, voluntary services). In Poland, unlike in many European countries, there was no special crisis unit. Key decisions on the pandemic, at least officially, were taken by the government represented by the Minister of Health (who was a professor in the field of cardiology up to the end of 2020, followed by an economist, manager in public finance). He frequently appeared in the media, depending on the situation, accompanied by politicians, representatives of the highest government authorities (the president, Prime Minister) and rarely with the Chief Sanitary Inspector. At the same time, the department authorities addressed a formal letter to representatives of the government in regions—voivodes, obliging doctors working as regional consultants not to speak out on the COVID-19 pandemic. In Poland, the role of experts was limited. The Minister of Health, a representative of the government, did not form an independent expert unit. It was only on May 20 that the list was posted on the website of the Ministry of Health, mainly of professionals with statistical-mathematical qualifications, dealing with epidemiological modelling of the coronavirus spread. On the other hand, in the media—primarily the TV and radio—one could watch various experts (epidemiologists, virologists, general practitioners, etc.) explaining and instructing, and often criticising the ruling politicians who, especially in the heat of the presidential campaign, sent false or overly optimistic information about the coronavirus threat and the importance of vaccinations. During the pandemic, the Council of Ministers issued further ordinances regulating the number and type of restrictions depending on the increase or decrease in the incidence of infections. The restrictions the residents had to comply with were as follows: • • • • • • • •

The obligation to maintain a distance of at least 1.5 m between pedestrians, Covering one’s mouth and nose in public places, Suspension of all cultural and mass sports events, Prohibition of various kinds of services, e.g. cinemas, restaurants, Limitation on the number of passengers on public transport, Limitation on the number of participants at public gatherings, Remote learning requirement at schools and universities, Closure of large-area shops and malls, except for grocery shops, pharmacies, drug stores and newsagents.

In subsequent stages of the pandemic, economic decisions including those concerning the closure of some sectors of the economy (e.g. trade, gastronomy, hotels, air transport) were taken by the Government Crisis Management Team. This is an advisory and opinion-forming body of the Prime Minister, with the jurisdiction to initiate and coordinate measures to manage crises pursuant to the act of 26 April 2007 on crisis management.

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At the beginning of the pandemic, on 2 March 2020, an act on the state of the epidemic in the country, called the coronavirus special act, came into force (the Act on special solutions for dealing with the prevention, counteraction and suppression of COVID-19, other infectious diseases and crisis situations arising therefrom), adopted swiftly by the parliament. The political opposition demanded a state of emergency to minimise political influence (the aforementioned presidential election), but the authorities remained within the rules set by the above-mentioned act on the state of the epidemic. In Poland, data on infections, hospitalisation, recovery and deaths caused by the coronavirus were communicated by medical units, i.e. from general practitioners and from laboratories to poviat sanitary and epidemiological stations and then to voivodeship stations. The data were aggregated along two tracks: epidemiological (via the National Institute of Hygiene—National Institute of Public Health) and statistical—by Statistics Poland. A statistic path took too long because of verification and codification works. As a result, Poland did not participate in the weekly report of Eurostat EuroMOMO on deaths from infectious diseases. In many countries, a principal source of information about and knowledge of the pandemic were public health institutes, for instance, in Germany—Bundeszentrale für gesundheitliche Aufklärung—BzgA, in the Netherlands—Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu—RIVM, in Italy—Istituto Superiore di Sanità—ISS or in Norway— Folkehelse Institutt—FIH. The experts at these institutions collected information, checking their validity at times, combined them into single reports, explained, educated and advised. The experts of the public health institutes joined the crisis staff of public authorities at central and regional levels. Some institutions also became involved in education and training. Therefore, it was surprising that the potential of the National Institute of Hygiene—National Institute of Public Health was not exploited and, for instance, one of the epidemiological reporting functions was moved to the Cardinal Stefan Wyszy´nski National Institute of Cardiology. The COVID-19 pandemic has also brought to light negligence in the structures of sanitary inspection, which are inadequately staffed and lack investment in digitisation. Information on the scale of the pandemic was collected by the Ministry of Health and Chief Sanitary Inspector. Since the onset of the pandemic in Poland, its course has been monitored by Michał Rogalski—a 19-year old activist, volunteer, passionate statistician, who gathered statistical data on morbidity. He detected significant errors in official Polish statistics, making the data credible, and thus forming the basis for forecasting by the researchers of the University of Warsaw. In terms of economic protection and support, the government introduced protective measures under the name Anti-Crisis Shield. Thus, the solution package was determined, which ‘protected Poland and its citizens against the crisis provoked by the coronavirus pandemic’ (https://www.gov.pl/web/tarczaantykryzy sowa). The relief provided as part of the Anti-Crisis Shield and Financial Shield was

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forecast to cost over PLN 212 billion, which was to constitute nearly 10% of Poland’s GDP (op. cit.)2 . The support rested on the following pillars: • • • • •

Protection of workplaces and employees’ safety—PLN 30 billion Funding for entrepreneurs—PLN 74.2 billion Health protection—PLN 7.5 billion Strengthening the financial system—PLN 70.3 billion Public investment—PLN 30 billion

The first pillar sought to improve employees’ security by offering additional payments to salaries of any employee threatened with redundancy, aid to the selfemployed and people working on freelance contracts as well as work contracts, supplementary care allowances, deferral (suspension) of loan payment for three months, vacation from administrative obligations, increased protection against price rises and the reduction of the cost of consumer loans. The second pillar was devoted to funding enterprises. It included non-refundable loans for businesses which maintain permanent employment, automatic capital loans, the extended guarantee programme of the National Economy Bank for SME, the Capital for the Safety and Growth of the Polish Development Fund programme, numerous tax incentives, exemptions from payment of contributions and loan instalments and simplification of access to loans. The third pillar was to ensure the strengthening of health care. Its primary focus was the reinforcement of financing measures for tackling the health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, a plan was drawn to improve the healthcare infrastructure and equipment as well as comprehensively develop eservices based on the digitisation of the healthcare system. The fourth pillar was addressed to the financial market to mitigate the harm caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on the functioning of financial institutions. It involved the development of special regulatory packages of the Financial Supervision Authority and the Ministry of Finance and the activation of the liquidity package of the National Bank of Poland, which is to ensure liquidity in the banking sector. The fifth pillar of the Anti-Crisis Shield was a programme of public investment. Its main task was to maintain investment demand limited by the crisis in the private sector. The activated Public Investment Fund, remaining in the Prime Minister’s hands, was to constitute the source of financing for investment, resulting not only in a general development impulse for the economy, but also in a direct help for entrepreneurs who would be able to make use of additional public procurement. The following investment outlays took priority: infrastructure development, modernisation of schools and hospitals, energy transformation, digitisation and biotechnology. More than 347,000 companies engaging over 3.2 million employees benefited from the programme Financial Shield 1.0 and 2.0 for micro-, small and medium-sized 2

The level corresponding to the intervention counteracting the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in other countries, incl. in the USA - President Donald Trump’s “Mammoth Package” worth nearly USD 2 trillion (which accounted for about 10% of the US national GDP), adopted by the US Senate in March 2020.

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enterprises as part of the Financial Shield for businesses. They received support in the form of financial subsidies, including those forgivable even to 100% out of almost 40 lines of business that had to limit or close the activity because of COVID-19 (https:// www.gov.pl/web/tarczaantykryzysowa). The Shield offered financial subsidies for micro-enterprises and SMEs through banks, whereas large companies could benefit from several types of financing directly from the Polish Development Fund. In Poland, like in many other countries, there has been significant financial support for health care. As part of the Anti-Crisis Shield, the National Health Fund was financed with PLN 7.5 billion to cover health services and essential pandemic-related materials, tests and medicaments. These means could only be used for the catalogued purposes. The expenditure related to the reorganisation of hospitals, necessary investment and equipment was financed by voivodeship and local governments as well. Unlike in many other countries, they did not receive a special COVID subsidy for their activity. The medical community was disturbed by some measures of the authorities perceived as restrictive, e.g. limiting work to one location, or increasing penalties for medical errors, included in the amended coronavirus act. Health crisis in Poland, contrary to expectations, did not strengthen the healthcare sector because it was difficult to make up the years of neglect in such a short time. The analysis of the social perception of the public health intervention focusses on a growing political polarisation and the associated polarisation of opinion on matters of health crisis management evaluation. It is visible in Poland, where the attitude to the pandemic and measures to combat it are strongly correlated with political beliefs. Political polarisation influences a markedly different level of trust in preventive actions taken by the government. According to the CBOS (the Public Opinion Research Centre) survey, 91% of the potential electorate of the United Right assess the government’s response to the pandemic as good. When it comes to the electorate of the Civic Coalition, this figure is only 30%. The above-mentioned report shows that the majority of those surveyed (64%) positively evaluated the government’s measures during the pandemic. The phenomenon of overlapping political convictions and attitudes towards the authorities’ intervention against the pandemic clearly emerged during the presidential election. It was one of the most important (contentious) political issues in Poland in 2020, because of the formation of the country’s political scene after a severalyear domination of the right-wing populist Law and Justice party. Poland’s government was determined to impose a tight blockade on the activities of some sectors of the economy and public life and to hold the presidential election at the same time, regardless of significant pandemic-related health and legal problems. This dissonance was one of the main reasons for the objections from both parliamentary and non-parliamentary opposition as well as experts, scientists and a large part of society. Accusing the government of the gross assumption of power, the presidential candidate of the largest opposition party Civic Platform threatened to boycott the elections. Many local governments, responsible for electoral registers and the organisation of elections announced that, out of concern for the welfare of citizens, they would not help the Polish Electoral Commission. As a response, the government

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tried to enact a new law and enforce universal postal voting, which, as highly experimental (until then unprecedented on a national scale) and unprepared in terms of education and information, was met with strong negative public perception. Planned on 10 May 2020, the presidential election was ultimately postponed to 29 June and 12 July (the run-off) with the eventual victory of the incumbent president Andrzej Duda (strongly supported by the majority in the parliament and government—Law and Justice), who won by a narrow margin of 51%–49% votes over Rafał Trzaskowski (from the main opposition party Civic Platform, strongly represented especially in governments of large cities). With the COVID-19 pandemic, threat to the economy and public life was still early and not significant together with a reassuring public media information campaign (clearly supportive of the incumbent president), the candidate representing the ruling party achieved a favourable election result. The effect of the pandemic in its early stages of development (the first wave) did not adversely translate into a turnout, which was higher in both rounds (64.5% in the first round, 68.2% in the second one) in the 2020 presidential election than in the autumn 2019 parliamentary elections, held in a non-pandemic situation (61.7%). The positive outcome of the election was, however, rather unspectacular for the president and generally weaker than the polls indicated. The victory of the candidate of the ruling party has established its almost total domination in the highest authorities: parliament, government and the office of the president. This undoubtedly made it easier to manage the crisis in the harsh times of the pandemic, but the opposition had to give up hope for any opportunity to create a greater balance of power in Poland.

23.4 COVID-19 Demographic and Social Consequences The negative effects of the systemic transformation included demographic changes, a decline in the fertility rate and low natural increase, which, given a negative foreign migration balance, meant a systematic decrease in the population of Poland combined with the ageing of society. The COVID-19 pandemic brought a further collapse in the country’s demographic situation, especially in terms of births and deaths. The pandemic year of 2020 saw an unprecedented change in mortality, manifested by excess deaths, not only caused by COVID-19 but also other diseases. With regard to the number of deaths, the previous year was the most tragic since the end of World War II. In 2020, a total of over 485,000 people died. The OECD data show that 2020 brought nearly a million of excess deaths in its 29 countries (Mikołajska et al. 2021). The highest absolute number of excess deaths was recorded in the USA— 458,000. The second was the United Kingdom with 94,400, then Italy—89,100 and Spain—84,100. Poland took the fifth position with 60,100, being among the top countries with excess mortality due to the pandemic. Given the sex structure, almost all countries recorded a much higher mortality rate among men; the highest number of excess deaths in this group per 100,000 inhabitants was in Lithuania—the average of 285. The second was, unfortunately, Poland with 191, followed by Spain—179, Hungary—174 and Italy—168.

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The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a slump in the birth rate as well and a return to the dramatic situation (in terms of fertility) from 2003, when the number of newborns was 351,000 (Klinger et al. 2021). After temporary increases, e.g. in 2009, when the births amounted to 417,000, and in 2017, when a peak of over 400,000 was also recorded, a decline in the number of births has been observed for several years. In the pandemic year 2020, 355,000 children were born. As a result, this was the third worst year with such a low birth rate since World War II. The number of births counted year by year fell, e.g. in December 2020 (as compared to December 2019) by 11%, and by 18% in January 2021 (as compared to January 2020). Pandemic developments, the third wave and the expected fourth one were not supposed to bring about the changes in the number of births for the entire 2021 year that would result from decisions taken in 2020. Demographers forecast that the healthcare situation and fear for the health and lives of loved ones are not conducive to taking long-term decisions such as family planning and having children. One may predict that these decisions will be postponed, but in this case the question arises as to whether they will be implemented once the pandemic has ended. Also, in the longer perspective, as demographers argue, there is no reason to expect that the birth rate will significantly grow. Except for the pandemic, pure statistics stand in the way: a decline in the number of women of reproductive age (the cohorts of the baby bust entered reproductive age after 2020) has corresponded to a change in the social approach to fertility. The improvement of the birth rate in Poland depends mainly on the decision to have a child taken by women with higher and secondary education. Here, it is not only important to decide on a second child, as in other countries, but also on a first one. For this group of women, what is particularly significant are solutions for combining work and family responsibilities, especially those that might involve the father. Pro-demographic solutions can be found in the government’s new programmes, including in the ‘Polish Deal’ (the ‘family and home in the centre of life’ pillar, discussed later). Their effectiveness may not be significant, however, just like after the 500 plus programme was introduced in 2015 (a 500 PLN monthly allowance for each child). As a result, the fertility rate has not gone up. The pandemic has had a considerable impact on social life. The social consequences of the pandemic are not only the issue of limiting social contacts, public and mass events as well as isolation and social distancing. It also has a bearing on the functioning and availability of public services (education, administration, culture, health care, tourism, sport, recreation), which relates to the failure to meet many basic human needs. Their deprivation combined with individual isolation, limited availability of public services or a reduction in their provision (e.g. education, health care, social care) is one of the primary sources of stress, disturbances and threats to human and social capital development. From the historical perspective, as Wade observes, in social terms, pandemics usually hit the hardest minorities and individuals from weaker economic groups. As psychological consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland, Duszy´nski et al. (2020) recognised experiencing a range of negative emotions, e.g. fear (for themselves and the loved ones), feelings of insecurity, uncertainty, frustration or

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anger. What was also indicated was more frequent occurrence of sadness, loneliness and disorientation. This led to a decrease in the quality of life, and what is more— to psychological issues. The source of this state of affairs was both the disease itself and its implications, particularly elements such as limited access to health care and necessary assistance, loss of social ties through isolation, job loss, material deterioration and violation of personal freedoms (connected with prohibition of movement, distancing, etc.). According to the above-mentioned report of social psychologists drawn up by the Polish Academy of Sciences, during the pandemic Poles were most worried about a loved one falling ill and material deterioration (Duszy´nski et al. 2020).

23.5 The Economic Impact of the Pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic brought about multifaceted consequences for the economy as well. Some analysts say that its implications for the economy will be much deeper and far-reaching than those of previous shocks the world economy went through, including the Great Depression (1929–1933), the Oil Crisis (1973) or Financial Crisis (2007–2009) (Thorpe, Loughridge, Picton, 2020). A relatively large scope of quarantine, widespread restrictions on freedom of movement and global stress and social fear on an unprecedented scale cause a sharp fall in consumer and business spending, which inevitably leads to the danger of economic recession (Brzeski and Smith, 2020). As previously mentioned in Sect. 3, Poland’s government, like other governments, introduced a number of restrictions related to business and social activity in order to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus. The extension of second and third wave constraints worsened the economic situation of businesses which suffered the most from the restrictions introduced, such as transport services, gastronomy, the hotel sector and personal services, including fitness and tourism. Attempts were made to limit the negative economic consequences by public intervention in the form of the so-called Anti-Crisis Shield. The first OECD projections as of August 2020 showed that Poland’s GDP would fall by 7.4% in 2020 and then bounce back to 4.8% in 2021. In the second scenario of the so-called double wave, OECD experts predicted a second epidemic wave in the last quarter of 2020 (which unfortunately turned out to be true) that was predicted to lead to a recession of -9.5% in 2020 and an economic revival of 2.4% in 2021. It was pointed out that in the aftermath of the closure of the economy in April 2020, consumer and business confidence fell sharply, below the level observed during the world financial crisis, but recovered slightly in May. Particularly, hard hit were the hotel sector and catering and transport services (although they make up a small share of GDP). Retail sales went down in April by 23%, which continued in the next year. Small and micro-businesses with low capital reserves were particularly at risk. A lot of them reduced salaries to limit short-term losses and maintain financial liquidity without having to resort to redundancies. However, in April 2020, a decrease in employment in Polish enterprises

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had been the highest since November 2009, and households and companies expected a rapid increase in unemployment in subsequent months, despite a reduction in foreign labour. This could lead, in their opinion, to reduced consumption, and continued uncertainty could affect private investment, constraining economic revival and raising the risk of hysteresis. In order to minimise these risks, decisive protective measures were recommended (The consequences of COVID… 2020). The real, economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic up till now have appeared to be less pessimistic than the earlier projections. According to preliminary data, as Deloitte (2021) observes, Poland’s economy in 2020 shrank by 2.8%. The initial estimates for 2020 published by Statistics Poland indicated the first decline in GDP since 1991. Apart from reserves, investment—under the weight of great uncertainty—fell the most, by 8.4%. In the first half of 2020, enterprises cut back most heavily on spending on transport. The decrease in private consumption was smaller (−3%), but owing to its greatest share in GDP, its contribution to the fall in GDP was the strongest anyway, reducing it by 1.7% points. The fall in GDP in Poland (−2.8%) was one of the smallest in the EU. According to the data available at the end of January, except for Ireland, where the economic results are distorted by the financial operations of international business concerns, a smaller decrease in GDP than that in Poland was recorded only in Lithuania. Declining domestic demand (−3.7%) was accompanied by an increase in net exports, resulting from an increase in exports combined with a decrease in imports. The unemployment rate recorded in December 2020 was 6.2% against 5.2% in the previous year, which confirmed the continuation of a relatively very good situation on the labour market in Poland despite the crisis. A disturbing sign is, however, an increase in inflation which rose in January to 2.7% year-on-year. The fastest growth was in the household category (6.4%), stemming mostly from rising costs of waste disposal and energy (an effect of the power charge and renewable energy sources). The rise in food prices was also larger than expected (1.3%), resulting, except for new levies (the sugar tax and trade tax), from rising costs for companies which passed them on to the consumers. As Polish employers observe, however, the lack of transparency in the decision-making process regarding the implementation of further restrictions, surprising with additional constraints, the lack of logical connection between the epidemic situation and the scale and annoyance of restrictions mean that entrepreneurs have no idea under which circumstances they will be operating in the weeks ahead (Summary of lockdown… 2021). An additional challenge is still an unsatisfactory level of investment that, despite the government declaration (Strategy for… 2017), does not reach the expected growing trend, which is becoming a basic obstacle to further stable growth of the Polish economy.

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23.6 The EU recovery plan and Its Implementation in Poland The first reaction of the EU to the unique ‘black swan’ (Taleb 2008), which the COVID-19 pandemic certainly was, was its decisions to increase flexibility in the application of the 2014–2020 perspective policies towards the direct mitigation of the first socio-economic consequences of the new crisis. This included the cohesion policy and its 2014–2020 budget from which EUR 54 billion were allocated immediately for relief aid to regions of the member states. It was an immediate response to new challenges related to the consequences of the pandemic, including purchasing personal protective equipment for the health service, strengthening job protection and the short-term crisis employment of people losing their jobs. In addition, as of 1 April 2020 the European Parliament and the Council introduced changes in the applicable EU regulations that made EU budgetary resources available quickly to combat the crisis caused by the coronavirus (Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU), L99, 2020).3 New regulations enhanced flexibility in using structural funds, which allowed the member states to transfer resources between different funds and regions in order to meet their needs and mitigate the social and economic consequences of the pandemic. The member states may also apply for funding from the EU budget up to 100% for initiatives related to the COVID-19 epidemic consequences. What was also decided was the application of complete flexibility of the EU tax provisions to help the member states’ authorities support healthcare systems and businesses as well as maintain employment during the crisis. All these measures increased the possibilities of using the cohesion policy to limit the negative consequences of the crisis. The scale of challenges turned out to be historically unprecedented and ad hoc measures far from sufficient. It quickly transpired that greater challenges must be overcome with ampler means and a full coordination of all union policies. On 24 April 2020, leaders of the member states agreed to the EUR 540 billion package which was dedicated to measures related to four priorities: (1) limiting the spread of the virus, (2) providing medical supplies, (3) promoting research on therapies and vaccines and (4) supporting workplaces, enterprises and the economy. The package was financed from three sources: • EUR 100 billion—the SURE fund—Support to mitigate Unemployment Risk in an Emergency

3

Regulation (EU) 2020/460 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 March 2020 amending Regulations (EU) No 1301/2013, (EU) No 1303/2013 and (EU) No 508/2014 as regards specific measures to trigger investments in the health care systems of the Member States and in other sectors of their economies in response to the COVID-19 epidemic (Coronavirus Investment Initiative) and Regulation (EU) 2020/461 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 March 2020. Amending Council Regulation (EC) No 2012/2002 to provide financial assistance to Member States and countries negotiating for accession to the Union that are significantly affected by a serious public health emergency.

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• EUR 200 billion—Pan-European Guarantee Fund for loans for enterprises (European Investment Bank) • EUR 240 billion—the Pandemic Crisis Support fund for the member states (European Stability Mechanism) The decisions in question constituted the first element of a greater plan (the Recovery Plan for Europe) which was to increase union budget outlays on measures to both repair immediately economic and social damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic and also to ensure the possibility of realising investment that would lead to a long-term economic revival (The EU Budget… 2020). Next to the indicated outlays, its implementation is to be financed by the 2021–2027 Multiannual Financial Framework and recovery package (about EUR 1,100 billion) and its temporary special reinforcement Next Generation EU (about EUR 750 billion) which is targeted at investing in a green, digital and resilient Europe (see Fig. 23.1). This requires a change in the architecture of union policies and the inclusion of new measures in the frameworks of the initially defined premises of the 2021–2027 cohesion policy, intervention of the just transition mechanism using a coordinating role of the European Semester and the Common Agricultural Policy to create conditions for achieving the European Green Deal assumptions. An overriding aim of the measures taken is to provide conditions for an increase in investment expenditures. The European Commission estimates that in 2020–2021 the expenditures in question must reach the level of at least EUR 1,500 billion to bring about the expected economic revival. There are two instruments that will be of particular importance in the implementation of the planned measures: The Recovery and Resilience Facility and REACT-EU. The former is designed to help the member states to recover from the pandemic crisis with grants and loans. The latter is a special instrument to reinforce the cohesion policy as a basic tool for achieving a greener and more digital Europe using the flexible system of grants available directly for local governments and entrepreneurs. It is also important to learn from the consequences of the crisis and to expend member states’ activities regarding the implementation of integrated research on medicines and health care. A pressing need is to launch an effective set of flexible crisis intervention tools. This is going to be created by the Solidarity and Emergency Aid Reserve—a base for a quick response to immediate needs (an annual budget of about EUR 3 billion), Solidarity Fund— a source of financing measures activated to mitigate natural disasters (an annual budget of about EUR 1 billion) and the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund— a financial instrument for support in the event of collective redundancies of more than 250 employees (an annual budget of about EUR 386 millon). The European Council confirmed changes in the 2014–2020 budget and adopted the 2021–2027 budget in its summit meeting between 17 and 21 July 2020. The EU new financial perspective aimed at effectively combating the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic was finally approved at the European Council summit on 10 December 2020.4 4

17 December 2020, the EU Council adopted a regulation laying down the EU’s multiannual financial framework for the period 2021–2027. Earlier, the European Parliament gave its consent.

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A new, multiannual union budget combined with the NextGenerationEU constituting a temporary instrument stimulating the revival of the economy is the largest package of funds to be financed from the EU budget so far. The total amount of over EUR 1.8 trillion is to help rebuild the European economy after the COVID-19 crisis. Reinforced by this aid, a new Europe will be more environmentally friendly, more digital and resilient to other crises. NextGenerationEU is to help to repair direct economic and social damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Its structure rests on three elements. 1.

2.

• • •

3.

The EU Recovery and Resilience Facility, which is the centrepiece of NextGenerationEU, also called the EU Recovery Fund with the budget of EUR 672.5 billion in the form of loans and subsidies intended to support reforms and investment realised by the member states. The overriding aim of these measures is to mitigate economic and social consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and to reinforce the European economy and society to provide conditions for more sustainable and resilient socio-economic development which will be better prepared for challenges and possibilities related to ecological and digital transformation. Access to the Recovery Facility will be contingent upon a member state developing a national recovery and resilience plan which has to be approved by the European Commission. REACT-EU—recovery support serving cohesion and territories of Europe. NextGenerationEU also includes EUR 47.5 billion for a new initiative REACT-EU. This is a continuation and reinforcement of ad hoc measures taken in spring 2020 constituting a financial base for crisis response instruments launched to deal directly with the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. This tool is also intended to support a long-term resilience of member states’ economies built on strengthening their green and digital aspects. The funds thereof will be available by reinforcing the budgets of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), European Social Fund (ESF) and the Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived (FEAD) in 2021–2022, supplementing the means still available within the programmes for 2014–2020 and as an additional financial envelope to be allocated for 2021–2027. Thus, the total amount of European structural and investment funds is the largest ever in history, measurably reinforcing their intervention. Support for other union programmes or funds such as ‘Horizon 2020’ (EUR 5 billion), InvestEU (EUR 5.6 billion), programmes for rural development (EUR 7.5 billion), RescEU (EUR 1.9 billion) or the Just Transition Fund (JTF, EUR 10 billion). An important element of NextGenerationEU is also the support of the total of EUR 30 billion for other union programmes and funds in order to reinforce them and improve their integrated impact building the durability and long-term resilience of the EU economy and society in the face of other crises.

Poland, like other member states, has to prepare a national recovery and resilience plan. It needs to respond to the assumptions of the regulation of 11 February

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2021 adopted by the Parliament and the Council,5 which detail the focus of the Recovery and Resilience Facility, constituting the centrepiece of NextGenerationEU. According to the new regulation, in their national recovery and resilience plans, member states will have to allow for a coherent package of reforms and investment projects encompassing the following six European policy areas: • • • • • •

ecological transformation digital transformation intelligent, sustainable and inclusive growth and employment social and territorial cohesion health and resilience policies for the next generation, children and youth, including education and skills.

The support will be combined with developing recommendations for particular countries within the European Semester, showing the main challenges a given member state should face to improve competitiveness and socio-economic cohesion. It will also contribute to the implementation of the European pillar of social matters. Pursuant to the thematic focus of the EU intervention adopted in the 2021– 2027 perspective, particular priority is given to ecological and digital objectives. As much as 37% of the National Recovery Plan means should be allocated for ecological transformation and at least 20% for measures related to digital transformation. Moreover, all the measures specified in the member states’ plans ought to be compliant with the principle ‘do not do serious damage’ to protect the EU environmental objectives. As a rule, the member states have to submit their recovery and resilience plans to the European Commission by 30 April. It will take up to two months to assess them, and then, the Council will have four weeks to adopt a decision on the final approval of each plan. With reference to the regulations presented, Poland’s government accepted the national recovery and resilience plan (National Recovery Plan 2021) at the meeting on 30 April 2021 and forwarded its draft to the European Commission. The document in its final form was submitted on 3 May 2021. The National Recovery Plan is to constitute the basis for the implementation of the EU Recovery Plan means in Poland which is to become its main beneficiary with about EUR 58 billion. This amount consists of EUR 23.9 billion subsidies and EUR 34.2 billion loans. At this point, it should be emphasised that Poland will receive about EUR 136.4 billion in subsidies and about EUR 34.2 billion in loans, which is nearly PLN 770 billion, from all sources, i.e. the 2021–2027 Multiannual Financial Framework and NextGenerationEU. This allocation far exceeds the annual state budget; that is why it may be perceived as a new Marshall’s Plan in both the EU and in Poland. The preparation and implementation of the Polish National Recovery Plan are the responsibility of the Ministry of Development Funds and Regional Policy (MFiPR). The document sets out how the appropriations for specific reforms, programmes and investments will be used. The main priority of intervention is pro-development investment, increasing 5

Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing an Instrument for Reconstruction and Increasing Resilience. PE-CONS 75/2020. February 10, 2021.

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the productivity of the economy and creating high quality jobs. The plan identifies five main areas of support (2021) (Fig. 23.2): • • • • •

resilience and competitiveness of the economy, green energy and reduction in energy intensity, digital transformation, availability and quality of the healthcare system green, intelligent mobility.

They are intended to respond to Poland’s development challenges, the catalogue of which has been extended due to the direct effects of the ongoing pandemic COVID19. As a result, in addition to the challenges still to be resolved, such as (Strategy for… 2017) large spatial intraregional and interregional gaps in development, the middleincome trap, a relatively low level of innovativeness resulting in a lack of recognition of Polish products on a global scale, the threat of long-term harsh consequences of demographic trends and the weakness of institutions, some new ones emerged. The most important of these include (National Recovery Plan 2021): • growing pressure on the public finance system to fund public investment, • reduced investment opportunities of local authorities resulting from the additional burden of dealing with the immediate consequences of the pandemic • disruption to many industries and sectors, which in the long-term leads to a reduction in business activity (reduction of supply), loss or reduction of income • reduced investment by private entities (especially small and medium-sized enterprises) due to lack of investment stability and difficult access to finance, • reduced demand and changes in consumption patterns, limiting to a large extent the volume of demand in selected industries,

Fig. 23.2 The assumptions of the EU budget reinforcement in 2021–2020. Source The EU budget 2020

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• limited access and difficulties in the functioning of basic systems of public services, such as education or health care, • changes in the organisation of work that require new skills and technology. Overcoming these challenges effectively and durably will not be an easy task, especially if the National Recovery Plan is not commonly accepted. The main objection to this document comes from local governments which feel that they have been left out of this project. In their opinion, the programme ignores their role in the use of EU funds, and their distribution is not based on precise criteria. This objection along with other government decisions related to the preparation to the programming of a new EU budget perspective, which at the same time indicate the centralisation of the disbursement of the planned allocation, has become the basis for a heated political conflict that accompanied the discussion on the EU Recovery Plan and the National Recovery Plan in Poland (Local governments criticise… 2021). A very serious deficit of the document in question is also lack of clear solutions concerning the territorialisation of the future intervention. On the one hand, the National Recovery Plan refers to challenges related to the scale of spatial disparities in socio-economic development of Poland, which by no means are diminishing, but are actually growing in intraregional systems. On the other hand, however, in the adopted assumptions concerning the implementation of the planned measures, there is no place-based policy approach (Churski et al. 2020), necessary to increase effectiveness and in line with the current paradigm. This is surprising given that the National Recovery Plan does not question the role of spatial dimension in development processes, with numerous references emphasising the importance of spatial policy, including the need for its Europeanisation in Poland (Szlachta and Nowak 2021). It should be highlighted that the commencement of the implementation of the National Recovery Plan in Poland and other EU states requires the prior mobilisation of Next Generation EU resources, which is contingent on the ratification of the decision on the EU own resources in all member states. This decision empowers the European Commission to incur loans on capital markets to address the COVID19 pandemic. In the case of Poland, the decision of the Council of the European Union regarding the EU Recovery Plan considering the regulations on the EU own resources was ratified by the Sejm on 4 May 2021 after protracted and stormy political negotiations. This was possible thanks to a temporary and original coalition of the governing conservative right-wing party Law and Justice with the left-wing opposition. This decision, after the approval of the National Recovery Plan by the European Commission and the ratification of the EU Recovery Plan by all member states, will open up the possibilities of using this new and important, in terms of its budget volume, instrument in Poland to limit the social and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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23.7 The ‘New’ Polish Deal The COVID-19 pandemic crisis prompted the leaders of many countries and governments to prepare long-term strategic programmes focussed on building sustainable economic resilience in times of increasingly frequent and serious crises. Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki also joined in this effort announcing the ‘Polish Deal’. As can be expected, this is a programme modelled on the famous programme of socio-economic reforms introduced by president Franklin D. Roosevelt in the USA and implemented in 1933–1939, aimed at counteracting the effects of the Great Depression of 1929–1933. Owing to the lack of official information, it was difficult to determine the place for this new document in the structure of the national development management system in Poland. It could have become the successor of the Strategy for Responsible Development (2017), adopted by the Council of Ministers on 14 February 2017, which is a mid-term strategy for the country’s development. This idea was supported by the time horizon adopted in the original document (2020) and lack of success in implementing this strategy in economic practice, which resulted from both objective determinants, including economic and social consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, and overly optimistic assumptions which were negatively verified by the market. Under these circumstances, the preparation and implementation of a new mid-term development strategy for Poland, taking into account fundamentally changed development determinants, are fully justified. In an alternative scenario, the ‘New’ Polish Deal could be given the status of a national long-term strategy by the government, defined by the National Development Concept after the recent changes in the principles of development policy in Poland (Journal of Laws of 12 August 2020, item 1378). As the last legal regulation applicable since November 2020 specifies, the National Development Concept is to constitute a general document with a long time frame (which must be adopted within two years of the effective date of the act) together with a proposed selection of goals for the coming years: development options and the country’s challenges in social, economic and spatial dimensions. Pursuant to the adopted act, it is to be prepared by the Prime Minister and adopted by the government with information for the Sejm and the Senate. The presentation of the ‘New’ Polish Deal by the Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki was postponed several times. It was announced that the assumptions of the document would be presented to the general public on March 20, 2021. The party’s press officer stated that it did not happen because of the epidemic threat of the third COVID-19 pandemic wave. Commentators questioned that argument, noting the growing conflicts in the government coalition and ongoing political turbulence in Poland, including the so-called Daniel Obajtek affair, who is current president of the management board and chief executive officer of PKN ORLEN (a company ranked first on the list of the largest economic entities in Poland in 2019 and eighth in 2020). Finally, the assumptions of the programme were presented (without making the content of this document available) on 15 May 2021 during the political convention of the governing coalition ‘United Right’, i.e. three political groups ‘Law and

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Justice’, ‘Jarosław Gowin’s agreement’ and ‘United Poland’. The programme was demonstrated under a different name than the original one, namely the ‘Polish Deal’. Unfortunately, it should be recognised as a political programme focussing on how public funds are spent rather than a development programme specifying ways to build incomes and opportunities for its redistribution. The information6 so far has shown that the priority areas of the ‘Polish Deal’ have been presented in the form of the following headings: • • • • • • • • •

Health plan Fair work—decent pay, Decade of growth, Poland—our land, Friendly school and culture for a new century, Favourable climate for companies, Clean energy—clean air, CyberPoland 2025, Golden autumn years.

The planned average cost of the projects in the ‘Polish Deal’ exceeds 72 billion annually. It has been estimated that the outlays on this programme will amount to more than PLN 650 billion by 2030. However, as in the case of the Strategy for Responsible Development (2017), a significant part of the budget so estimated in terms of volume is based on an increase in private investment, which remains outside the direct influence of the government. One may even venture the thesis that the regulations introduced in the programme can further reduce this already alarmingly low level. The ‘Polish Deal’ envisages a fundamental reform of the tax system. It is based on a tax-free amount of up to PLN 30,000. The tax exemption in question will be felt by the vast majority (90.0%) of pensioners (those receiving benefits up to PLN 2500 gross per month will be totally exempt from tax) and the majority of taxpayers (68.0%) earning below PLN 7000 gross per month, who are the core political electorate of the United Right. What is going to be introduced at the same time are changes in tax thresholds (adapting them to the reality of economic growth and salaries that have been growing for years) and a flat 9% health contribution, proportional to income. As a result, the middle class and entrepreneurs, i.e. those earning more than PLN 7000 gross, will be most affected by the economic costs of the planned regulation. In addition, it has been estimated that local government budgets will not receive over PLN 10 billion annually from PIT, which is the primary source of their funding. This will further exacerbate the already dire economic situation of local governments burdened with many new responsibilities during the COVID-19 pandemic without the government’s full financial support that would ensure their effective implementation. According to the Union of Entrepreneurs and Employers, the ‘Polish Deal’ does not contain the expected proposals regarding the legal and institutional environment for companies or the 6

Brussels presented at the “United Right” (“Zjednoczona Prawica”) political coalition convention on May 15, 2021.

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subject of regulatory uncertainty, which is now a key barrier to investment. The proposals included in the ‘favourable climate for companies’ are in fact the recycling of the previously known announcements and a set of solutions that have been in progress for some time. Some of them, e.g. the introduction of family foundations or the extended possibility of using the ‘Estonian CIT’, are obviously beneficial for entrepreneurs—these are, however, proposals known and described in the past, which so far have not lived to see implementation in the Polish economic reality. Polish business Confederation Lewiatan points to the fact that during the demonstration of the ‘Polish Deal’, dozens of proposals for changes worth billions of zlotys were presented. Yet, there was no information who would pay for those promises. Undoubtedly it will be Poles with higher earnings and entrepreneurs because they will pay higher taxes. Again, the tax increase is called raising fees and charges. The ‘red carpet for businessmen’ that was announced during the presentation of the programme actually means a tax increase (New Polish Deal… 2021). According to the announcement of the Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, the ‘Polish Deal’ includes proposals for new investment plans and ones concerning many aspects of social and economic life after the pandemic. It is planned, among other things, to introduce further pro-family instruments to make it easier for young people to purchase apartments or build houses up to 70 m2 , together with other changes in the legal system, which are already the subject of a dispute between the Court of Justice of the European Union and the Polish government, especially in the area of the judiciary system. It should be emphasised that the Polish Deal is a large political project which has not been fully specified and the planned reforms of socio-economic life cannot be fully and objectively assessed at this stage. It is based on five pillars: health care, a fair tax system, better life for seniors, better housing conditions and increased investment (New Deal…, 2021). Its scope is much larger than the National Recovery (2021) plan both in terms of content and time (What is the difference 2021). What is important from the political point of view, it extends well beyond the current term of the government, making it de facto a new political plan, which started to be already used two days after the presentation in the election campaign during the Prime Minister’s meetings with voters in regions. The assessment of its potential impact on strengthening socio-economic development in Poland was not entirely possible while this chapter was being completed because the full content of the document had not been made available to the public.

23.8 Development: (Post) COVID Uncertainty Since the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, the scientific community has continuously tried to cast light on various issues, such as mechanisms causing the spread of the virus, its environmental, social, economic and political consequences as well as necessary plans and corrective and adaptive policies. This chapter is intended to

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briefly diagnose the state of affairs in Poland during the first year of the COVID19 pandemic. Futurists and strategists have been pondering how this extraordinary situation will affect the development of humanity and what conclusions should be drawn in the context of management and planning at various levels, from global through national to local. Taking this into account, this chapter makes an attempt to show up-to-date knowledge of pandemic influence in Poland and determine the problems related as well as plans for future development. The disturbance of development trends through the COVID-19 pandemic means that this factor is becoming very important on the one hand and very difficult for forward-looking considerations on the other. For one thing, consequences of the pandemic, especially those long-term ones, are hard to determine (for the reason that it is still ongoing). For another, unpredictability and considerable uncertainty regarding future events will undoubtedly become a necessary element of all forecasts, strategies or development plans. Reflections on the future in the forthcoming, hopefully soon, post-pandemic time, are fraught with a heavy burden of uncertainty and conjecture. According to Indian statistician and mathematician Radhakrishna Rao, forecasting is the acquisition of new knowledge, but uncertain knowledge. The uncertainty revolves around two issues: 1.

2.

We do not know at present how long the COVID-19 pandemic will last, how many waves and variants of this disease will emerge and what means will be needed to stop its spread; Will similar pandemics or other pathogens appear again, and if so, with what frequency.

Perhaps, in the darkest scenario of the development of humanity, infectious diseases with a global impact will have to be recognised as a fixed element whose threat will not go away. In this case, the development of countries, including Poland, their organisation and functioning in the future will continue in the shadow of threats. The author of bestselling books and the concept of a black swan Jassim Taleb (2008) in the paper during the Business Insider Trends Festival stated plainly: ‘Pandemics are extreme occurrences, we cannot compare it with anything we experience every day. What is happening now with COVID-19 prepares us for more such challenges, more pandemics. Even if our reaction is excessive, we prepare better for a similar event that can occur in the future. We learn now how to manage a pandemic. This is a dress rehearsal’. Undoubtedly, political, economic and social processes and those, like during the pandemic, related to health security lead to completely unpredictable consequences. Therefore, in the strategic management of Poland’s development formulated in programmes such as ‘Polish Deal’, what is important is not only technical proficiency and effectiveness of the implementation of the established plans, but also learning and analytical and adaptive skills. Thus, one should remember that the most sensible challenges, created after many diagnoses of the social, economic and spatial situation of Poland, may be verified by another emergency, either health or social, economic or political. Zygmunt Bauman (born in Pozna´n, Polish sociologist and philosopher, one of the founders

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of the postmodernism concept) wrote that we live in a ‘fluid reality’ (Bauman 2005). This is manifested in rapidly changing development paradigms and a feeling of uncertainty on the part of individuals, organisations and institutions when faced with the complexity, fragmentation and episodic nature of everyday experiences. In today’s world, different conceptions and visions of the development of a country clash, based either on neoliberalism, neo-populism or even postdemocracy. They are no longer just the result of economic crises, political and ideological transformations, climate change and technological progress but, more recently, from pandemic threats. Modern concepts of territorial development (e.g. sustainable development, smart development, place-based development) rest on the assumptions of technological growth, adaptation to climate change, endogenous development factors or cogovernance. They are obligatory supplemented with the conception of resilience, which means above all the ability to adapt and take appropriate action in case of various crisis events. They affect the organisation and functioning of a country as a whole, but their implementation takes place in regions and communes, i.e. local government units. Therefore, among major trends that will shape Poland’s development—a large country by European standards—are issues of centralisation and decentralisation as well as new forms of involvement and public participation. Poland has already gone through the period of central systemic reforms of the 1990s. The power of development lies in the territorial capital of particular regions, cities and communes, which should admittedly be centrally regulated in terms of regional policy and to reduce development disparities, but mechanisms of growth and governance should be induced ‘from below’ by local government, from regional to local.

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Table 23.1 Architecture of the National Recovery Plan Main objectives of NRP Restoration of economic development potential lost through pandemic (recovery) and support for building sustainable competitiveness of economy as well as boosting the standard of living of population in the long term (resilience) Specific objectives of NRP Horizontal objective: Strengthening social and territorial I. Qualitative, innovative cohesion of country development of economy leading to increase in its productivity allowing for digitisation of the country and society

NRP components

NRP components’ objectives

A. Resilience and competitiveness of economy

Ensuring resilience of economy to crises and creating high quality jobs

C. Digital transformation

II. Green transformation of B. Green energy and reduction in energy economy and development intensity of green, intelligent mobility

E. Green, intelligent mobility

III. Increase in social capital and life quality, in particular by ensuring improvement in citizens’ health and higher quality of education and skills adapted to needs of modern economy

Source: own compilation

Strengthening digital transitions in public sector, society and economy Reducing negative environmental impacts while ensuring country’s competitiveness and energy and environmental security Developing a sustainable, safe and resilient transport system to adequately serve the economy and society

D. Effectiveness, availability and quality of Smooth functioning health care of healthcare system and improving the efficiency, availability and quality of health services Implementation of specific objective III will be also supported by interventions within Component A (personnel for modern economy, effective institutions for labour market) and Component C (e-skills, digital school infrastructure)

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