Problems of financing sources for environmental protection in strategic documents of the European Union and Poland in the new financial perspective for 2021–2027

Motivation: Over the past two decades, the world, and Poland with it, has faced a huge challenge of transforming its economy towards climate neutrality. The observed effects of climate change, such as abrupt weather changes (prolonged droughts, sudden downpours), increase in average temperatures, environmental pollution, call for systemic and social actions. It should be clearly noted that the responsibility for actions aimed at environmental protection is borne not only by public administration (central and local government), but also by the private sector, as the one using and influencing the environment. The year 2020 brought an unexpected global health crisis caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. MFF procedures developed up to that time were modified. The COVID-19 pandemic significantly affected the preparation of legislation, programs, and rules for obtaining funds from them for project implementation. Many legislative works have been postponed, causing delays. The fact of the pandemic has led to the implementation of the Instrument for Reconstruction and Enhancing Resilience, which includes large-scale financial support for public investments and areas such as green and digital projects, in addition to the regular financial perspective. Support will be provided in the form of loans (EUR 360 billion) and grants (EUR 312.5 billion). Aim: The aim of the study is to compare the financial instruments covered by the European Union financial perspectives 2021–2027 with 2014–2020 in the context of environmental funding sources in Poland. Results: Both in the financial perspective 2014–2020 and the new one for 2021–2027, environmental protection issues are one of the main priorities. The continuity of previous structural funds has been preserved and supplemented with new instruments in response to the unprecedented socio-economic situation that has arisen as a result of the global health crisis caused by the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. As a result of negotiations, EUR 76 billion will be made available to Poland under the EU’s cohesion policy and the Fund for Equitable Transformation, whereas in the previous one the amount was EUR 85.2 billion. The allocation of funds and the directions of spending will not only result from Poland’s development needs, but also (and perhaps above all) from the modified priorities of the Union as a response to the health situation of the EU community after the pandemic and the continuation of existing activities related to research, innovation, digitization, climate and the environment. The launch of individual programmes will allow ongoing analysis and evaluation of both the solutions adopted in strategic documents and their effects.

AFTERMATH OF BREXIT FOR WALES

After withdrawal of the UK from the EU its Celtic regions (Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales) faced a deterioration in the conditions for their socio-economic development and began to demand from B. Johnson to revise the principles of interaction between central government and local authorities in favor of expanding devolution. In Wales, separatist tendencies have not reached the same magnitude as in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Nevertheless, an acute confrontation arose at the intergovernmental level – the M. Drakeford’s Labour government protests against B. Johnson’s regional policy. The most acute contradictions arose against the background of the application of the UK Internal Market Act 2020 and the inability of the British government to compensate the region for the loss of subsidies from the EU structural funds after Brexit. To put pressure on the central government, Labour Party in Wales organized a special commission in October 2021 to consider separating the region from the United Kingdom and transferring additional powers to the local authority. This fact indicates the growth of a deep systemic crisis in the country, which makes the regions doubt the ability of the central government to effectively use its instruments to cope with the consequences of Brexit and the coronavirus pandemic.

Distributing the European structural and investment funds from a conflicting claims approach

In order to support economic development across all European Union regions, €351.8 billion –almost a third of the total EU budget– has been set aside for the Cohesion Policy during the 2014–2020 period. The distribution of this budget is made through five main structural and investment funds, after long and difficult negotiations among the EU member states. This paper analyzes the problem of allocating the limited resources of the European Regional Development Fund as a conflicting claims problem. Specifically, we attempt to show how the conflicting claims approach fits this actual problem, and we propose alternative ways of distributing the budget via (i) claims solutions or (ii) the imposition of bounds (guarantees) to each of the regions. By applying this approach we also show that there is a claims solution that performs better than the others by reducing inequality and promoting convergence to a greater degree. It is clear that political bargaining will always be part of the allocation process. However, having an intuitive initial proposal may help politicians to find the best agreement. To that effect, we propose the use of a claims solution as a way to find an initial proposal for future policy changes concerning the allocations of the EU structural funds.

TOWARDS EFFECTIVE PROJECT DOCUMENTATION, TRANSPARENCY, AND DATA-DRIVEN DECISION-MAKING THROUGH BIM-BLOCKCHAIN BASED APPLICATIONS

Even in the context of increasing digitisation, the construction sector continues to be characterised by redundancy, multiplication and, at the same time, a lack of transparency and disaggregation of data and information, leading to ineffective management of the time, costs and quality of the project life cycle. This paper shows the results of the development of an ICT application, TRL 4-5, based on the integration of Building Information Modeling and blockchain technologies and designed to foster digitisation processes in the supply chain, in the direction of greater transparency of information flows, knowledge-based organisations and decision-making processes based on unambiguous ordered data. Starting from a broader industrial research collaboration, the project involves a university spin-off, companies operating as system integrators and leaders in the customisation of BIM solutions for the Italian construction market. The project, launched as part of a network of public and private stakeholders established in 2019 and developed between September 2020 and March 2021, is part of a territorial development strategy financed by European Structural Funds. As a result, the research output is a prototype of ICT tool, which implements the Common Data Environment, CDE, making the life cycle management unambiguous, certified and clear. In this regard, the results of the project are meant to respond to the supply chain's need to encourage the digitisation and automation of processes, as well as to encourage the acquisition of unambiguous data, according to a big data approach.

Structural Funds and Regional Economic Growth: the Greek experience

The impact of structural funds of the European Union (EU) on regional economic growth is a matter of both political and economic importance. The large and regular payments made across the EU to countries and regions within them were and are meant to promote various aspects of growth and development and to encourage structural changes that foster investments and economic reforms. But how much of these aims have they been achieved? In this paper we provide considerable empirical evidence that Greek regions have, for the most part, benefited by the various disbursements of EU structural funds. We shed partial light on where this funding went to and to how it potentially contributed to Greek growth but we also raise a number of questions about the viability of the current productive structure of the Greek economy and its over-reliance on tourism. Our results provide support on the efficacy of the payments but leave open the problem of where these payments should be allocated, the monitoring of their absorption and the end impact in the economic cycle within a country.

Effect of Structural Funds on Housing Market Sustainability Development—Correlation, Regression and Wavelet Coherence Analysis

Effective acquisition of funds, including European Union (EU) funds, designated for example, creating economic and social processes, may have a real impact on the elimination of the negative outcomes of the current position of the EU on the global scale. The aim of the research is to indicate the impact of spending funds from the Regional Operational Program of the Opolskie Voivodeship 2014–2020 (ROP OV) on a key macroeconomic area of the economy, i.e., the housing development sector in the region. The practical aim is to formulate recommendations and solutions that can offer guidelines for more effective spending of EU funds and their effect on the macroeconomic dimensions of the economy. The article proposes an innovative approach to linking EU payments in the region with the real estate market. The results of the research and the analyses made on this basis showed a positive impact of the payments made from the ROP OV on selected macroeconomic indicators, i.e., the number of permits issued for the construction of new apartments and the number of currently implemented housing investments. The obtained results should be used in the decision-making process at the level of regional and national authorities responsible for the payment of EU funds. In this article, prior to the research process, a literature review was made. It covered various aspects of the evolution and development of research in the area of regional development. The research process was based on innovative methods of time variability analysis, correlation between the investigated determinants and coherence analysis for the studied dimensions. Data on payments from the ROP OV concern the years 2015–2020.

The Impact of Financial Innovation Investment Support on SME Competitiveness

This article examines financial support (especially EU Structural Funds as the main tool of cohesion policy) for investments as a lever for the development of SME innovativeness in Poland. The European Commission strongly stresses the importance of their cohesion policy and support for SMEs. European enterprises have suffered significantly from the credit crunch, and the situation could worsen as banks engage in restructuring to eliminate impaired assets from their balance sheets. Supporting SMEs and promoting entrepreneurship is essential for economic development and competitiveness, especially in less developed regions. The main aim of this study is to establish the impact of financial support for investments, especially from EU Structural Funds, on SME competitiveness in Poland. We have analyzed empirically the data drawn from CATI carried out among 805 firms. We have learned how SMEs assess the financial support from different sources along with the resulting impact on the competitiveness of SMEs. The main statistical test for relationships and dependencies was the chi-square independence test and Cramer’s V. The results of our research show that SMEs have not used financial support efficiently. Moreover, micro-enterprises were shown to be the least effective after receiving financial support from EU funds. This support often has a demand-driven effect, but it does not improve firm competitiveness.

How to Implement Context-Sensitive Evaluation Approaches in Countries with still Emerging Evaluation Cultures

Evaluation cultures and evaluation capacity building vary greatly across the European Union. Western European countries, such as Austria, Germany, Denmark and Sweden, have been termed as leading countries in the evaluation as they have built up well-established evaluation cultures and carry out systematic evaluations of programmes and institutions. In contrast, in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, efforts continue to establish evaluation practices and further develop the current evaluation culture. In Hungary, for example, an established research and innovation evaluation practice does not exist, not one specifically considering gender equality in research and innovation evaluations with the exception of research and innovation programmes financed by the EU Structural Funds. Based on the results of a Horizon 2020 project, we apply a context-sensitive evaluation concept in Hungary that enables program owners and evaluators to develop a tailor-made design and impact model for their planned or ongoing gender equality interventions. The development of this evaluation was based on a thorough analysis of the literature and 19 case studies, building on documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews. The article shows that this evaluation approach is applicable also in countries with a certain catch-up demand of the existing overall evaluation culture. The special feature of the presented evaluation approach is, on the one hand, that the evaluation is context-sensitive. On the other hand, this approach makes it possible not only to depict effects on gender equality itself, but also to anticipate effects on research and innovation. Such effects can, for example, be a stronger orientation of research towards societal needs, which makes it particularly interesting for private companies.

Why Scottish and Welsh Speakers Will Miss European Structural Funds

In this blog piece Craig Willis investigates the contribution of European Structural and Investment Funds projects in the period between 2007-2013 and 2014-2020, in order to ascertain direct and indirect links to the four Celtic languages, following the separation of cultural funds from the ESIF into Creative Europe and Erasmus Plus from 2007. He shows that, given that the speakers of such languages often reside in economically peripheral areas (at least in higher percentage terms), their livelihoods and everyday culture in the traditional speaking areas (even for non-speakers) are affected by availability of structural funds.