Joanna Rakowska

THE RURAL-URBAN PARTNERSHIP IN EU REGIONAL POLICY – THE EVIDENCE FROM POLAND

Referring to research and a number of publications on rural-urban partnership, the paper discusses the evidence on such partnerships in Poland, provided by projects carried out under Operational Programmes 2007-2013(2015). The study was based on data from telephone interviews with representatives of 25 local self-governments and on data from the Information System for Monitoring and Control, which includes data sets on all projects carried out under national and regional Operational Programmes 2007-2013 and is disseminated by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Development. The verifying datasets were obtained from Poland’s Central Statistical Office, the National Court Register, and the Ministry of Economy. The findings showed that the commune-unions and limited liability companies set up by the rural and urban local self-governments (LAU2) in Poland have had the characteristics of rural-urban partnerships. These entities were beneficiaries of Operational Programmes 2007-2013. This proves that in practise EU structural funds have been supporting rural-urban partnerships in Poland, although they have not been addressed specifically to them. Despite the on-going theoretical discussion on the definition of rural-urban partnership and the fact that it was purposely not explained to the interviewed the representatives of local self-governments, this form of collaboration was well-recognised by them. Keywords: rural-urban partnership, EU regional policy, Poland. Article DOI: http://doi.org/10.15544/RD.2015.121