Poland – the biggest EU funding beneficiary

Poland is to receive nearly 20 percent of the total European budget allocated to the development of EU regions over the 2007-2013 financial perspective.

The country has been granted over €67 billion — the biggest financial-aid package awarded to any EU member state to date. The funds may be spent until 2015. Entrepreneurs may apply for grants from four national operational programmes, namely: OP Infrastructure and Environment, OP Human Capital, OP Innovative Economy and OP Development of Eastern Poland as well as from 16 Regional Operational Programmes.

For potential investment projects implemented in Poland, it is the Operational Programme Innovative Economy (OP IE) that opens major grant opportunities. The Programme’s allocation amounts to €9.7 billion, which constitutes 11 percent of the overall funding. OP IE facilitates financing innovative projects connected with creating or developing of new enterprises, product diversification or production-process modification with the use of innovative solutions.
Very important in terms of the number of investment or service projects and consequently the volume of new jobs they generate is measure 4.5, Support for investments of high importance to the economy, pertaining to the development of the production and modern-services sector. Funds allocated for measure 4.5 of OP IE for the 2007-2013 financial perspective exceed €1 billion. In 2009 alone, foreign investors in Poland may obtain a total of more than PLN 2.1 billion under that measure. Currently, the degree of allocation use for that purpose is shy of 16.5 percent.

Entrepreneurs who engage in business activity and have their head office in Poland are eligible for such grants. Reimbursement of production expenses accounts for 25 percent of the qualified costs, and in the modern-services sector it amounts to 30 percent. But R&D projects can count on considerably higher reimbursement, even up to 70 percent of the costs incurred.

It should be stressed that financial aid from EU funds may be combined with public aid from other sources, provided that the joint subsidy amount does not exceed aid ceilings defined in the regional aid map for Poland.

In order to help investors effectively navigate through the tangle of available financial-aid possibilities, PAIiIZ has set up a European Funds Information Centre. For more information, please contact: info-punkt@paiz.gov.pl, or 801 005 075, 0048 22 334 99 34.