REGIONAL DIFFERENCES IN OBTAINING EU FUNDS SUPPORTING COMPETITIVENESS OF AGRI-FOOD SECTOR IN POLAND IN THE YEARS 2002-2013

This paper presents the EU support for the competitiveness of the Polish agri-food sector in the years 2002-2013. Authors singled out 15 measures of SAPARD, SPOROL, RDP programmes, which directly and indirectly affected the achievement of the objective of this analysis. Authors evaluated budget support across the country and in particular provinces (voivodships). Agri-food entities and general business environment in rural Poland has been subsidised to the tune of PLN 30,452 million. Most of the funds were assigned to farmers (80%), whereas the processing industry and infrastructure improvements acquired similar amounts of around 10% of the budget allocated for this purpose.