EUR 4 billion worth of EU regional development funds soon to come on tap

"This constitutes one-third of all EU money designated for Poland," explained Marek Szczepański, undersecretary of the state for the Economy Ministry. Any projects that are to benefit from these funds, though, will have to be co-financed by the host country, which in Poland's case will mean that EUR 346 million will have to come from the state budget, while a further EUR 769 million will have to come from local government coffers. "This money would finance activities within three categories," Szczepański continued. These would be those that seek to expand and modernize the country's infrastructure, strengthen human resources, and promote regional development. This latter category, in Szczepański's words, being any that include "similar projects to the first objective, but carried out locally." (Parkiet, p. 7) M.M.