Half billion PLN in losses due to agricultural piracy

In the last four years, Poland’s national budget might have lost as much as half a billion PLN due to illegal use of state-owned farmland. The Supreme Audit Office (NIK) has released a report regarding agricultural piracy, which concerns appropriation of state-owned land and collecting subsidies from the European Union for said land. Adverse possession of state-owned land (similar to squatting or homesteading) is not penalized by Polish law. “Many people take over state-owned land without any sort of agreement and apply for EU funding. Over the past four years, this procedure may have cost the EU and Poland a sum of half a billion złotys,” said Paweł Biedziak, NIK’s press spokesman. Between 2009 – 2012, an audit spanning 19 farms showed that PLN 30 million was lost due to unpaid land use fees. This situation most likely concerns at least 12 percent of all state-owned farmland. EU subsidies for the audited fields alone amounted to PLN 76 million in the last four years.