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GLOBAL-LOCAL INTERPLAY IN THE BALTIC SEA REGION Pärnu, Estonia, October 1-4, 1998  Malgorzata Pacuk, Tadeusz Palmowski
Abstract
Between December 1996 and March 1997 a survey was carried out on the basis of a questionnaire prepared by the authors as the experts from Working Group for Task Force for Structural Policy in Poland. The answers, which were gathered from all Poland`s voivod offices, provided comprehensive knowledge on the various forms of international co-operation entered into by voivodships (without accounting for local scale) since 1990.
The answers varied with regard to their degree of accuracy. In spite of the efforts taken to ensure that the survey results were presented in the most objective fashion possible, we are inclined to treat them more as the presentation of current trends than as an attempt to rank voivodships.
Analysis and comparison on the survey results show that the principal areas of foreign co-operation do not account fully for the economic sphere. At present there is a relatively powerful lobby in Polish administrative organs pushing for educational and cultural co-operation, while support for economic co-operation appears rather poor (co-operation in industry, construction and the transport infrastructure), which is mainly concerned with the small private sector. Apart from some noticeable success in this area, the institutions supporting business and regional development in Poland are still too weak.
The principal fears surrounding foreign co-operation concern the emergence of a specific monoculture geared mainly towards tourism, culture, environmental protection and trade, which at the same time clearly undervalues the importance of industry (production functions, industrial co-operation), science and technology (know-how) and transport.
Geopolitical changes in Poland have intensified cross-border and intra-regional co-operation and enabled new forms and directions to develop. Polish economic ties have been fundamentally reoriented - in the place of Poland`s former close relations with the USSR and socialist countries new economic relations have begun to emerge (or relations initiated earlier have begun to intensify) with Germany and other European Union member states. Analysis of regional foreign co-operation carried out by voivodship offices have only partly confirmed this trend and showed that relations with Poland`s eastern neighbours, Russia and Ukraine, are still strong at the voivodship level.
Analysis based on two criteria: number of partners of particular voivodship and number of signed agreements with foreign partners enables us to see which voivodships have the most wide-ranging contacts and the most developed forms of co-operation. The conclusion to be drawn from the analysis is that a region`s development level has no decisive impact on foreign co-operation conducted at the voivodship level.
Foreign co-operation undertaken by voivodships is handicaped by insufficient regulations and resources as well as inadequate voivodship structures for handling such co-operation. Financial, legal, economic and organisational problems belong to the main barriers to institutional co-operation of voivodships.
The barriers to foreign co-operation facing voivodships are clearly of a heterogeneous nature. Removing some of these difficulties - on a national scale - requires undertaking a number of decisions and measures at the central level (mainly legislative and systemic ones). Others, on the other hand, belong to the regional level and this is where they should be solved.
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