Encouraging Environmentally Sustainable Growth in Poland

This paper reviews several aspects of Poland’s environmental policies. Its main finding is that substantial progress has been made in dealing with the environmentally unfriendly legacy from the past. Poland has successfully combined emission permits based on environmental quality standards, emission fees and fines, public environmental subsidy schemes and widely publicised lists of the worst polluters. Other important factors of success were long-term time consistency, gradual tightening of enforcement and limited administrative discretion. Poland is now embarking on a fundamental revision of its instrument mix in order to respond to new environmental challenges typical of market economies, and to comply with the European Union environmental Directives. In this context, the challenge is to formulate a medium-term strategy that is both environmentally effective and market friendly. Pending legislative amendments, however, may not always live up to this challenge. New instruments ...