Former provincial cities are at risk of demotion. Presidents want a government support program

• In 1998 they were still provincial cities and important local centers. The administrative reform of the following year began the process of deglomeration.
• The government should address this problem, believe the mayors of such cities.
• The current administrative division of Poland is sick - experts believe.

The presidents of the former provincial cities have issued a joint appeal to establish an additional team at the Joint Government and Local Government Commission. It would deal with the "multi-level degradation" of centers that lost the status of provincial cities after the administrative reform in 1999.

The team's task would be to develop a government support program for these cities.

This programme should provide for the implementation of a package of activities, including deglomeration activities, as a result of which the competitiveness of our centres in relation to the current provincial cities will significantly increase.

- we read in the appeal signed by 30 presidents .

Among them are the rulers of Bielsko-Biała, Częstochowa, Włocławek, Radom, Piła, Sieradz, Siedlce, Skierniewice, Zamość and Legnica.

According to the signatories of the letter, actions aimed at improving the situation of former provincial cities should include, above all:

• strengthening the academic potential of former provincial cities;
• deglomeration of central/provincial institutions;
• strong incentives for business entities locating in former provincial capitals;
• "envelopes" of EU funds dedicated to former voivodeship cities, outside the current competitive procedure for applying for funds.

The authors of the letter (available for download in the "Multimedia" section) emphasize that this is the first agreement of this kind between presidents of former voivodeship cities .

Let us briefly recall that over 30 Polish cities lost their status as provincial cities as part of the administrative reform that came into effect in 1999. Of the 49 voivodeships at the time, 16 remain on the map of Poland today. Although over 20 years have passed since the reform, experts have no doubt that it was not carried out reliably.

- The current voivodeships are sick because they are very centralized. Regional self-government in voivodeships with large metropolitan centers is a fiction. In the Mazovian voivodeship we have Warsaw, and in the Lesser Poland voivodeship we have Krakow. These metropolises constitute "the whole world" unto themselves. In such voivodeships, other, smaller local governments do not count in regional policy. Moreover, these "smaller local governments" are often large cities, such as Kalisz, Płock or Tarnów - said in an interview with PortalSamorzadowy.pl dr Łukasz Zaborowski, author of the report "Towards balanced development", which was created as part of the activities of the Sobieski Institute.

Krzysztof Kukucki, a politician from the New Left and the mayor of Włocławek, has recently returned to the issue of changes in the administrative division. In a letter to Prime Minister Donald Tusk, he requests the establishment of a local government and expert team that would deal with changing the administrative division of the country.

- The issue concerns the development of medium-sized cities in our country, especially after the administrative reform that came into force on 1 January 1999. In the opinion of residents, local government officials and myself, they are not developing as well as they could, especially since our country has exceptional potential - a polycentric settlement network, i.e. evenly distributed medium-sized and large cities that perform functions and serve the entire country - said the president of Włocławek.

Kukucki admitted that the reason for writing the letter to the prime minister was the expert opinion of the Sobieski Institute, and that he is most satisfied with the so-called balancing variant, which assumes the division of the country into 22 voivodeships, inhabited by 2-2.5 million people. This variant assumes the establishment of, among others, the Kuyavian-Masovian voivodeship with its capitals in Włocławek and Płock.

According to the mayor of Włocławek, promoting five or six centres and "pumping a lot of money into them is in fact trampling on the potential that is part of the sustainable development of the country, which is the basis of the European Union and which allocates funds for it". As an example, he gave the FEniKS programme, which is currently implemented by the Ministry of Funds and Regional Policy, and some of the funds are completely unavailable to medium-sized cities.