The EU and recent regional reform in Poland

The first section of this article briefly examines the ways in which the Commission seeks to impress its values and norms on processes of regional reform in CCs through the accession process. The recent regional reforms in Poland are then analysed from the perspective of harmonisation with these values and norms: to what extent can we delineate the influence of the EU in this mix of factors? Can we identify aspects of the reforms where the interaction between EU and Polish influences has been benign and elements that have been more problematic? The implications of these different types of interaction for the current status and future operation of regional government units are assessed with brief reference to the case of Poland's Silesian region.