“National Development Strategy 2035” is Poland's key strategic document that defines the goals and directions of the country's development in both the social, economic and spatial dimensions.

Security issues, understood both as building up our military strength and building the country's resilience to any crisis situation, are among the fundamental priorities of this Strategy

- Minister of Development Funds and Regional Policy, Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz says.

Tonight we have become acutely aware of the historical moment for Poland. We need strategic navigation, setting the direction in which our country should develop - the Minister of Development Funds and Regional Policy emphasises, referring to Russia's attack on Ukrainian territory, during which Polish airspace was repeatedly violated by Russian drones.

Minister Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz points out that the Strategy is the most important umbrella government document which sets the directions for development, with which other strategies and activities are subsequently synchronised. This is why it is so important that it is a document with a current diagnosis of the situation.

The Minister also draws attention to the importance of the Strategy in relation to the work on the future budget of the European Union.

We are on the eve of planning further investment measures from the EU budget. For the first time in the history of free Poland, we want this process to look different. This means that the priorities do not come from Brussels and we do not look at whether we like them or not, but we go to Brussels to talk constructively and in a friendly manner, but with development and investment priorities defined on the basis of our Strategy, to which we want to allocate funds from the next budget. - Minister Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz argues.

Objectives of the National Development Strategy 2035

The most important objective of the Strategy is to ensure a good quality of life for all citizens - regardless of whether they live in a major metropolis, a medium-sized or small town or in the countryside.

The mission statement of the Strategy is to seek a new balance between:

• the competitiveness of the economy, i.e. its ability to maintain high economic growth;
• social and territorial cohesion, i.e. ensuring a good quality of life for all citizens regardless of where they live;
• the country's security, understood not only as military strength, but also as the resilience of society and the state's institutions to crisis situations.

The document sets out the main objectives of the state's development policy for the next decade:

• mitigating of demographic changes and adapting to them;
• creating the conditions for a competitive and fair economy that respects the environment and the climate;
• strengthening the security, resilience and agility of the state.

The strategy is driven by the horizontal objective of sustainable territorial development. According to it, Poland shall develop evenly in order to ensure a good quality of life for all the country's inhabitants, not only in major metropolitan areas, but also around many small and medium-sized towns and rural areas.

All ministries were involved in the process of developing the Strategy, as well as representatives of the regions and experts in various fields. The public administration will systematically implement the announced solutions from the moment the Strategy is adopted.

Demographic target of the Strategy

As a response to demographic change, the Strategy proposes:

• pro-family state policy, including a housing policy based on increasing the number of social housing units (approximately 20 thousand social and municipal housing units per year); better medical care for women during pregnancy and childbirth; increased access to crèches; income stability for young adults, better medical care, reduction of educational gaps between the sexes, improvement of the image of parenthood;
• adaptation of state action to an ageing population - development of long-term care; “active ageing” programmes; development of public transport; incentives for long working lives and so-called lifelong learning.

Economic objective of the National Development Strategy 2035

The main task of the state in the economy is to create the conditions for private business to go through successive phases of development: from micro, to small, medium-sized and large companies (among the top 100 largest enterprises, only 24 are domestic private companies). The strategy sets the goal that within a decade at least half of the largest companies in Poland will be Polish private companies.

The Strategy plans:

• much more capital for the development of companies: more funds for investment in start-ups, not directly through grants, but through the support of specialised venture capital funds; BGK funding of large capital investments in Polish companies; more capital for international expansion;
• proactive industrial policy - the state should be more daring in supporting Polish companies, especially when designing large public investments;
• a large investment package in CPK, ports, intermodal terminals, nuclear power plant, energy networks, defence technology;
• investment in people - reforms in education and science, including a new approach to teaching geared towards horizontal skills (critical thinking, collaboration, learning); reducing inequalities in education; support for projects linking the worlds of science and business.

Security objective in the Strategy

The Strategy indicates the need to increase Poland's military capabilities, but also its resilience to hybrid attacks, cyber attacks, natural disasters and health and food crises. Poland shall achieve this by:

• investment in defence, so that as much capital as possible remains in Poland - developing domestic production, services; financing R&D work in defence-related industries; investment in domestic dual-use technologies;
• building a comprehensive, modern civil protection system: building emergency response and communication systems; educating citizens; investing in shelters and critical infrastructure.

Horizontal objective of the National Development Strategy 2035

The Strategy relies on Poland's multi-centrality as the key to the country's sustainable development. However, to counteract the metropolisation of the country continuing over recent years (we have major metropolises and the rest of the country), it proposes:

• the support for a network of 78 cities of key importance for maintaining polycentricity - the most important of these are to be 50 medium-sized cities (so-called sub-regional cities with a population of 40 to 100 thousand), often former voivodeship cities, which will be covered by special measures. The development of these cities is expected to have an impact on the development of the entire surrounding regions;
• the introduction of the “self-government 2.0” Act, i.e. the Act on sustainable urban development - it will complete the self-government reform with the missing element that will define the rules of cooperation between cities and their surrounding municipalities (to be enacted by the end of 2026);
• identifying districts with the largest projected population decline as so-called strategic intervention areas - it is especially there that the regional policy will take care to maintain access to good quality public services;
• eliminating the phenomenon of transport exclusion, among others, through intensive development of the railway network and a dense network of local bus connections to smaller towns.

How will the Strategy be implemented?

The Strategy contains a 4-year Action Plan, describing 38 key projects for its implementation. The individual priorities set 56 indicators with targets, the achievement of which will be monitored annually.

The Strategy must be accountable and flexible, hence the new document, the Annual Strategic Diagnosis. It will serve the government to “confess” on an annual basis on the implementation of the Strategy, but also indicate what circumstances have changed and how this affects the priorities and actions.

Objective of the Strategy consultation

During the public consultation, we want to learn citizens' evaluation, comments and suggestions on the provisions of the Strategy. In that way, we involve all stakeholders in the process of its development. Consequently, we will create a document that is acceptable to the largest possible part of the population.

You can submit your observations electronically via:

• the website of the Ministry of Development Funds and Regional Policy (https://www.gov.pl/web/fundusze-regiony),
• comment submission form [https://forms.cloud.microsoft/e/A9ahGSS1eQ],
• or by sending the completed form to: Strategia2035@MDFRP.gov.pl.

Consultation on the draft Strategy will run until 31 October 2025.

The final draft of the “National Development Strategy 2035” will be submitted to the Council of Ministers in Q4 2025.

The full draft Strategy can be viewed here: National Development Strategy 2035 - draft for public consultation - Ministry of Development Funds and Regional Policy - Gov.pl Portal