Participatory Budgeting in Poland - New Legal Regulations and Rules for Implementation (on the Example of the City of Lodz)

Résumé

[Extract] Participatory budgeting has existed in Poland for several years. The first city to have established this process was Sopot in 2012. A year later, participatory budgeting appeared in about 50 local government units, and another 20 decided to enter it into the budgets for 2014 (for example, Lodz or Warsaw). Currently, participatory budgets are present in about 200 local government units; these are not only cities but also rural communes, poviats, and voivodships.
The aim of the article is to present and analyze new regulations regarding the institution of participatory budgeting in Poland. These considerations will be supplemented by discussing the principles of its functioning on the example of participatory budgeting in the city of Lodz for 2019.
There are several arguments for choosing the example of participatory budgeting in the city of Lodz for analysis.
Lodz was in the group of Polish cities that quickly introduced participatory budgeting. The first time that participatory budget appeared in the budget was 2014, which means that its sixth edition ended in 2018.