Constitutional Principle of Environmental Protection as a Directive in the Process of Establishing the Rural Development Programme

Abstract

The environment is a value and subject of constitutional protection in Poland. Ensuring environmental protection is considered as a political principle in the national doctrine, and due to the editorial location of its source in Article 5 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, it is considered as one of the objectives of Polish statehood. In several places, the Basic Law refers to the issue of the environment, considering it an important value and entrusting its care not only to public authorities, but also to anyone who is subject to Polish state authority. Examining whether contemporary instruments of agricultural law, in particular those developed with the participation of Polish state authorities in the application of the mechanisms of the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union, take into account constitutional directives derived from the principle of environmental protection and whether the effects of these activities are verified in the light of the constitutional model is an interesting academic question. The subject of detailed analysis in this study is the rural development programme (RDP) referred to in Article 6 of the Regulation (EU) No. 1305/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 December 2013 on support for rural development by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) and repealing Council Regulation (EC) No. 1698/2005. The author demonstrates that the constitutional principle of environmental protection was respected by Polish public authorities in the process of creating an important and high-budget instrument for conducting development policy, which is the RDP for the years 2014–2020.