The Story of “Allocation Exhaustion”

You won in court, and the funding? Still nowhere to be seen?

For years, Poland’s implementation acts worked like this: the authority rejects the application, the beneficiary appeals, the court rules in their favor. Except what good does that do…

Because if the allocation has been “exhausted” in the meantime, all the court can do is confirm that the assessment was unlawful. You still won’t see the money.

The mechanism was written into the act back in 2012, as part of “implementing” a Constitutional Tribunal ruling. Attorney-at-law dr Krzysztof Brysiewicz says he raised objections to this change at the time, from the administration’s side. The ministry’s argument? That the state budget isn’t made of rubber, and “the European Commission requires it.” The provision passed anyway, and kept reappearing in every subsequent implementation act for years.

On July 3, 2025, the CJEU added a new chapter to this story in the Toode case:

• An effective remedy (Art. 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights) doesn’t really exist if, even after winning in court, you still don’t receive the funding.
• Whether a project met the conditions is assessed as of the date of the wrongful refusal, not as of the date of the judgment.
• The authority can’t excuse itself by saying “the money ran out” or “the deadline passed,” when it was the authority itself that wrongfully rejected your application in the first place. Its own mistake cannot be used as an excuse.

For Polish beneficiaries, this is a concrete signal that the “allocation exhaustion” provisions conflict with EU law, and that, in turn, opens the door to challenging decisions that once seemed final.

Dr Krzysztof Brysiewicz tells the whole story in a new post on the “EU Funds Through a Lawyer’s Eyes” blog. And this is only the first of the EU-funding parables.

Read the full post

If you were denied funding due to allocation exhaustion, it’s worth checking whether your case could be reopened.

This is the first of three parables about EU-funding adventures. More to come soon.