Transition and accession have necessitated the establishment of a regulatory framework for agricultural crop biotechnology in Poland. This paper examines the
theoretical and practical difficulties of complying with EU requirements. The first part of the study utilises evolutionary theory and path dependency to describe how policy makers interpret the requirements of accession through established conceptual models. Secondly the paper examines how accession programmes may alter path dependent trajectory but is simultaneously introducing or importing models which are fundamentally incompatible with national capabilities. Data presents the preaccession capacity building programmes and the import of German expertise as
examples. The final section examines the issue of capacity and in particular, financial capacity, and uses this underlying theme to explore in detail why incompatibilities arise and why EU compliance is presented with certain obstacles
