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FOR Communications

  • FOR Communication 2/2024: Government’s draft act on the National Council of the Judiciary: correct direction, insufficient safeguards

    FOR Communication 2/2024: Government’s draft act on the National Council of the Judiciary: correct direction, insufficient safeguards | 2024-02-15

    The draft amendment to the Act on the National Council of the Judiciary presented by the Minister of Justice stipulates a return to the election of the judicial part of the Council by judges. Complemented with the proposal to grant all judges - not just their representatives - an active and passive electoral right, the project aims to ensure the independence of the NCJ and limit the influence of politicians on the judges’ nomination process. Although most of the proposals in the project are reasonable, some of them may preserve the “corporate” nature of the Council and insufficiently guarantee its democratic legitimacy.

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  • FOR Communication 1/2024: The new draft state budget - with larger deficit than in PiS assumptions

    FOR Communication 1/2024: The new draft state budget - with larger deficit than in PiS assumptions | 2024-01-18

    A week after it’s swearing-in, the Donald Tusk’s government presented Sejm with a draft state budget for 2024. It’s a budget with the highest deficit in the history of Poland, even larger than in the assumptions of the PiS government’s draft. According to the European Commission's estimates, Poland in 2023 and 2024 will have one of the highest public finance sector deficits in the European Union.

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  • FOR Communication 24/2023: Will inflation return to double digits after the elections?

    FOR Communication 24/2023: Will inflation return to double digits after the elections? | 2023-10-11

    The Central Statistical Office's flash estimate for September, pointing to an inflation rate of 8.2%, offers little reason for optimism – inflation remains over three times above the tar-get. It's important to remember that the PiS government allocated tens of billions of zlotys this year to "freeze" prices. Without these highly expensive manipulations, made to mask inflation during the election year, prices would still be rising at a double-digit rate – we es-timate that in September the price level would have surged by as much as 17.9% YoY. Just because the government "freezes" prices before elections doesn't mean that post-election inflation won't sharply increase – no country can afford to perpetually maintain suppressed prices, and next year Poland will have one of the highest public finance deficits in the Euro-pean Union.

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  • FOR Communication 23/2023: Stagflation: The legacy of PiS's economic policy

    FOR Communication 23/2023: Stagflation: The legacy of PiS's economic policy | 2023-10-06

    The data published by Eurostat reveals an alarming situation in which the Polish economy is now. In comparison to other economies in the European Union, it appears to be very weak in terms of economic growth and, simultaneously, particularly affected by inflation.

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  • FOR Communication 21/2023: Are prices in Poland nearly stagnant? Continuation of NBP's information campaign

    FOR Communication 21/2023: Are prices in Poland nearly stagnant? Continuation of NBP's "information" campaign | 2023-09-29

    Elections are approaching, and the banners on the NBP headquarters are examples of the polit-ical involvement of this institution and the misuse of public resources for election campaign purposes. In May of this year, the Polish central bank published an Opinion of the NBP President re-garding the electoral proposals of PiS and PO. This document clearly shows the political preferences of Adam Glapiński, even though, according to the Constitution, the president of the National Bank of Poland should not engage in politics.

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  • FOR Communication 20/2023: Sharp increase of the minimum wage in Poland and its consequences

    FOR Communication 20/2023: Sharp increase of the minimum wage in Poland and its consequences | 2023-09-27

    The Council of Ministers has decided to raise the minimum wage to 4242 zł gross from January 2024, and to 4300 zł from July. In relation to the average or median salary, the Polish minimum wage is already one of the highest in Europe. Despite this, it will increase again next year by more than one fifth.

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  • FOR Communication 18/2023: Poland Willingly Welcomes Foreign Workers

    FOR Communication 18/2023: Poland Willingly Welcomes Foreign Workers | 2023-08-28

    The increasing demand for labor and the ongoing process of society’s aging mean that Polish entrepreneurs are more willing to employ foreigners. The Polish authorities are keen to bring in economic immigrants. It is therefore absurd how the Polish government behaves: while they themselves approve the admission of a multitude of workers from outside of the EU, they enter another pointless dispute with Brussels, rejecting the proposal of a solidarity mechanism in the field of migration.

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  • FOR Communication 17/2023: Return to the Polish People’s Republic: banning photography will not replace the professional counterintelligence services

    FOR Communication 17/2023: Return to the Polish People’s Republic: banning photography will not replace the professional counterintelligence services | 2023-08-09

    With the votes of the ruling coalition, the Parliament passed an amendment to the Penal Code and several other laws. The law, which amends the National Defense Act, reintroduces a ban on photographing - very broadly defined - objects of strategic importance. Such strategic objects can include, for example, bridges, railway stations, hospitals, GSM transmitters, or even certain universities. The list of objects of strategic importance for national security and critical infrastructure that may be subject to a photography ban is not publicly available. Citizens will not be able to determine whether a specific object falls under this ban.

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  • FOR Communication 16/2023: State paternalism strikes at freedom of choice: restrictions on energy drink sales

    FOR Communication 16/2023: State paternalism strikes at freedom of choice: restrictions on energy drink sales | 2023-08-01

    Sejm (Polish lower house of parliament) has passed a law prohibiting the sale of energy drinks to individuals under the age of 18. New regulations also ban the sale of such beverages in educational institutions and vending machines. Restrictions are to come into effect on January 1, 2024.

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  • FOR Comment 1/2023: How greed did not drive the inflation

    FOR Comment 1/2023: How greed did not drive the inflation | 2023-07-26

    Why are prices rising? Because someone raises them. Why do they raise them? Because they are greedy. And who sets the prices? Entrepreneurs. This is the brief presentation of the “greed-based” theory of inflation, which has been gaining popularity among hostile to business, left-leaning econo-mists and journalists. A well-expressed advocate of this theory is also the president of the National Bank of Poland, who uses the argument that recent price increases are due to greed, backs it up by a personal study of allegedly inflated prices of butter by retail chains.

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