FOR Communications

After the election campaign, the Law and Justice Party stopped pretending that the 2020 budget would be deficit-free, starting a discussion on its amendment. The implementation of the new election promises will be difficult to reconcile with the existing spending rule, but there have already been voices offering it to be softened, such as Prof. Łukasz Hardt of the Monetary Policy Council.

The Law and Justice government, when publishing the draft state budget for 2020, called it "balanced". This "balance" is based on one-off revenues and concerns only the state budget, which accounts for half of the entire public finance sector. After eliminating one-off revenues and taking all expenditures into account, the deficit will amount to 1.3% of GDP - that is, it will remain far from a sustainable improvement of public finances - and it will not take the promises of Saturday's Law and Justice election convention into account.

In July 2019, the Ministry of Entrepreneurship and Technology, after six months, published its report regarding transfer of central offices from Warsaw to smaller cities (interchangeably referred to as deglomeration or delocalisation) – a solution taken into consideration in the government circles. The contents of the report are disappointing.

Deputy Prime Minister Jarosław Gowin and Minister Jadwiga Emilewicz are proposing a "deglomeration", meaning the transfer of central offices from Warsaw and provincial offices from provincial capitals to smaller towns. Such a policy would be a mistake, as we have shown by answering the following questions.Deputy Prime Minister Jarosław Gowin and Minister Jadwiga Emilewicz are proposing a "deglomeration", meaning the transfer of central offices from Warsaw and provincial offices from provincial capitals to smaller towns. Such a policy would be a mistake, as we have shown by answering the following questions.

Exempting people under 26 from PIT is unfair. On the one hand, the government sees no problem in the fact that the wages of 27-year-olds earning a minimum wage (PLN 1774 net) are burdened with 40% taxes and contributions, including PLN 150 PIT, and on the other hand, it proposes to exempt over 3 times better earning 25-year-olds from PIT, thanks to which their net income will increase from PLN 5,909 to PLN 6,584, and the total tax burden will fall to 35%.

The Supreme Administrative Court dismissed the cassation complaint of the Head of the Chancellery of the Sejm against the disclosure of letters of support for candidates for the new Council of the Judiciary.

On 24 June 2019 the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled on the European Commission's complaint against Poland concerning the lowering of the retirement age of Supreme Court judges and making further decisions conditional on the President's decision.

During the last national council, the PSL (Polish Peasant’s Party) repeated a number of its earlier proposals, the implementation of which would lead to a deterioration in the state of public finances. Returning to these proposals in a situation of growing deficit caused by the implementation of the Law and Justice party election promises is dangerous for Polish public finances.

30 years ago the first free elections after World War II took place in Poland. The important part of the transition that begun at that time was Balcerowicz Plan – a comprehensive economic reform that aimed to implement free-market capitalism. As a result, during last 30 years the Polish economy has developed tremendously. Nonetheless, among commentators, politicians and ordinary people, one can often find the opinion that the economic transition did not bring Poles much good. Therefore, in a series of charts illustrating the changes that have taken place in our country, we will deal with the most common myths about the Polish economy.