Heard the purport of the controversial speech of president Duda in
Otwock has been manipulated by the media hostile to PiS. I advise you listen
the speech and shape an opinion on it on yourselves. Has Mr president gone too
far in diagnosing the ailments plaguing Poland and in insulting his opponents?
Is Mr Duda president of all Poles or of one particular party? Up to you to
decide…
In February
Mrs Szydło’s government celebrated first 100 days of work. Out of five
priorities on the government’s agenda only one has been carried through.
1. The 500
plus child allowance programme has been launched and first payouts to parents
will be made in April. Undeniable credit to the government for delivering the
flagship project, however a truly impressive attainment will be making ends
meet in budgets for 2017 and onwards without containing the scale of the
program .
2.
Decreasing retirement age to 60 for women and 65 for men remains in the realm
of promises. Mr Duda promised to submit a relevant draft law and kept his
promise, nothing beyond it.
3. In
progress is the law setting up free-of-charge medicines for elderly people aged
75 or more. Needless to say the list of medicines will not be endless and only
some medications will qualify for 100% reimbursement. According to some
estimates, an average pensioner will save no more than 20 zlotys monthly thanks
to generosity of PiS government. Wonder whether administrative expenses will be
higher or lower than gains of all entitled old-aged citizens.
4. CIT rate
cut to 15% for micro enterprises looms far on the horizon. A few PiS
politicians brought up the topic, but right now the government is preoccupied
with putting out other fires.
5. Raising
tax allowance to PLN 8,000 per year also stands no chance of being accomplished
in 2016 and feasibility of such move in 2017, given foreseen shortfall of
budget revenues, is up in the air.
The
festival of traducing Mr Wałęsa was rather short-lasting, but I am sure this
has not been the last word. The game is up…
The former CEO of Bank Zachodni WBK has unveiled the Responsible Development Plan, a
roadmap for Poland to catch up with the Western Europe and a set of measures to
move Poland forward. It is beyond all doubt Poland badly needs a long-term
development strategy, yet the strategy must be viable from cover to cover, i.e.
it should identify what problems need to be overcome and with what means.
The
diagnosis Mr Morawiecki sets is spot-on, but hang on… How do the notions
underlying the plan square with PiS’ economic agenda? It is claimed public debt
is a drag on Poland’s development, but PiS’ spending spree will sooner or later
have to contribute to rising public debt. Demographics is bound to decrease
labour force in Poland and to counteract it PiS deputies put forward decreasing
retirement age and have raised schooling age from 6 to 7.
Besides,
being familiar with specifics of some sectors (e.g. shipyards, automotive,
transport, capital goods), I fear goals in the programme might be to beautiful
to be realistic. Harnessing banking and corporate sectors’ over-liquidity to
boost investment smacks of central planning. All in all, the plan makes a good
impression, but I do not believe the government “knows better” than thousands
of enterprises. Lending a helping hand and setting strategic objectives for the
development should remain the core areas of government’s involvement in the
economy. Let’s not go beyond them and let the free market do its job.
The cursed soldiers, for years forgotten, in the days surrounding 1 March were glorified
more avidly than veterans of the Home Army (not to mentioned those out of luck
to join the Home Army). I have not against commemorating victims of Stalinism,
tortured and murdered between 1945 and 1956, they do deserve our remembrance,
but the cursed soldiers are not a uniform group and historians (other than
IPN-affiliated) vary in their assessments of cursed soldiers’ deeds after the
Home Army was dissolved in January 1945. In 1945, as Poland became subjugated
to the Soviet Union, warfare was officially over. Some people came to terms
with the fact Poland could be at best a satellite country of the Soviet Union
and under those circumstances began to rebuild the country from ruins, combat
illiteracy, electrifying countryside, while others did not lay down guns. The
problem I have with them is that they did not fight the Soviets, but they
killed their compatriots, not only the ardent functionaries of the new systems
in MO, UB, PPR uniforms, but also representatives of the ethnical minorities,
Jews and civilians who did not resist the new order or benefited from it, e.g.
peasants granted land as part of the agrarian reform.
Romuald Rajs
“Bury” and Józef Kuraś “Ogień” are two most glaring examples of bandits
venerated today. I would strongly prefer the whole truth is told about those
people. Locals in Podhale or near Białowieża, especially ancestors of civilians
killed by brigades of “the stalwart” put up the biggest resistance when IPN-
and PiS affiliated , yet their voices are rarely audible.
Besides,
come to think of it with cool head. Imagine someone hiding in a forest. What
would they live off? How would the procure nutrition? How would they survive
harsh winters in the second half of 1940s? Locals tired of six years of
privations of war did not need to embrace the idea of helping out the forestmen
by offering them board and lodging…
A tyre
popped. Had it happened in an ordinary Pole’s passenger car, it would have
passed unnoticed. But the tyre popped in a BMW carrying president Duda;
consequently the vehicle went into a skid and landed in a roadside ditch.
Fortunately, the head of state came of the accident safe and sound and after the
voices of conspiracy theorists (assassination could not be ruled out) and
vulgar haters faded, it transpired the tyre had been produced in 2010 and
should have long been out of use. Jaw drops open. Within four months PiS have
managed to replace most officials in ministries and state-controlled companies
and launched several opening audits to reveal irregularities and havoc wreaked
by their incompetent predecessors, but they have failed to inspect fleet of
vehicles carrying the statesmen.
Why did
this happen? The technical conditional of the vehicle is one side of the coin,
the driving style of BOR being the other. Many doubt the column of vehicles,
including with Mr Duda on board, was moving within the speed limit of 140 kmph,
witnesses speak of the speed of 170 kmph or even 200 kmph. BOR vehicles according
to the Polish law enjoy the status of privileged vehicles, just like
ambulances, fire engines and police cars. This means they do not need to follow
traffic regulations. Let’s have a glance at how the column of vehicles moved at
National Road DK5 before turning into A4 motorway where the accident took
place.
I know the
road well, its surface if flat, has not ruts, but the road is narrow, winding,
hilly and on many sections visibility is poor. Does such way of moving around
contribute to safety of Mr Duda (or whoever is a passengers) and other innocent
road participants?
Last Sunday
a supplementary election to the upper house was held in Łomża – Suwałki
constituency. Anna Maria Anders, backed by PiS won the seat in the parliament,
but if you bear in mind three facts:
1. Mrs
Anders’ score (47%) was mere 6 percentage points ahead of PSL-affiliated, PO-
and Nowoczesna-backed Mr Baginski’s result,
2. the
turnout in the election was 17%, meaning only 8% of citizens entitled to vote
cast their votes for Mrs Anders,
3. Mrs
Anders had been endorsed by all prominent PiS politicians involved in her
campaign, while PO, PSL and Nowoczesna had not lifted a little finger to
support their candidate (shame on you, Mr Schetyna, Mr Petru and Mr
Kosiniak-Kamysz),
the victory
is anything but swingeing and should rather be interpreted as a warning sign
than as declaration of strong support.
The VeniceCommission has issued a report on recent changes in law pertaining to the Constitutional
Tribunal. The final document is somewhat toned down in comparison to the draft
which had leaked to the media in February. The Commission blames both the
previous and the current governments for paralysing the Tribunal and urges the
Polish government to rectify the wrongdoing. Commentators keep on talking about
the political compromise to be worked out to reverse the unfortunate
legislation. This twaddle fills me with dread. There is no room for
give-and-take, politicians from all parties present in the parliament have to
make a concerted effort to bring the laws in line with constitution. The PiS
government is slowly realising it cannot mess with everyone around. Hope the
opposition realise this time for the benefit of Poland they will need to collaborate
with the government, not to reach any compromise, but to restore the legal
framework spoilt in two stages by PO-PSL, PiS and president Duda.
1 comment:
Excellent overview. I have decided to steer clear of Polish politics and cover materials spiritual (largely) until Easter.
But this post makes me realise that the chronicler-in-chief of the ups an downs (mostly downs) of the current government resides on this blog :-)
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