Poland’s development and tremendous economic success over the last 30 years is based on three pillars. The first is the gradual construction of increasingly efficient institutions. In this area, economists understand institutions as those managing the economy and the operations of companies. The second pillar is a commitment to the idea of economic balance, supporting investments rather than consuming everything as quickly as possible, as well as striving for a strong currency and low debt. The third pillar is membership in the European Union.
Regarding the eight years of PiS (Law and Justice) rule, these are the three areas that truly concern me. It must be said that in all three of these areas, there has been greater or lesser regression, said Prof. Witold Orłowski, an economist and Rector of the Vistula University of Finance and Business, to eNewsroom.pl. In my opinion, PiS was already beginning the process of Polexit, which perhaps could not have been stopped. Fortunately, the recent change seems to have eliminated this risk, although we will need to rebuild our position in the European Union. However, the most significant losses are in the first area, that of building institutions. Efficient institutions. Here we have an example of a drastic deterioration in the quality of the bureaucratic apparatus. Recall that when the Polish Deal was introduced two years ago – the main PiS government program – it turned out that officials at the Ministry of Finance hadn’t thought that some people receive salaries in advance, and some in arrears. This illustrates the scale of the deterioration in the so-called human capital of the administration. On the other hand, we have the management of state-owned companies. Currently, we have a spectacle in the form of the question of where Orlen managed to lose 1.5 billion zlotys – so much so that they didn’t even notice they were losing it. As for the commitment to economic balance, there is no tragedy here, but it is evident that during PiS’s rule, public debt doubled. The fact that public debt in relation to GDP did not increase is only because the złoty weakened simultaneously, and through the inflation tax, the costs were shifted to citizens, especially savers. But generally speaking, PiS’s policy did not encourage saving but consuming. Even one former Prime Minister said that the economy could grow in such a way that the more the government spends on social transfers, the greater the economic growth will be. One of us does not understand economics if they believe that economic growth occurs by simply shifting money from one pocket to another, evaluates Prof. Orłowski.
