QUIET SMUGGLING EURO

CZESŁAW RYSZKA

The former finance minister Jacek Rostowski became a director of advisors of the prime minister Ewa Kopacz. It means that we are going to face a quick entering the euro zone. Serious economists are surprised by this nomination, because the minister left the government rather in infamy, leaving gigantic debts. I will remind – after Janusz Szewczak, the main economist of the Credit Unions – that our public debts rose from 500 milliard zlotys to over a billion zlotys from the year 2007. The foreign debt reached about 370 milliard dollars (to compare – Edward Gierek borrowed 30 milliard dollars during 10 years and we have paid it off during 32 years; how many generations of Poles are going to pay off 370 milliard dollars?

Another issue is the budget deficit. For 6 years Jacek Rostowski could not close down the budget of the state. Every ‘hole’, that is, official deficit balanced from 40 to 50 milliard zlotys, and one year it reached 100 milliard zlotys. Moreover, it is estimated that the concealed deficit reaches nearly 3 billion zlotys. But that is not all, because an absolute mismanagement was the sale of the national property and ‘overeating’ money which should go for pensions or health protection. The increased VAT tax, introduced by Jacek Rostowski, was not helpful for the budget either. It is paid mainly by native middle entrepreneurs, whereas the finance minister and the vice-prime minister were strangely indulgent towards big consortiums or foreign supermarkets.

What should be called a scandal is the fact of delaying the publication of the tax act in ‘Dziennik Ustaw’ by the Governmental Legislation Centre: the budget may lose over 3 milliard zlotys of the due tax (money from big companies will flow to tax havens). Should the minister Mateusz Szczurek or his predecessor who recommended him for this post be blamed for it? Or maybe one should acknowledge the rule that for years milliards of zlotys have been flowing to foreign havens and centres – owners of banks, bug consortiums or supermarkets, instead to the budget of the state. It is estimated that every year about 80 milliard zlotys flow away abroad permanently (big foreign commerce networks in Poland with their annual turnovers of about 120-130 milliard zlotys, paid only about 700 milliard zlotys of tax in 2013, that is, less than 1 per cent). If the minister Jacek Rostowski has not changed anything in this sphere for 6 years, then whom does the nomination of the director of advisors of Ewa Kopacz serve to? Surely to the international financiers.

The question: in whose initiative in the expose of the new prime minister did the musical note about entering of Poland into the euro zone sound? It was accompanied by the president Bronisław Komorowski, MPs of the Civil Platform started talking about it, and the euro-deputy Jerzy Buzek, the former chair of the European Parliament, in an interview dramatically entitled: ‘Do not accept euro. It is dangerous’, is even trying to scare us that if we do not accept the European currency, we will face a cataclysm.

He might have forgotten about the previous liquidator of mines in Silesia and also about unsuccessful reforms: about education, administration or pensions, that thanks to its own currency Poland, despite unsuccessful reigns of Donald Tusk, did not fall into a crisis, into which Italy, Spain, Greece or Portugal have fallen. It is thanks to its own currency that prices of goods, services or credits are stable. It is thanks to the strategy of the Polish National Bank and Monetary Policy Council and also currency reserves of the Polish central bank, that we avoided many traps set by the international financiers.

The euro zone has been a political not economic project from the very beginning. It is proven by gigantic troubles of economies of the above-mentioned countries. How such a big country like Poland would be useful for the euro zone! Luckily, in this parliament none decision about the currency change will not be made. The Constitution does not allow for it. Therefore, it is important that we should have the parliament and the government which will block all pressures of Brussels connected with resigning from having our own national currency.

AA

„Niedziela” 42/2014

Editor: Tygodnik Katolicki "Niedziela", ul. 3 Maja 12, 42-200 Czestochowa, Polska
Editor-in-chief: Fr Jaroslaw Grabowski • E-mail: redakcja@niedziela.pl