2019-04-18
FOR Communication 14/2019: Ministerial assessment of the trade ban: unreliable, biased and anti-entrepreneurial
Synthesis:
- The Ministry of Business and Technology has provided an Impact Assessment of the restriction of trade on Sundays. The ministry does not recommend changes in the model of reaching a full ban, suggesting only a modification of the regulations "in the direction of further strengthening of small Polish stores"
- Almost every element of the report should unequivocally be assessed with criticism, as it does not meet the standards of a reliable assessment of the effects of the Act. The study does not indicate any reliable causal links between the ban and changes in trade and other sectors. It also operates based on incomplete data, which the ministry could certainly have obtained.
- The report disregards the most serious charges against the ban on Sunday trade: the violation of economic freedom, the negative impact on the freedom of choice of consumers and the disastrous quality of regulations.
- It is difficult not to get the impression that the activities of state authorities, which have entrepreneurship in their portfolio - including the Ombudsman for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises - do not go hand in hand with declarations on improving the conditions for conducting business activity.
Authors:
Patryk Wachowiec, legal analyst
patryk.wachowiec@for.org.pl
Marcin Zieliński, economist
marcin.zielinski@for.org.pl
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