News

During the election campaign, the Civic Coalition and the Third Way promised to "depoliticize" state-owned enterprises. This commitment was also included in the coalition agreement. However, representatives of the Ministry of State Assets have announced that the share of state ownership in the economy will be maintained, and the deputies of Poland 2050 party have submitted an act meant to repair corporate govern-ance in companies with state shareholding. This indicates that the current ruling coalition does not foresee true depoliticization of state-controlled enterprises, i.e., their privatization.

In the face of the energy crisis, politicians' neglect in the development and modernization of the Polish energy sector is becoming increasingly visible. Freezing electricity prices is a costly and short-term solution, resulting from neglect in this area. The Polish energy mix, overly dependent on coal, requires decisive modernization actions, which, however, because of current policies, are systematically de-layed. The development of Polish nuclear energy should be considered a particular priority.

Over the last eight years, the Law and Justice (PiS) government in Poland redefined the boundaries of regulations governing the lifestyle of citizens, introducing a series of laws and regulations aimed at promoting desired or healthy habits and behaviors, while limiting access to products and services deemed harmful. From the closing shops on Sundays, through the introduction of a sugar tax, to the ban on the sale of energy drinks to minors—these and other decisions have sparked heated discus-sions about freedom, public health, and the effectiveness of the introduced measures. What were the actual effects of these regulations?

What negatively distinguishes Poland from other countries is not so much the level of taxes, although it has significantly increased in recent years and is higher than the OECD average, but the lack of neu-trality, the complexity, and variability of the system.

In recent years, the quality of law-making in Poland has significantly deteriorated. Practices such as ignoring procedures, bypassing public consultations, using the deputies’ initiative route for govern-ment projects, and last-minute insertions in the final stage of the legislative process have been a con-stant element of the political landscape. These practices served for the rapid implementation of the ruling party's will at the expense of the quality and transparency of legislation. While these practices were not new, they have particularly become widespread since 2015, a trend also confirmed by empir-ical data. This led to a further erosion of citizens' trust in the state—and worse, it undermined trust in democratic processes.

The draft amendment to the Act on the National Council of the Judiciary presented by the Minister of Justice stipulates a return to the election of the judicial part of the Council by judges. Complemented with the proposal to grant all judges - not just their representatives - an active and passive electoral right, the project aims to ensure the independence of the NCJ and limit the influence of politicians on the judges’ nomination process. Although most of the proposals in the project are reasonable, some of them may preserve the “corporate” nature of the Council and insufficiently guarantee its democratic legitimacy.

A week after it’s swearing-in, the Donald Tusk’s government presented Sejm with a draft state budget for 2024. It’s a budget with the highest deficit in the history of Poland, even larger than in the assumptions of the PiS government’s draft. According to the European Commission's estimates, Poland in 2023 and 2024 will have one of the highest public finance sector deficits in the European Union.