FOR Communications

The Council of Ministers has decided to raise the minimum wage to 4242 zł gross from January 2024, and to 4300 zł from July. In relation to the average or median salary, the Polish minimum wage is already one of the highest in Europe. Despite this, it will increase again next year by more than one fifth.

The increasing demand for labor and the ongoing process of society’s aging mean that Polish entrepreneurs are more willing to employ foreigners. The Polish authorities are keen to bring in economic immigrants. It is therefore absurd how the Polish government behaves: while they themselves approve the admission of a multitude of workers from outside of the EU, they enter another pointless dispute with Brussels, rejecting the proposal of a solidarity mechanism in the field of migration.

With the votes of the ruling coalition, the Parliament passed an amendment to the Penal Code and several other laws. The law, which amends the National Defense Act, reintroduces a ban on photographing - very broadly defined - objects of strategic importance. Such strategic objects can include, for example, bridges, railway stations, hospitals, GSM transmitters, or even certain universities. The list of objects of strategic importance for national security and critical infrastructure that may be subject to a photography ban is not publicly available. Citizens will not be able to determine whether a specific object falls under this ban.

Sejm (Polish lower house of parliament) has passed a law prohibiting the sale of energy drinks to individuals under the age of 18. New regulations also ban the sale of such beverages in educational institutions and vending machines. Restrictions are to come into effect on January 1, 2024.

Why are prices rising? Because someone raises them. Why do they raise them? Because they are greedy. And who sets the prices? Entrepreneurs. This is the brief presentation of the “greed-based” theory of inflation, which has been gaining popularity among hostile to business, left-leaning econo-mists and journalists. A well-expressed advocate of this theory is also the president of the National Bank of Poland, who uses the argument that recent price increases are due to greed, backs it up by a personal study of allegedly inflated prices of butter by retail chains.

The amendment to the Act on export insurance, as a government bill, should have included an assess-ment of regulation’s impact and undergone public consultations, which cannot be said of the amend-ments introduced by the Sejm, which should preferably be closely related to the original bill. In this case, we are dealing with far-reaching legal changes in an entirely different area than the one ad-dressed in the amendment. This form of legislation, not used for the first time by the ruling party’s politicians, is unacceptable in a developed democracy.

According to the constitution, the National Bank of Poland is responsible for the value of the Polish currency, and according to the law, its primary objective is to maintain a stable price level. However, during Adam Glapiński's presidency (since June 2016), the accumulated inflation until May 2023 reached 47.6%, which means an average increase of the price level of about 5.7% per annum, while the inflation target is 2.5% with a deviation range of ±1 percentage point. In February this year, inflation reached 18.4% y/y, marking the highest rate in over 26 years.

Since 28th of June, the work of the Forum of Civil Development Foundation (FOR) is led by Marcin Zieliński, current board member and chief economist. He replaced the former president, prof. Leszek Balcerowicz.

In 2022, public expenditure per capita amounted to almost 36,000 PLN, and per one working person - 79,381 PLN. All public spending is financed either by taxes we pay, or by government-issued debt (which means higher taxes in the future). Many people, demanding the implementation of further social programs by the state, do not realize that it is associated with higher taxation of the people (now or in the future). As Margaret Thatcher observed: “If the state wishes to spend more, it can do so only by borrowing your savings or by taxing you more. There is no such thing as public money, only taxpayers' money.

During the last weekend program convention, Jarosław Kaczyński presented PiS's new election promises. The increase of the children benefits from 500 PLN to 800 PLN per month from January 2024 came to the fore. In addition, the promises included free (that is financed by the taxpayer) medicines for children under 18 and senior citizens, and the abolition of highway tolls. During the festival of promises, however, PiS lacked the most important thing - sources of funding.