History / Chance of Lwów once again became coming part of Poland [344]


Are you going to personally pay for it?

I've been to small towns in Western Ukraine. It's not pretty, and many towns are barely better than they were under Polish rule. One place I visited - Chyrów in Polish - recently had their main square renovated. It wasn't touched since before WW2. If you want to pay to bring the place up to Polish standards, go ahead, but I and other Polish taxpayers certainly don't want to.

News / The Guardian destroys the Kaczynski twins [42]

Could perhaps one of the detractors of the article point out an inaccuracy?

Insulting the author or the publisher instead of coming up with facts is a tried and tested Communist tactic, which certainly explains why some people are using such tactics.

News / The Guardian destroys the Kaczynski twins [42]

Except The Guardian is taken far more seriously than W Sieci, not least because The Guardian isn't a Party mouthpiece.


In other words, you haven't got any evidence whatsoever to suggest that the article is misleading.

Put up or shut up, as they say. Furthermore, The Guardian has been far more supportive of the Poles than most.

News / The Guardian destroys the Kaczynski twins [42]

Worth pointing out that The Torygraph has never been particularly favourable towards Jarosław as well, and regards PiS as being somewhat of a menace.

Life / If UK votes to leave the EU - what repercussions for British people living in Poland? [32]

That's exactly why the whole Brexit thing is a red herring. The UK in the EEA but not in the EU means no decision making and yet a considerable membership fee.

Law / Business in Poland and Polish reality, How are you doing in Poland? [82]


Officially, a primary school teacher, but I do a lot of stuff connected with marketing as part of my job. But in the beginning, we had a nursery and primary school opening, so I was in the thick of it, you might say.

Just an idea based on what you said above - I'm using a webhost called (grr, PF censors it - search Google for Cut All The Sh!t hosting) for my personal stuff - they do a fantastic job of doing the simple things very well. Might be an idea to have a UK version of the same idea?

News / How would Poland change for the better (or worse) under a PiS government? [257]

Merged: Polish government plans a raid on business savings

Not content with destroying Polish business through increased taxes, we now see PiS intend on raiding the savings of private businesses,.


pieniadze.gazeta.pl/pieniadz/1,136160,19634037,oto-wielki-plan-morawieckiego-bilion-zlotych-lepiej-platne.html#MT

This is part of the Morawiecki plan. While this is all still hypothetical, we can expect Polish entrepreneurs to keep their cash in foreign accounts to protect them against the government. Yesterday, it was land, now it's private savings - what next?

Law / Business in Poland and Polish reality, How are you doing in Poland? [82]

I don't have one myself, but I work for a company that has several - I was involved in setting up one of them from scratch (along with a school), so that's why I'm familiar with the funding and so on.

The latest date - you'd have to ask the local guy responsible for education - it might differ from place to place. I know here that we have to submit the paperwork by the end of May with the list of kids from September, but they might have different rules there. To give an idea, we complete the recruitment process (for kids) by the end of March, but your mileage might vary.

History / "Poland's Concentration Camp" ?? [570]

That looks to be entirely the case. Abusing the EAW is nothing new for Polish prosecutors, and with laptop Ziobro in charge, he'll simply direct them to issue an EAW for the slightest insult. The only problem is that no court in the EU is going to extradite someone to a country where the rule of law is in question and where the prosecutors are subject to direct political interference.

Law / Business in Poland and Polish reality, How are you doing in Poland? [82]


Yep, it's painless.

Quick tip - get yourself an ePUAP account, as you can then deal with a lot of bureaucracy online.

Life / Tacky commerpop and the slob chic in Poland? [24]

This sounds entirely like the PiS raison d'etre. The Party is run by a small, powerful, influential and heavily bankrolled elite, who provide a propaganda onslaught to the masses to dumb them down. They focus heavily on brainwashing the gullible youth, who are led to believe that only they know the truth, and they become fanatical as a result. Furthermore, the leaders of the cult appear to have no real beliefs themselves, but rather adjust and adapt them for maximum gain.

You seem to be bang on the money today, Polonius.

History / "Poland's Concentration Camp" ?? [570]


Internment camp, concentration camp - the two terms are synonymous. The only reason we call them internment camps these days is because concentration camps is also used in connection with the Nazi Germany death camps.


Can you honestly imagine a Western court extraditing someone to Poland over what they wrote in a newspaper?

It'll be one of those things, like the old Communist habit of sentencing people to death in absentia.

History / "Poland's Concentration Camp" ?? [570]

Kaczyński, Wałęsa, Komorowski. Prime Ministers too - Witos for example.

News / Poland's proposed change to farmers land inheritance [7]


Well, the problem is that there is still a huge problem with the supply of housing. Putting a stop to grotesque single-family houses is fine, but destroying the possibility of developers building new estates is just madness. Farmers are already very, very unhappy about this - it was (until now) common for them to sell desirable locations to developers so that they could buy more farmland, which in turn made more efficient farms. This law seems to be developed so that housing prices will be artificially inflated through the lack of supply, countering the fall in prices due to more expensive mortgages.


Well, the ANR not selling land is probably perfectly legal (although stupid and a clear sign that Jarosław wants to nationalise farmland) but you have to wonder about the restrictions on actually buying land.


No, in reality, you've already forgotten about how Rural Solidarity fought for the right of private ownership of land.


Yup. They're already quite upset over this, because many farmers had their retirement sorted through selling plots of land for development.

Either way, the hatred of PiS towards private property is becoming apparent. Just as we said, they should be rightfully called PZPRbis.

News / Poland's Prime Minister Szydło keeps American bulldogs on short leash [36]


Don't ask me, ask the clowns that keep begging NATO for a base in Poland.

I'm pretty sure that should it come down to it, NATO would seek to defend only the left bank of the Wisła.

Law / Business in Poland and Polish reality, How are you doing in Poland? [82]


Well, you should get (the so-called dotacja - I don't know what the translation is) somewhere around 500-600zł from the local government to operate a public nursery per child as long as you follow the rules. The link I gave you earlier is the guy you need to contact tomorrow - he'll give you the exact figure. It will go up each month by a small amount, but judging by the town and so on, I think somewhere around 500-550zł a month per child is likely. There are some rules about whether or not you can charge fees, but I don't remember the details off the top of my head.

Yep, you don't have to register as a company. I'm not actually sure how this works myself - from what I understand, you still have to pay ZUS, but you don't have to register as self-employed, just that you have to register with the local municipality.

Last piece of advice before bed : if you want to get the idea up and running, run as fast as you can for the coming year. There's going to be a hell of a crisis with nursery places this year, which will almost guarantee that you'll be oversubscribed. If you need any advice about pedagogical stuff, feel free to send me a PM :)

News / Poland's Prime Minister Szydło keeps American bulldogs on short leash [36]


If you want them to keep their noses out, then you have to accept the loss of NATO membership.

Law / Business in Poland and Polish reality, How are you doing in Poland? [82]


It *might* be - I'm not too sure how it works (my experience has all been with buildings that were already for commercial use), but you might have to deal with the change of use of the basement. But from what you said, there's nothing unmanagable - you've got the location, you've got the outdoor space, you've got the time - I really don't see any obstacles.

But absolutely, it should be possible. You could investigate the idea of an 'outdoor school' - they're very popular in Scandinavia and they're starting to take hold here too. Here's a great article about them - bethesdamagazine.com/Bethesda-Magazine/January-February-2012/Force-of-Nature/- from what you say, your location would be absolutely perfect. There are many smaller nurseries alongside bigger ones - there's one close to me that has only 19 kids in a small building, yet the parents love it.

Still, I think the nicest thing about a nursery is that you'd have a place for your own child - and the government pays the bills ;)

Law / Business in Poland and Polish reality, How are you doing in Poland? [82]


Honestly speaking, not very much in the beginning. This is more or less what you need to do :

1) Approach this guy - chrzanow.pl/urzad-miejski/wydzialy/wydzial-edukacji.html - and enquire about establishing a non-public (niepubliczne) nursery. Ask him what the "dotacje" is - it depends from town to town, but you can expect anywhere between 50-100% of the funding given to a public nursery. Normal is about 75%, although some places pay more.

2) Find suitable premises. There's a lot of law about it, but it's all spelt out and you don't need to do any guesswork.

3) Teachers are cheap - minimum wage will find you perfectly qualified people to work 40 hours a week.
4) Obviously - you need to equip it. This wouldn't be much - I'd expect somewhere in the region of 15,000zł maximum per classroom, but I'm sure you could cut that number down.

5) The director of the nursery doesn't have to have any qualifications, but the teachers should be qualified. If you really want to stay on the safe side, you could hire a part time director to oversee the bureaucratic requirements and your wife can run the nursery day-to-day - but there's no need to do it like that.

There's a lot more to it, but ask away and I'll help you the best I can. The nice thing is that if you want to have a small friendly nursery so that you can get to grips with the paperwork/etc, it's perfectly possible. The nicest part - as long as you follow the programme established by the Ministry of Education and obey the law in general, you can run the place how you want. For instance, if you want to have a rule that parents are invited to come and cuddle their kids between 10-11am, you can do it - no-one is stopping you running the place with your own personal touch.

Law / Business in Poland and Polish reality, How are you doing in Poland? [82]

Luke, I still owe you a proper answer from earlier, but have you considered getting your wife to open a nursery/creche? They are funded by central government (even if private), and there's due to be a huge deficit in nursery places in the next school year. Furthermore, your wife doesn't need to be qualified as a teacher to be the headteacher - and it would certainly bring her more than minimum wage. It would also give you a place for your daughter to attend without the fear of being left with moronic cabbage-feeding directors :)

The initial investment isn't so high as well.

History / "Poland's Concentration Camp" ?? [570]


I'm not sure where you're getting your information from, because Polish sources are saying that it will be directed specifically at the problem of people calling the Nazi German camps "Polish". There's no mention of anything else.


As if Poland has a clean slate when it comes to concentration camps, internment and being disgraceful.


Including Poland. Nothing unusual, really.

History / "Poland's Concentration Camp" ?? [570]

Only in relation to the camps actually run by Nazi Germany. The law has nothing to do with the concentration camps run by Poland and Poles before, during and after the war. For a start, it would immensely idiotic to ban discussion of post-war concentration camps, given that several ex-Presidents were held in them.

History / "Poland's Concentration Camp" ?? [570]


Don't you know the difference between a concentration camp and a death camp?

History / "Poland's Concentration Camp" ?? [570]


They already are, sadly.

News / Poland's Prime Minister Szydło keeps American bulldogs on short leash [36]

Well done for explaining exactly why Poland can't afford to irritate McCain.

Not hard to figure out that he has influence and power, and that getting on his wrong side can only hurt Poland.

Furthermore, it must be burning PiS to realise even the Americans hate them now.

News / Poland's Prime Minister Szydło keeps American bulldogs on short leash [36]


Well, one thing that Senator McCain wrote was that the view of the situation will not change regardless if there's a Democrat or Republican in the White House. That's pretty damning, and the nonsense reply by Szydło will do nothing to help.


Perhaps a nobody to you, but Senator McCain is the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. That's exactly the person you don't want to upset if you want NATO to place a permanent base in Poland. He's also been involved with Polish affairs for quite a long time, and his chairmanship gives him quite a lot of influence over foreign affairs.


She's done the worst possible thing she can do. Americans don't care about Poland, but they will care if the media reports (and is reporting) that the Prime Minister of Poland essentially told three Senators to get lost.

As I keep saying, Szydło is out of her depth.

Life / If UK votes to leave the EU - what repercussions for British people living in Poland? [32]


It's just not going to happen. There's too many people already in the UK and too many Brits abroad for it to ever happen.

As I said above, I can see a similar deal to Switzerland where they can put a stop to EU-13 citizens while leaving the original EU-15 citizens alone, but nothing else.

News / Poland's Prime Minister Szydło keeps American bulldogs on short leash [36]


Senator McCain is far more important in the world than the Prime Minister of Poland. That's just how it is.


Polish politics are US politics. Get it into your head.


Szydło is a lightweight. She's widely regarded as being a puppet with no real authority or influence over the direction of the PiS government. Compared to McCain in particular, she's a mouse against a lion.

NATO has everything to do with Polish courts and media.


Australia might not need NATO, but Poland certainly does.

News / Poland's Prime Minister Szydło keeps American bulldogs on short leash [36]

Senator McCain is not a "lower rank politician", he's a senior Republican Senator and a very heavy hitter. When he speaks, you listen.


That's normal in US politics. It is a bipartisan initiative, which means it carries significant weight.

That's the price of doing business with America. You want to be in NATO, you listen to what they've got to say. Senator McCain is not someone you mess with lightly.


Don't worry. Telling them to buzz off is exactly what we want this government to do. The chances of Poland getting a NATO base will have dropped even further now - McCain is *the* man when it comes to defence, and if he doesn't want a NATO base in Poland, Poland isn't getting one.