Poland Parliamentary elections 2015

Exactly. if the government will not be so stupid to organise elections in Summer, when the sane part of the country is on hols, 70% votes yet again for non-duck parties.

Poland will never enter the euro zone, because the EU will soon collapse anyway. And good riddance to the costliest, least effective and most bureaucratised super-structure in the annals of mankind!

It won't. The whole idea is more or less dead as it is, and the only people mentioning it are people who are furious with the Third Republic for ending their comfortable nomeklatura lifestyle.


I suppose some people did prefer Comecon.

Yesterday Moscow, today Brussels is a common Polish saying these days. When can Poland finally be Poland? Only under the 4th Repubic, I reckon.

It must be the baby-chipping story (again "he picked it up somewhere"), or as I remember lately he was claiming that the EU was implementing family-destroying legislation of which Poland opted out. (Again not being able to post a link)

His lies/stories/fairy tales are increasingly unbelievable and he gets trapped into them all the time.
It reminds me of Bush&Blair&Rumsfeld and Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, or even more appropriate - Comical Ali :)

Under the old system some people had dollar incomes which enabled them to purchase what the average Kowalski could only dream about. They also had protectors in the regime who made sure they could do almost completely as they pleased, provided they continued to collaborate, of course. Blessed with wealth, freedom and nice big houses, no wonder they hate the people who brought all that crashing down!

One invented by you on the go, as usual?

^ Maybe it is common for Americans who pretend to be Polish. After all, it is common for them to support PiS, even though the overwhelming majority of Poles reject that party and it has no chance of forming the next government.

Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union - Poland and the United Kingdom
Although not a full opt-out, both Poland and the United Kingdom secured clarifications about how the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, a part of the Treaty of Lisbon, would interact with national law in their countries limiting the extent that European courts would be able to rule on issues related to the Charter if they are brought to courts in Poland or the UK.[11] Poland's ruling party, Law and Justice, mainly noted concerns that it might force Poland to grant homosexual couples the same kind of benefits which heterosexual couples enjoy,[12] while the UK was worried that the Charter might be used to alter British labour law, especially as relates to allowing more strikes.[13] The European Scrutiny Committee of the British House of Commons, including members of both the Labour Party and the Conservative Party, has however cast doubts on the provision's text, asserting that the clarification might not be worded strongly and clearly enough to achieve the government's aims.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opt-outs_in_the_European_Union

^ Er, that legislation gives families rights. PiS are the people who want to want to deny some families rights, not the EU.

Another made up saying, given that Poland can leave the EU by a majority vote in the Sejm and Senat. I dare say that those that oppose the European Union today didn't oppose the cushy lifestyle that Comecon offered them.


Comical Polo!

Oops, really? :)

PO +SLD+ PSL are going to create the government, with PiS being the only opposition party in future Sejm.

Heaven help us! It's like question: is there anything wrose than a PC creep? Yes, two PC creeps!

By PC you mean political correctness or Porozumienie Centrum?

I mean a worshipper of the religion of Poltical Correctness or, more acurately, Political Creepyness.

Merged: PO to woo ex-commies ahead of the autumn Parliament elections in Poland

Shocked by Komorowski's defeat, the Platformers are scrambling to shore up their ranks ahead of the autumn general election. PM Kopacz wants to put out feelers to the ex-commies who may not make it into the Sejm. SLD and Palikot orphans are therefore being wooed by the PO which could turn into a centre-left party. The staunchly ultra-capitalist economists Balcerowicz and Petru are reportedly mulling the creation of a pro-market grouping, so the Platfusy are hoping to absorb them as well. Since PiS will most likely win 46% of the vote, it will be able to rule independently without forming a permanent coalition. But it will surely conclude tactical voting coalitions with the Kukiz group, PSL (if they make it) or whoever to override successive exploitative, people-unfriendly or decadent PO brainstorms. WELCOME TO POST-PO CATHOLIC POLAND!

Merged: Kukiz beats PO in latest opinion poll

The latest political-preference survey reported by Forum - Bankier.pl showed that rock musician Paweł Kukiz enjoys the support of 25% of respondents ahead of PO (20%). PiS can count on 36% support.

There is always the novelty factor of a new face or grouping. Some say Kukiz lacks a nationwide network of regional organisaitons and there isn't much time to create one. However, maybe most of his backers shun cut-and-dried political structures and vote straight from the heart. He claims he is an anti-systemic activist, so he will most likely attract many of those sick and tired of the decade of unending PO-PiS warfare.

Yep, we will vote for Kukiz, with our whole families...

Your grandparents would kick you up the arse Wulkan. They never had the vote, and yet you would waste it on that second rate singer. You couldn't make it up.

Luckily there are plenty of Poles who respect democracy and now that it is simply a straight choice between a coalition allied to market forces, with real and proven economic success, and a leftist hegemony with petty nationalist ideals and no concept of economic housekeeping whatsoever.

And you want to throw a spanner into the works for that time waster? Go ahead, but why not vote for the PIS mob instead and be done with it? .

The reason for Kukiz's success is that many Poles have had their fill of exploitative so-called "market forces", urging Poles to live beyond their means and luring them into credit traps so they can clutter their homes wth more fłlimsy "Made in China" junk. Privatisation sounded good at the outset -- instead of state ownership transfer industrial assets into private hands. It turned out that the Balzerman gang destroyed or sold for a song industrial plants which were often a given town's main employer leading to widespread employment. Greedy foreign corporations have destroyed the environment (e.g. Smithfield Foods) and paid starvation wages to many workers so the bulk of their profits could be channeled abroad. Idealising or deifying "Market forces" (foreign bloodsuckers) makes no sense and will not convince many Poles. But if you're a PR person on a corporate payroll it makes sense to you and lines your pockets.)

What do you think was the reason that foreign investors came to Poland in the first place?

But is that to be a permanent situation? Poles as the eternal bowl-of-rice coolies, mercenaries in the pittance pay of foreign corprations in their own country. The Polish powers that be have not done enough to help create an indigenous Polish business class. Most of the Polish millionaires achieved what they did on the leash of or in collusion with foreign corproations. Why is a Corporate Poland not being built? One that would not just distribute "Made in China" junk but would design, produce and sell innovative products of Polish origin so that profits go to build the country, not the portfolio of some fat Western capitalist?

It will be. It will be delayed by a further 5 years or longer, due to the damage they can cause, with a leftist government of course.

How was Poland to build anything in 1989 without real capital, in the face of a supposed 30 billion IMF debt, not to mention 40 years of centralised state monopoly, far removed from market forces, just as those socially revealing TV series of the 70s like "Czterdziestolatek" portray?

It takes time to build. Polish companies are already big in land reclamation, in foodstuffs, and fish farming......
And time is a great healer, as PG Wodehouse would say, albeit referencing affairs of the heart. But there lies the problem Polonious. You are too romantic about life - that era of the "glorious hussar" is long gone.

In 1989 Poland had major industrial assets -- KGHM (copper mining/metallurgy), shipyards, collieries, oil refineries, Cegielski Marine Engineering, car, lorry, bus,tractor and aircraft factories, major chemical works, etc. which were surely worth something. Those could have formed the nucleus round which a Polish National Capital Consortium was built. With the proper incentives such a project could have attracted Polish private capital and turned the project into a state and private sector capital fund.

Admittedly many of the PRL-era works were antiquated, but that doesn't mean there was nothing of value in the country's industrial holdings. Foreign investors would have seen the money-making potential of this project and snapped up the bonds and shares it issued, thus providing capital for modernisation and development.

Balcerowicz did not go that route but staked on destroying or transferring Polish industry into foreign hands, usually for a song. You don't know Polish and probably weren't around at the turn of 1989/1990, but there was something called a "wydmuszka". In Polish folk culture a wydmuszka is a blown-out egg, which is only an empty shell and is decorated and suspend from a Christmas tree. In the industrial realm, that was a metaphor for a state factory whose machinery was clandestinely removed under the cover of night and the remaining shell was condemned and razed. Obviously this was a backroom, under-the-counter procedure.

One example close to my heart: When Daewoo went under, such a Polish Capital Consortium could have bought out their Polish holdings and continued building and developing what was then a modern, motorcar factory with a full range of products. Instead, the Ukrainians bought out Daewoo's Polish operation and eventually GM took it over. Daewoo produced the Tico and Matiz minicars, the Lanos and Espero mid-sized saloons and estates, the luxury Leganza and Lublin marque vans, light lorries, minibuses, etc. That took place before the EU tender strait-jacket was imposed, so they could have cornered the Polish market for police, fire, ambulance, forester and other public-service vehicles, not to mention hearses, minibuses, delivery vans and the like for the private sector as well. Poland could have become the major suppliers of such vehicles to the newly liberated ex-Soviet bloc countries and perhaps Third World nations as well.

Believe it or not, my stomach often actually knots ap at the sight of all those VW, Ford, Mercedes, Citroën, Peugeots and other utility vehicles in place of what might have been were it not for Balcerowicz!

You can say much the same about many places. Those 'industrial assets' that you cherish were very run down (the famous Vaclav Havel speech applies to Poland even more than Czechoslovakia) and those who managed them were not competent to do so. Nor was there a great pool of talent waiting in the wings that had been held by by the political situation.

You seem to be advocating an ultra-nationalist business model (an interesting comparison with the Greens here) whereas the reality is different. Capital is international, and Poland chose capitalism at a time when capital was becoming increasingly mobile. In any case, most of the large companies operating in Poland have tradable stock - the nationality of stockholders is an irrelevance; anyone can invest.

Balcerowicz did very much the core t thing and is rightly praised for doing so.

Great, so the Polish taxpayer could have wasted money failing where Rover and Daewoo failed before them.


Actually they wouldn't have. Back in those days tenders were simply fixed in advance by payment of bribes. I remember the tender for vehicles for Warsaw fire brigade where only one vehicle met all the criteria the fire brigade apparently needed to be met, so they had to buy that vehicle. However, if one removed electric windows from the list of criteria, the Lublin van which cost two thirds the price of the winning vehicle would have won. Why did the fire brigade need electric windows?


Yes, it could have done, it it had had any vehicle designs to produce and decent factory in which to produce them. But it didn't have either of those things. Blame politicians for that if you want, the reality won't change.

The same could be said about the former GDR. It reunited with West Germany and even though billions upon billions were pumped into the region, it still hasn't recovered from 45 years of being a run-down "socialist paradise" with a severely damaged environment. Heck, even today wages are lower in the east than in the west, which can have very strange effects in Berlin for example. Hairdressers in the former West Berlin earn more per hour than their counterparts in the former East Berlin.


No, but it will take much longer than the Polish people expect. Probably another 30 to 50 years or so before things normalize. Hopefully it's faster, but I doubt that because the country has almost no industries at the moment that are competitive on the world market.

Quite. If one European country has been devastated more by the horrors of the Twentieth Century, has had more ups and downs and has had more hurdles to clear, it is Germany. Who've done very well out of reconstruction, including in the former East.

In Poland there has long been a cultural tendency who like to get off on the thought of national martyrdom, who believe that their country's misfortunes are all the fault of others and that no one has suffered more. In Germany that tendency is proportionally much smaller and people in general just get on with things.

In the context of Polish politics and the 2015 elections we should look at the way Germany deal with coalitions and parties and the much smaller role of acrimony. That and the role of their Trade Unions and their not-for-profit sector.

Compared with pre 1989 times in the east, yes. Compare the east with the west though and you will soon notice that the east is still way behind in many respects. There's a reason why so many young people moved west and why the remaining East Germans still vote for their old communist masters. Sounds familiar? Exactly the same happened (and is still happening) in Poland. Recovery is too slow and the younger generation doesn't want to wait. They just leave for greener pastures; wherever that might be.

I assume you're an automotive expert par excellence, since it seems you are an expert in every imaginable field, so you surely know that GM took over Daewoo and began producing the very same models, improving them and facelifting them as time went on. The Daewoo line was more than substantial two decades ago -- on par with Hyundai and Kia. A Polish Capital Consortium, if one existed, could have done the same thing. Remember that was before joining the EU when Poland still had much more freedom of economic manoeuvre.r

you dont know what you are talking about as usual.
1. Germany had Marshall plan,Poland had Stalin
2 .most of hardest hit,utterly destroyed german towns were transferred to Poland..bunch of rubble..while unscratched vilno and lwow were taken away
3.the biggest lose of Poland,(in terms of crippling recovery capability of Poland ) was lost of intellectual elites. doctors (45%), lawyers (57%), university professors (40%), technicians (30%), clergy (18%) as intellectual were specifically targeted by Germans and soviets.

Germany did not lose nowhere near their industry,infrastructure or % population,ect compare to Poland
you ignorant as always

Everyone back on topic please

That's still taking place EU or not. I head of a tender where a Ford guy approached the tenderee(?), and probably not empty handed, to have him add heated outside mirrors to the want list which only Ford was offering at the time in a certain model van. Again, that gizmo is hardly a necessity.