News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

What a day.

It's funny as hell watching all these PiS supporters resort to abuse and childish insults as well as trying to cover up just how many people were on the streets, but there's plenty of video evidence that shows that there was a huge amount of people out there. Reuters wrote that the crowd stretched for 3km, AFP wrote about record turnouts and Die Welt estimated 250,000.

What makes the whole thing hilarious is the web chat with Kaczyński organised at exactly the same time. Anyone with any basic understanding of politics can see that it was an attempt to divert PiS voters away from what else might be shown on TV - it's actually hilarious how bad it is from a propaganda point of view. It's even more painful to see how TVP Info spent the time focusing on Kaczyński and not on something genuinely newsworthy.

Still, hilarious to see that the counter-demonstration only picked up 2000 at the most. PiS had a chance to mobilise their supporters on the streets at the same time - why didn't they? Is it because after the disaster of the 13th December march, they know that they simply can't get people out there anymore?

Life / Do you think that Polish people are rude? [951]

Agreed. A friend actually makes serious cash out of teaching Poles the rules of public behaviour.

In particular, the Polish habit of talking over each other loudly is seen pretty badly. I was in Croatia (not a country known for quietness) and even there, the Poles stood out a mile alongside the Russians.

Probably it's the only thing I genuinely despise about Poland is just how loud people are.

Language / Slavic languages words similarities with Polish [238]

:D From what I know, there's a lot of difficulties with the case system. I've got a Russian friend that speaks excellent Polish, but she makes sometimes very queer mistakes with the cases.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


Retail margins. You need to sell a lot to turn a small profit, because the sector is so competitive. Nothing unique to Poland.


I imagine it would only be acceptable if the business was actually making no profit, or even losing money to make sure that those greedy owners can't benefit.


Not just on this forum, sadly. People still haven't figured out that the freedom to run a business means that businesses also have freedom to fail.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


From a quick look, Tesco are making no more than 3.5% profit on their revenue in Poland, which hardly seems excessive.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


How can Polish industry compete against foreign companies that benefit from tax breaks and large amounts of state aid?

I don't see Germany providing such deals for Polish companies, so why are PiS handing them a large amount of cash and allowing them to crowd out any domestic Polish engine producer?

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

I'm not the one that's agreeing to it, Polonius. I find it funny that PiS went on and on about foreign companies exploiting Poland, and yet here we are - the Deputy PM has happily signed up to essentially give a German company favourable tax conditions and cash.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


There's plenty of open speculation that Morawiecki will demand the PM job sooner rather than later, which may explain everything. Unlike Szydło, he's also got the contacts and the know-how to deal with Kaczyński. He owes nothing to him, unlike other marionettes.


Not keeping up with the news, are you? It's been made pretty clear that the Daimler engine works will require substantial state aid and a very favourable taxation regime - in other words, PiS are doing exactly what every other government has done.


What you're not mentioning is that the law only provides for around 1.20zł for every person over 75. That's not going to provide much medicine.


Reminds one of the old "socialism with a human face" that some promoted within the Warsaw Pact.


As I keep saying, Kaczyński is economically illiterate. He's never worked a day in the real world - so we shouldn't be terribly surprised.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

No thank you. I quite like the fact that you don't have to worry about who might or might not be armed in every day life.


They will actually make things more difficult. Even the other day, there was some announcement by Szydło about "sealing the tax system". Who was present alongside her? The Finance Minister? The Minister of Development? Nope, the Minister of Justice. Doesn't that tell you something?

The government are ideologically opposed to private business.


That won't change under this government. If anything, it's likely to get worse.


That's how it works in the EU as a whole with public tenders. It does reduce corruption, but the problem is that the specification is often written so narrowly that only one company can win it. Protests are common though, and tenders are frequently thrown out in this case.


The CHF mortgages are going to be the defining moment of this government. If they raid the foreign exchange reserves to pay for the forced conversion, or force the banks to take the hit - then we're going to see some real trouble.

bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-01/polish-zloty-s-haven-status-just-a-memory-as-it-lags-every-peer

There's likely to be a rating cut, and quite a few analysts are openly suggesting that the złoty is in trouble. It says a lot that the PLN is struggling against other regional currencies - the UAH, CZK, HUF and RSD are all making gains against the złoty.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

Regardless of what he thinks the Constitution is, he and PiS should begin by respecting the current one. When they do that, we can discuss changing it.


Shouldn't they rather concentrate on what matters to voters - jobs and future prospects?


I do love how people like you abuse the Constitution. It just shows how you'd be first to stamp on the face of your fellow Poles should the Russians/Germans/whoever come back.

Real Estate / Can foreigners buy land, house, or apartment in Poland? [60]

No contact information, only a poorly designed website. Not exactly reliable.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


Then if he wants Poland to be in the EU, he needs to accept that institutions such as the Venice Commission must be respected.

Strange move by Kaczyński though, because he's now set the government against the ONR types that were demonstrating yesterday against the EU.


I wouldn't worry about that, because the budget is already in a complete mess. It's been found out that the rise in the złoty in February was because the government sold a considerable amount of foreign reserves to prop it up, for instance. Inflation in April was -1.1%, which is a complete disaster for a budget that's relying on something like 1.8% inflation.

I'm giving it six months before Morawiecki becomes PM and abolishes the 500+ programme. The bank tax receipts were nearly 33% less than expected, the retail tax is nowhere to be seen... there's simply no money for it.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


See, Polonius, how it works in normal countries is that parliamentary opposition is normally allowed to promote their own laws too. It's common in democracies to consider the voice of the opposition, and insulting them by saying "they can't adopt a single law" shows that you consider a single party state to be preferable.

Don't you know anything about how democracy works in your own country? Bipartisan bills are very common.


Quite a sensible idea. It would force PiS into supporting EU membership, while also discrediting the fringe idiot groups that PiS are flirting with. As it stands, the hooligans are now opposed to PiS, which is why Duda was booed out of the National Stadium today.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


PO/PSL/Nowoczesna are on a combined 35%. Quite a long way ahead of PiS...


Kaczyński really is a master of irony, given that he's attempting to use the Sejm to dominate the legal branch.


Ironic, given that the Dear Leader Chairman Kaczyński gets reelected in leadership elections with North Korean style percentages and where it's well known that anyone publicly criticising him will be thrown out of PiS.


Remind us how someone was prosecuted in Lublin for insulting Lech Kaczyński, why don't you Jarek?

If you cared about this, you'd remove the idiotic laws regarding insulting religion and insulting the President.


Aha. That's why Duda was booed today by the fans of Legia Warszawa and Lech Poznań, as their latest thing is to demand Polexit.

Polonius, are you really not aware that the ONR held marches throughout Poland yesterday demanding Poland leaves the EU?


Ah, so it's official. PiS want to reform the court system so that they can enforce their version of the law on the judicary. As we all know, the courts are independent in Poland - and poor Jarek knows that he won't be able to prosecute his political enemies in the independent courts, hence they must be destroyed.


I would prefer a smarter army, but you know, he believes in the days of 1930's when men alone was thought to win wars. You'd think that Poland would have learnt something from 1939, but well.


Interesting comment, actually. It's pretty clear that Morawiecki is being groomed to take Szydło's job sooner rather than later, but the only question is whether Morawiecki will accept Kaczyński's "leading role" in the Party. If the entire government is supposed to work to make it succeed, then where's the place for Ziobro's political prosecutions or blatant nepotism in every single ministry?

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


According to the opinion polls, they don't. The last poll had PiS on a mere 28%. It's pretty clear over the last couple of weeks that PiS are not "loved".

Just for kicks, we all need a good example of how PiS are implementing the TKM philosophy to full effect.

natemat.pl/178733,polska-rekordowa-w-rzadzie-premier-szydlo-pracuje-az-95-wiceministrow-najwiecej-w-unii-europejskiej


As we all know, it's not about "good change", it's about "giving as many well paid jobs to PiS supporters as possible".

Life / Warsaw is a difficult city to adjust to (coming from Canada and having lived in South Africa) Prague? [46]


Calm down? You're the one that seems to be making deliberately wrong statements. I just wonder what your agenda is...


Exactly it doesn't, as I've already shown you how Okęcie and Modlin have more traffic combined than Prague.


It's rather evident that you've come here to troll, but whatever.

Anyone that's actually been to both cities without any agenda can see that they're pretty much equal. Some things are better in Prague, some things are better in Warsaw. For instance, Prague has 3 metro lines, but no train connection to the airport. Warsaw has a 20 minute connection from the centre to the airport by train and tickets are half the price of the bus from Hlavni Nadrazi to Prague Airport.

But seriously, trying to claim that Polish people dress worse than Czechs is just laughable to anyone that's actually visited both countries :D

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


It's quite terrifying that you consider "everything possible" to be acceptable.

I suppose you're in favour of cancelling elections if it means that PO will win?

Life / Warsaw is a difficult city to adjust to (coming from Canada and having lived in South Africa) Prague? [46]


Warsaw - 11.1 million at Okęcie, 2.5 million at Modlin
Prague - 12 million at Ruzyně

Do try harder if you're going to criticise Warsaw.


Being a tourist destination is meaningless - in fact, it's one of the problems Prague has. Warsaw is the undisputed financial services capital of the CEE countries, and Prague is going nowhere. Take away the tourists, and the city would have major problems.


According to communist statistics, which were later proven to be mostly nonsense.


Depends if you're spending 30PLN or 300PLN.


I find that very, very hard to believe. Czechs dress like Germans, for a start.

I'm curious as to what your agenda is. Prague doesn't convincingly beat Warsaw in any area except in how the city actually looks, and even then, large parts of Prague are pretty horrific once you get away from the centre.

More to the point, Prague is stagnating (like the rest of CZ) badly. Slovakia isn't far away from overtaking them, which shows just badly the Czech Republic has done over the last 23 years.


Wrocław will host the European Film Awards this year, and the New Horizons film festival is very well known. The Czech Republic has nothing comparable to the Forum Muzyki in Wrocław as well.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

Oh they certainly will. Threatening the provincial governments is certainly amusing, because it will simply cause them to dig in further. If they try and cut the funding to the provincial governments, then it's quite conceivable that the tax offices in affected provinces will simply stop making transfers to Warsaw.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

The amount of cities and provincial parliaments coming out against PiS now is staggering. It seems that a significant part of Poland will now operate according to the rule of law and not the rule of the Party - meaning that we have effectively a dual legal system.

PiS are now threatening city and provincial governments to obey their "law" or else - even though their law is only recognised by them and no-one else.

Life / Warsaw is a difficult city to adjust to (coming from Canada and having lived in South Africa) Prague? [46]


Except it isn't.

Average salary in Prague is about 32,000CZK, which is about 5200PLN. In Warsaw, it's 6000PLN.


What isn't modern in Warsaw? As for luxuries, you must be looking in the wrong places.


No, it really isn't. I've been to Prague, and the infrastructure is pretty poor in many respects.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


It essentially means that PiS have to create a new parallel state - they're apparently planning to destroy the court system now and replace it with a whole new court system simply to remove any judges that are opposed to them.

I wouldn't be shocked if the next move is to completely remove funding for the Constitutional Tribunal.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

I wouldn't reply Harry, because the latest news is that the Supreme Administrative Court has also agreed that the Constitutional Tribunal is the highest court in the country.

nsa.gov.pl/komunikaty/uchwala-kolegium-naczelnego-sadu-administracyjnego-z-dnia-27-kwietnia-2016-r,news,4,309.php


Polonius, do you really want to see a situation emerge in which we have a war of laws? PiS cannot win - if they attempt to enforce law that the legal system refuses to recognise, then they will push Poland into the abyss for the sake of trying to maintain power.

We now have the situation that the Supreme Court, the Supreme Administrative Court, the Constitutional Tribunal and the Venice Commission have all ruled that the government are in the wrong and that they are obliged to immediately rectify the situation. The only support for the government comes from the public prosecution service (who are directly under the control of the government, and it took them three attempts to find a prosecutor willing to drop the case) and no-one else.

In this case, the judiciary constitute a separate branch of power in Poland and must be respected. The government is not above the rule of law, nor is it the only source of law.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


It's actually addressed in the Venice Commission's decision. I forget the Latin term used, but there's a principle that such a law should not enter into effect until it's had a chance to be evaluated.

edit : found it - 'vacatio legis'. It refers to the time between the passing of the law and the introduction of the law. In this case, the absence of such a period is pretty much a no-no in European law in peacetime.

- the Venice Commission has experienced it twice before, and they have ruled consistently that judges on a Constitutional Court must be allowed to judge law that affects them, and that the court cannot be intentionally paralysed. It's all here - venice.coe.int/webforms/documents/?pdf=CDL-AD%282016%29001-e - paragraphs 40-43 explain it perfectly.

But it's all academic. The judiciary now will respect the TK's decisions, several major cities will follow the TK's decisions - in short, PiS now have to decide whether they want to establish a legal system in which the courts are opposed to the government, or if they will respect the independence of the judiciary (including the Constitutional Tribunal) and run Poland like a normal country with checks and balances.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


There's nothing left to argue about. The Supreme Court has ruled that they will abide by the Constitutional Tribunal's decisions, meaning that the legality of the Constitutional Tribunal's ruling has been confirmed by the two highest courts in the country. There's nothing more to discuss now - PiS cannot override the rulings of the judiciary. The only way for them to change things now would be to change the Constitution - which they are welcome to do so.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


Ignoring the loaded language (Rzepliński is not 'nasty and vindictive', he's simply doing his job in accordance with the law) - it's highly unlikely that the Constitutional Tribunal would behave in that way. They aren't controlled by PiS, and it says a lot about the mentality of PiS that you're even thinking about the possibility of them blocking everything in sight.

I wouldn't be terribly shocked if Szydło now gets dismissed as Prime Minister on the grounds that it was her government that caused this scandal.

Surprise, surprise. The Finance Minister now wants VAT to remain at 23% next year.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


It might, might, just prove to be a blessing in disguise. Kaczyński won't be able to handle the economy crashing down, and the opposition is all over them in terms of scrutinising absolutely every aspect of the economy. It's not inconcievable that Morawiecki will demand the Prime Minister's job - but he will want real power and not figurehead power. After a few months, including the cancelling of the 500+ programme - it's quite possible that Morawiecki would lead a breakaway group from PiS into a minority technocratic government passively supported by the opposition.

Either way, we're about to watch Poland's reserves being looted to fund misguided social promises.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]

Now things are getting interesting.

Poland's Supreme Court has ruled that they will abide by the judgements of the Constitutional Tribunal.

pap.pl/aktualnosci/news,511770,sedziowie-sn-nawet-nieopublikowane-wyroki-tk-obalaja-domniemanie-konstytucyjnosci-przepisu.html

I can't translate this properly -


But loosely translated, it means that the Supreme Court has declared that laws/decrees deemed unconstitutional by the Constitutional Tribunal are unconstitutional from the moment of ruling and not from the moment of publication. Therefore, all rulings of the Constitutional Tribunal are legally in effect, meaning that the government is now obliged by law to enact the rulings of the Constitutional Tribunal.

In plain English, either PiS has to follow the law, or they will be responsible for creating a parallel legal system that isn't recognised by the judiciary, which is independent of the government in Poland.

PiS have said that there will be an emergency amendment to the Constitutional Tribunal law in the Sejm to take into account what has been ruled by the Supreme Court. It looks like PiS have finally backed down, but we'll see.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


They are hardly comparable. I don't recall anyone on the Left using such offensive and vile rhetoric. I'm not surprised that you're defending them, seeing as they're perfect 21st Century ZOMO troops for PiS, but still.


What a surprise to see that you support an organisation that was openly hostile towards the Polish underground state. Such "patriots" always reveal their true colours in the end, usually while wearing the boots to stamp on the face of others.

News / Poland's post-election political scene [4080]


Apart from the symbols, the salutes and the fact that the original ONR was so dodgy that it was banned after 3 months - during a time when Poland was very much right wing. If they were unacceptable for Sanacja, how can you find them in any way acceptable today?

More to the point, Ironside, how on earth can you defend them in any way? They trace their traditions back to the original ONR, which as we as we all know - wasn't supportive of the underground Polish state and some of them even collaborated with the Nazis.

The fortunate thing is that their numbers are still very much limited, but the menace is growing. I've read an article only yesterday about a school director that had to institute bag searches and clothes examinations because of the growing use of the ONR symbols by kids.