Years of Poland in the EU - assessment of pros and cons

It isn`t correct to cite a British politician in our debate about mostly positive effect of Polish EU membership as a lot of Brits have had issues with Europe and half of them support Brexit.

It isn`t only money that Poland gets from the EU for various projects. EU legislation also imposes improving quality of life, e.g, through protection of environment. In 2020 all members are required to be able to recycle 50% rubbish. In Poland, serious rubbish segregation started in 2007, I remember those 4 seperate bins..

"The EU is a monument to the vanity of [socialist] intellectuals, whether it fails is certain only the total damage is unknown." Margaret Thatcher.

She was 100% right, as usual.

She never said that. Whete i can find that quote when googling it is normally only on right wing websites

And even then someone has swapped EU for unified Europe. The EU was called thr EC in her time as leader.

Someone has also inserted the word socialist there. In the 80s the EC was not considered a socialist project

And finally who cares what she said - like most long serving leaders she had some good ideas and some bad ideas

Maybe,maybe not,but it is now.

That's because I've shortened it a bit and quoted it from my memory. Try:

"It is, in fact, a classic utopian project, a monument to the vanity of intellectuals, a program whose inevitable destiny is failure: only the scale of the final damage done is in doubt."

How about cons? Some people blame the EU`s policy for leading to the bankruptcy of the Polish shipyards. They were in difficult financial situation a dozen years ago so the Polish government granted them state aid several times. However, the EU declared it had been illegal and the loans had to be returned. In result, Szczecin and Gdynia shipyards were closed down in 2009 and their property was auctioned off.

The last launch took place on 25 April 2009,[2] and the dismissal of employees was conducted at the end of May 2009.[3]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stocznia_Gdynia

Stupid laws about tobacco. Data protection etc - there are many small downsides

Sure, there are pro at contra reasons. Let me tell it this way. On every pros one can name, there is at least one cons.

But most importantly, if Poland and Poles fails to recognize historical moment and mistake by staying within EU, Poland is lost. Lost due to merciless assimilation onto some other nations and then also coming another partition of Poland. I am fascinated how nobody here don`t see these outcomes of Poland`s EU membership. Yes, staying in EU means catastrophe of Poland in assimilation and partition of territory.

Don`t failed to go out of EU Poles. There is alternative.

Why was it illegal? There are always business with are not private but state supported....Can't independent country decide which one they want private and which do not?

There are certain restictions on state aid to companies, Polish government and the fallen shipyards had broken them. According to the EC, shipyards only took money and did nothing else. That was against the rules.

The Commission has doubts whether the companies undertook adequate capacity reductions to compensate for the distortion of competition and whether the beneficiaries' own contributions are sufficient to demonstrate their commitment to restructuring.

pb.pl/shocking-state-aid-for-shipyards-450922


What about them? As a non-smoker, I have no idea.

I think it's worth discussing the shipyards as part of the bigger picture. They essentially operated within the Communist planning system - Poland imported cheap iron ore from the Soviet Union, produced steel, then used it to build ships that were then sold to the Soviet Union. Fair enough, it provided large amounts of employment under Communism, but it made very little economic sense.

The system changes in the late 1980's, as the Soviet Union no longer has the means of selling iron ore cheaply, nor does it need ships. It would take an essay to explain what exactly happened, but the end result was that Gdańsk in particular drowned under a mountain of debt and bad management. The problem was that in all three shipyards, they were more than just shipyards - they operated medical centres, kindergartens, hotels, housing, etc.

So - in 1990, it was obvious that reforms had to be made. In Gdańsk, the workers were incredibly hostile to any changes, and as a consequence, it was politically impossible to change anything there. They drowned in a sea of debt, and so they were taken over by the Gdynia shipyard in 1998. We can observe that the Gdańsk shipyard was never really economically viable in the free market as a result, not least because of the problematic labour relations.

What about the other two? Well, Szczecin was hailed as a perfect child of the free market. They had sensible managers, and the shipyard (in cooperation with workers) was able to get rid of the kindergartens, hospitals, etc and focus on the role of shipbuilding. It was a great success, wages were increasing quickly, they were winning orders on the free market, workers were happy with the management, so in short, great. Unfortunately, it was also all a massive fraud. It's explained nicely here - eurofound.europa.eu/publications/article/2002/bankruptcy-of-the-szczecin-shipyard - they were essentially using money lent to build ships to actually build different ships that were overbudget / late. So, Szczecin was really an illusion - it was only working in the 1990's because of such financial tricks, and it was always doomed to fail.

Gdynia was a slightly different story. They were effectively forced to take over Gdańsk shipyard and provide it with plenty of (unprofitable) work for political reasons, while the Gdynia shipyard was also given a huge amount of favourable treatment in respect to loans, orders, tax write-offs, etc. It was a terrible deal for the Polish taxpayer, as the money kept coming even though the shipyard was losing huge amounts of cash.


It wasn't quite as simple as being illegal. EU law regarding state aid is quite complex, but the basic idea is that you can provide it as long as you make an attempt to make the business profitable. The problem with it in Gdynia was that no attempt was made - you can read the press release about it here: europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-08-588_en.pdf - in short, the money was used for daily operations, not for restructuring the company.

Thanks Delph for that splendid and very informative resumé. Now I am looking forward to what the so-called anti-EU true Polish "patriots" are going to say to that.

EU have interest to close Polish shipyards, while prosperous era for Polish shipyards yet to come in a Central European Union. Its unimaginable profit that awaits Polish Baltic coast once Poland escape EU and CEU is formed. Only blind can`t see that.

Crow, I suggest you start a new thread about Central European Union and Poland in it. This thread is about the EU, not other unions. If you do it, I will gladly participate. Right now, you are creating a little pollution here.

Iwonka, that's a very good question. Germans have broken EU law regarding state aid and donated money to their shipyards in Wolgast and Straslund in East Germany in 2012.

In the EU, like in Orwell's "Animal Farm" All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

Thank you very much!

I could write more, especially about Szczecin. They were in an awful situation in 1990 - I forget the numbers, but I think out of 11 orders made by the Soviet Union, 7 or 8 of them were cancelled at very short notice. The Soviet Union also refused to accept delivery of some ships that couldn't be sold to other buyers, so the shipyard was in deep trouble. Yet, they got out of it - there was a good management team, a very capable CEO who understood business as well as workers, and they were able to implement reforms that allowed the shipyard to actually compete on the world market.

For instance, some of the CEO's reforms were very interesting for 1991. He got rid of all the luxuries that previous shipyard managers had enjoyed such as expensive cars and fully paid holidays, but he also got rid of the apartments that the shipyard owned. I think it was about 3000 that the shipyard owned, yet many of them were occupied by descendants of shipyard workers and not actual workers themselves. They had problems with the buildings, and the shipyard was losing a huge amount of money on them because they were responsible for repairs while rents were controlled by law. So - they just gave away the apartments to the housing cooperative rather than sell them. It worked, because they no longer had to take responsibility for their maintenance or otherwise.

Another example was in the space that the shipyard occupied. Rather than trying to keep huge production areas alive, they actually rented production areas out to other shipbuilders. Gdańsk tried to do the same, but only after many years of losses after 1990, at which point, it was obviously too late.

There were many other examples, but it's why Szczecin was a success (at least on paper...) in the 1990's while Gdańsk and Gdynia failed. Of course, there are different opinions as to why the shipyards fell, but the EU actually only really intervened after the shipyards already died. Szczecin and Gdańsk were economically finished before 2004, and Gdynia was only surviving because of the aforementioned state aid.

Anyone that blames the EU for the shipyards falling is guilty of massively oversimplifying things. EU rules on state aid dealt the death blow to Gdynia/Gdańsk, but the yards were struggling long before that. In particular, all three governments between 2004-2008 failed to implement any sort of restructuring in Gdynia/Gdańsk.

It is sad but it is true.

Just thinking what is going on in Paris now with 'yellow jackets' riots. Can you imagine if it happened in Poland? There would be shouts about lack of democracy/ mistreating people by government, police....threating about cutting our funds.....removing us from EU

In Paris it is just normal, accepted- perfectly fine and democratic.

And you would be welcome to participate if that thread happen or rather whenhappen. I just gave comment out of comparison of EU and CEU. What EU ruin, CEO will heal. Poland shall live despite those who want to put Her down.

The EU introduces strange laws. Some time ago even Polish President complained in an official speech that the EU was wrong about banning traditional light bulbs. Diplomats were very surprised because he seemed really pissed off. :):)

Back to pros.

Without the EU Poland would never be able to to increase her exports so quickly. It is getting higher and higher each year.

rp.pl/Dane-gospodarcze/190509819-Unia-Europejska-przyjmuje-gros-naszego-eksportu.html

In 2004, Poland exported goods and services worth 60 billion euros. In 2018, it is 220 billion.

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Yes and much of that growth is to markets outside the EU especially China. The EU also drastically hurt Polish agricultural exports to Russia. Lot of farmers were pissed about this especially those growing apples

@Dirk diggler
That info about the EU is a disinformation, while the one about China is a manipulation. :):) All in all, you are talking like a true Kremlin troll. :):) Thank you for reminding us about it.

How is it a manipulation? The data shows that much of the growth in recent years has been with partners outside the EU, especially as the German economy stagnates.

Go ask a polish farmer especially one growing applies how business was after the EU forbid then to ship their goods to Russia who bought tons of agricultural products from Poland. Eventually they figured out the products should make a stop in Belarus, which the EU in all their wisdom couldn't figure out why suddenly reported triple apple, cheese, etc exports.

The facts speak for themselves. Trade with Russia increased 200% over the past five years. Uae 600% Belarus over 100% Ukraine 190%

The growth is coming from outside of the EU more and more. Of course Germany is still the main partner, but it was even before the EU. That hasn't changed

So you say that Poland should join the little Russian political club in order to feed them our apples? I assure you, after a few years of membership we would hardly have any apples to sell.

The apple growers had to look for other markets, not so prone to political manipulation, and found them.

Besides, the sanctions imposed on Russia after they took Crimea and sent little green men to East Ukraine were in the best political interest of Poland and it was POland who encouraged UE to take some action.

Idk how you managed to get 1 from 0 + 0 but you did it... The two have nothing in common. I'm all for the EU as an economic union. But the political meddling in polish affairs i cannot agree with. As long as we're milking the EU cow and have freedom of movement well have to deal with the interference in sovereign affairs.

But yes I do love Putin and kadyrov. If only the EU Poland or USA had such leaders. We sure as hell wouldn't have politicians wasting their time and our tax money voting on an LGBT anti discrimination bill. Instead, we'd be criminalizing it.

Read your recent posts again.


Coś za coś. We're not in a position to make it alone, it's either here or there. I, personally, prefer here to there.


And here I beg to differ. With Putin you have a perfect example of a man who climbed to power thanks to FSB and then consequently divided the country among his buddies.

But you might like the calendar they issued some time ago, presenting Putin with a tiger, taking a bath in a frozen river and so on. A nice,uplifting picture for every month of the year.


So you want to put people to prison for what they do of their free will and not hurting anybody. Not far from the Thought Police.

I know what I wrote. Never did I say Poland should leave the EU nor cozy up to Russia politically.


And? How is the western world any different? That happens everywhere. Atleast with Putin he has balls and is independent he does his own thing, unlike Trump who puts Jews and Israel before everything and everyone.

Yes. And no they are hurting children through spreading pro LGBT propoganda. I.e. drag queens reading kids books to children, even some LGBT teachers in Canada admitted that they push this agenda. Now all of a sudden there's all these kids who think they're another gender because some fairy brainwashed them. Then they come to their senses, regret it, get depressed and many commit suicide. Not only that they spread disease especially HIV which is nearly exclusive to gay men in the West. If fhey kept it at home and didn't take every opportunity to advertise their sexuality not giving a care at all if there's young kids around whether it's the Olympics, a St Pat's day parade, and basically any major public event then it wouldn't be such an issue.

This and the rest - spot on.


They are so f***ed up in their heads that their - LGBT's - suicide rates are off the chart. I don't remember the exact number at this moment, but they are not even close to the hetero's. And it's not because we are mean to them. It's inside their heads.

What a pity you didn`t provide us with some links to that info. Manipulated info. If Poland scored a few hundred million euros export to China before and today it is 3 billion annually, , then, yes, we can talk about a growth. However, you prefer to ignore the fact that accumulated Polish export is worth 220 billion and the EU receives over 80% of it, so it is roughly 180 billion. You know where you can stick this 3 billion export to China? :):)


Hard luck. Who predicted that Russia would attack Ukraine? Sorry, that`s life. Backto explained it to you well - Polish government (it doesn`t matter now whether PiS or PO) fully supported the sanctions against Russia so don`t blame the EU for the collapse of Polish apples export..


Yes, but it is still peanuts compared to EU trade. Stop manipulating facts and data, it is useless.


We will remember about it. :)

If I remember well, it was Putin who first banned the export of Polish apples to Russia before sanctions were imposed.