Polonia outraged by EU interference

Hehe, probably wouldn't be hard in my local branch - perhaps ask Po3 about it; he's already posted about his contempt for the law and 'documents'.

But no. I wouldn't drink the stuff. One of the benefits the EU has brought to Poland is more accurate labelling of food ingredients and the ingredients of that muck are best not thought about.

You see, part of uniting in a union is taking the rough with the smooth. There are issues - several member states have authoritarian regimes (Hungary is the best example and Poland temporarily has one), a couple are Mafia states and several (Poland chief of them) are politically unstable. Plus abuse of the European Arrest Warrant among other things and serious security risks in Slovakia and the Baltics.

That's by the by though, since we signed up to work together, make something out of what we have and yes, specially support member states like Poland, who despite being the largest net recipient of subsidies, occasionally need a little help due to political instability and compromised democracy - as is happening at the moment.

Well said, TheOther and Delph! For sure, Poland has benefitted a lot from those foreign companies. The hundred of thousands of Poles working for foreign companies enjoy much better salaries and conditions (including which finally lunch breaks, during which they can eat properly, rest and be efficient in the afternoon) they could not even dream of from Polish employers and would be unemployed should said foreign companies were to leave (but it will never happen). I work with and for foreign companies (all sorts of nationalities) and I can confirm that Poles working fro them are very happy with their conditions and salaries. Of course, said companies are more generous in their home countries but Polish employees have the best conditions and salaries to find in Poland and would never work for Poles.

No matter what some say, Poland is very weak and needs foreign companies and foreign money and it is so and therefore Poland should not bite the hands feeding them. Poland has become part of the European Union and more generally of the Western Community because Poland wanted so. No country has forced Poland to join the EU. Being part of a community is not only receiving money (what most Poles believe and we also see it in PF) but also and above all to act and work together with other members. Nobody prevents Poland to get away from the EU and to "live" like they do in North Korea but I doubt Poles would like it...

PS: @Pol: I "like" your "Joe Sixpack ;)

With such established competition, the main barrier to entry is huge investment. But it is possible if you have a business model that has a chance of working. In the UK Tesco and the rest of the big four used to make multi billions each year, but Aldi and Lidl entered the market with their discount model and have not only dented the established companies, but have caused massive collapses in the financial health of these businesses. But these were hugely successful businesses in Germany and they had the cash to investment in bringing their model to the UK.


Yes what Hungary did the last few years seem to be a copy sheet for PIS. Hungary was very anti business but have calmed down recently and actually is very likely to outperform Poland as far as investment flows are concerned this year. Hungarian investments have got quite beaten up so they are appealing for those worried about what the government is doing in Poland.

LOL. Poland is very important to Europe as well as to Russia. EU would dig holes everywhere they could to make Poland struggle and wishing to come back. Same thing will happen if UK gonna leave the Clique although I highly doubt that the E(U)lite will let them go.

@Nocy: so why does Poland keep receiving hundreds of billions of Euros (Poland has always been no. 1 funds recipient and nobody can deny it)??? Said hundreds of billions of euros don't come down from "heaven" but from western tax payers, respectively 1. Germany 2. France and 3. UK in terms of their contributions to the EU. Sorry but this is wrong that some people pay while others receive money with nothing in exchange and keeps complaining that it is never enough money and insulting those paying. Everybody in Poland can say that thanks to EU, Poland could develop. I've seen Poland prior to 2004 and trust me, it was very dramatic and run down. What bugs me is those taking the money but complaining! Sorry, such ingratitude is shocking; western taxpayers owe nothing to Poland (and to others).

Do you yourself have a welfare recipient's mentality? If so, I am sorry for you because it's lazyness and lack of dignity! I myself have dignity and am far from lazy and work for my money (and always have) and owe nothing to no one.

Stopped reading here.

"Niemcy są bowiem nie tylko ..."

Poland received 70 billion in 10 years which was 7% of total national income. 20 billion from that went to German corporations operating in Poland and therefore back to Germany.

m.niezalezna.pl/34875-nasze-dotacje-z-ue-trafiaja-do-niemiec

niewygodne.info.pl/artykul6/02675-Olbrzymia-skala-postkolonialnego-wyzysku.htm

Do yourself a favour and get some knowledge instead of repeating the false slogans like a parrot.

You're quoting niezalezna.pl, which is controlled and operated by PiS.

What about some solid independent, verifiable research?

It is info from institute of infrastructure. Research was undergone back when PO was rulling.
ibs.org.pl/

Of course no source is solid as long as it doesn't end with Brussels.eu...

It takes not only huge investments to create a retail chain but also know-how. The non-existent govt assistance to Polish business should have incldued training for prospective Polish entrepreneus -- send bright cnadidates abraod to observe and learn from the successful, hold training seminars at home. Pre-EU govts not hamstrung by Brussels could have offered Polish developers free or low-cost real estate to get started and some long-term repayment scheme once they started turning a profit. Maybe the German discount model would have worked best in Poland, maybe Poles could have added their own slant to it or even come up with a more successful model of their own.

One last thing -- being opposed to foreign exploitation is not the same as being anti-busienss. And being market-friendly does not have to mean opening the economy to foreign exploitation.

Care to link to the original research?

This. Shame PO didn't understand or didn't want to understand this simple fact and instead sold almost the whole country to foreign powers attracting them only by cheap labour ultimately making Poland an European Africa. Time to look for ways of attraction other than "glodowe pensje" of Polish workers. Poles are sick of being underpaid 3 to 4 times more than an average European.

You keep mentioning vague fuzzy concepts such as "selling the whole country", but the reality is that the recent round of CEO's being fired by the government shows that PO didn't go far enough.

Sure, PO sold ski lifts and so on, but what business do they have being owned by the State anyway?


And you honestly think that Polish businesses are going to pay you more? :D

Here's a clue : Polish businesses are often the worst when it comes to exploiting and abusing human resources.

Its not governments hamstrung by Brussels its often corruption and a desire to line ones pockets that supresses a lot of local goverments. I had this real experience in a town in Poland. There was a large amount of real estate and now unused office and manufacturing buildings. The town had chosen some years ago to put it up for sale but for years no one was interested. One big problem in Poland is council/business tax on property which is the about the same in Warsaw as it is in the poorest town you can find. This in itself is a major minus for investing anywhere outside the biggest cities. But I digress. I spoke to the councillors and suggest that instead of having a multi million asking price, they could offer the land and buildings for 10% of the asking price and a big reduction in business tax for a number of years, to any investor that signed a contract binding them to redevelop the buildings and employ at least 50% of their workforce from locals living in the town backdated 2 years. Those working people would plough much of their earnings back into the local economy, helping local businesses. Of course to the investor its appeals as it gets favourable conditions to encourage them to invest outside of the top 10 cities.

Discussions got nowhere and later I was told unofficially by those in the know that they will never agree to such a scheme as the lower the asking price the smaller the backhander involved to those massaging the deal. So basically down to the greed of a dozen or so people, a few hundred people didnt get to work and the town suffered.

This one is about how much 4th Reich has gained on the Greek crisis which it was hugely responsible for.

m.biznes.pl/raport-budzet-niemiec-skorzystal-na-kryzysie-w-grecji,qhrtcs,1,2,news.html

As to the original research I seem to can't find it but here is a link to the article about Germany taking Polish donations.

spedycje.pl/transport_i_spedycja/drogowy/39680/jak_niemcy_zarobili_20_mld_euro_na_projektach_infrastrukturalnych_w_polsce.html

It comes from Sylwester Chruszcz(kukiz15) a member of EU committee. He has also published informations about Polish companies operating in Germany receiving only 200 million euro from EU funds(a hundred times less) on his twitter account.

"Polish businesses are often the worst when it comes to exploiting and abusing human resources."

That's a stereotype and it has to be changed. Anyways do you think Poles should remain being exploited by foreigners? It has to change for Poland to remain a sovereign country.

Right on, Delph! Poles working for western companies have the best salaries and best conditions in Poland. They have no knives under their throat when they sign their contracts ;). Most of the people in their 30's and 40's I know work for foreign companies and they would not dream of switching to Polish employers. Even if they are paid sometimes several times less than their western counterparts, they enjoy the best to be found in Poland and they sure are on "easy street".

I suspect that most of the foreign compary bashers are frustrated because they do not qualify for employment with foreign employers and because they have to put up with crappy Polish salaries and conditions. Polish employers don't even offer lunch break. Who in their right mind would refuse good salaries and conditions????

PS: @Nocy: sorry but when you need someone to feed you, you are not independent.....

Who in their right mind wouldn't want to work for good salaries in good conditions knowing his work is a benefit for his country instead of some foreign moloch?

Wages are paid according to demand, its that simple. Nobody setting up in a foreign country says ok we are going to pay a third of what we pay locally back home. You pay the going rate plus some if you are new and want to attract the best talent avaliable. If you start losing people you will pay a little more. No business from the developed West is going to pay more than it has to. But Polish businesses are just the same, they pay the minimum (if they do pay or on time at all that is).

@Nocy: those well paid Polish employees working for foreign companies do spend their money in Poland ;). If foreign compangies are that bad, why has Poland put up with them for 26 years? These companies would be welcomed back to their home countries because when moving abroad, they create unemployment in their home countries.

What about my post was judgemental? I asked you a bunch of legit questions because you seem to believe that Poland would have made it on its own after 1989. That's exactly what the GDR folks thought in the beginning as well, and their economy was more advanced than Poland's at that time. The vast majority of the East German companies didn't survive simply because they had no competitive products, too many employees and no cash. Same for most Polish companies. They wouldn't have stood a chance on the global market and would have gone bankrupt within months, causing massive long term unemployment. The EU was the best thing that could happen to Poland in this context.


Well, most of the Polish people who left did so voluntarily, didn't they?

I'm quite familiar with what happened in 1990, and the common theme is that the West Germans were astonished to discover just how poor the East German economy actually was in practice. There's an example from Frankfurt (Oder) which had a microprocessor factory - it was thought to be quite advanced, but it actually turned out that the factory had been built (at a ruinous cost to the DDR) and then never modernised, which was the exact opposite of what the Western competitors were doing.

The same apparently went for many other DDR products - for instance, vacuum cleaners from the DDR in the 1970's were on a par with BRD ones and apparently quite popular in the West for the combination of low price and reliable technology. But later on, the Western products improved, while the Eastern products stayed exactly the same - so people simply stopped buying the East German product.

Ironside has never explained where the capital would come from to modernise all the industries that existed in Poland in 1989 without the safety blanket of Comecon. No-one was going to lend Poland money to build original products in 1990 as the real state of the economy was known - hence why many successful Polish companies today got their start by obtaining licences to build copies of Western products. The well known success story Solaris started by building copies of Neoplan buses - and the profits were used to build their own products later.

It's the same story with the shipyards. PiS voters seem to think that the shipyards are viable as public businesses, yet the direct experience shows that the public shipyards relied on subsidised steel - which in turn relied on subsidised iron ore imports from Ukraine. Once the subsidised imports ceased, the shipyards were always going to require heavy restructuring to adopt to a market economy. That's why private shipyards still exist and are doing well, while the public ones went to hell.

Instead of selling off and destroying much of Poland's industrial assets to foriegn capital for a song in the 1990s, Balcerowicz should have considered creating a mixed state-private Polish Capital Consortium. Its assets could have included KGHM, Cegielski, shipyards (then still productive), Pertochemia Płock, collieries, sulphur mines, FSO, Pafawag, etc., etc. Yes, there were many antiquated, decrepit and loss-making factories, but that were also some valuable assets. Consolidated into a capital consortium, the money for modernisation and development might not have been such a problem.

Exactly. After 1989 there was simply no time and money to build a modern, competitive Polish industry from scratch that would've been able to employ a large number of people. Any attempt to do so would have failed miserably and Poles would have voted with their feet and left the country in even larger numbers.

To get back the topic (yay me!) I think that EU interference at this point in time will only strengthen PiS's hand in Poland. Despite the wishes of most EU technocrats, most psychologically healthy populations dislike what they see as outside interference and tend to support a local government (even an unpopular one) when it's perceived as being attacked form outside.

Again, the fossils in the EC and EU and EP simply don't understand anything about human nature and cannot understand why their policies are usually so terribly received....

You protesters are embarrassing Polska and playing right into the Wests manipulative hands

Look at this Fox News media headline: EU scrambles as protests erupt in Poland over government media takeover
There is a Rape Epidemic in Western Europe and you impatient bastards are rioting over these petty matters? This is why we are stereotyped as never happy and always complaining. The West will now use these protests to further molest us. Because obviously we are unable to govern ourselves without them guiding us.

Nonsense. People protesting a government doing things they don't like is a sign of a healthy society.


Tackling the rape epidemic means tackling 1000 years of ideology, it's _easier_ to freak out over a not-very-good ruling party in a parliamentary system.

Never underestimate the power of laziness (and vanity) of politicians.

KOD are to blame for issuing a falsely suggestive narrative and doubly so for not correcting the resultant misinterpretations in the foreign media. "Media takeover" is indeed a menacing concept, but KOD deliberately declined to set things straight in order to cause more uproar and commotion. Only state-owned Public TV, Public Radio and PAP were effected. 95% of Poland's media organisations are in private hands and remain unaffected. If KOD had wanted truth to prevail they would have compared the situatuion to the status of BBC -- something foreigners could understand. But KOD are not about truth but about THE TROUGH. NIECH ŻYJE KORYTO!

The proof? Bankster Petru shedding crocodile tears over freedom, democracy, constitutionality and suchlike imponderables is laughable. Banksters recognise only one freedom -- the freedom of greedy bloodsucker banksters to gouge, extort and exploit and watch their profits and assets bloat.

What our American friend neglects to mention is that in TVP dominates its national TV to a greater extend than any other European public broadcaster.


Why would they want to do that? BBC TV is controlled by the BBC Trust according to the manner set forth in the Royal Carter. But if you'd like to give us an example of a man with sod all experience in TV being appointed directed by an unelected dictator of the UK, be my guest.

As I recall, the figure is something like 92% weekly reach.

Viewership is a matter of personal taste and preference. NRP and the Beeb would love to have such a following. At any rate, TVP and Polish Radio are public or national broacasters. Fox's "government media takeover" is so exaggerated as to be a Blowhard-style lie.

Yes, they are supposed to belong to the nation, not to the government, and certainly not to an unelected dictator, not even your Dear Leader Chairman Kaczynski.


It's actually an accurate assessment that is shared by the Financial Times, which is not noted for any type of hyperbole ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/0390ad5a-b60d-11e5-8358-9a82b43f6b2f.html