Polonia outraged by EU interference

Right now it is you Harry, jon, delph, roger, doug, makefit, smurf that are very much out of step with the opinions in Poland. Funny though those posters supposed to be foreigners living in Poland. Are you really? Nah, if you do live in Poland you are terribly out of synch with your Polish neighbors.

Notice how a member of the Polonia, Ironside, claims that those living in Poland are "out of step". Meanwhile, the latest political polls show that it's very much Ironside that's out of step.

Polonia? why only Polonia? as a Serbian, i am also outraged by EU interference. Deeply outraged. Behind that. Its actually hard to found proper words to describe disgust that i feel for EU because of EU pressure on Poland. Scandal

Exactly. The usual suspects, people who abandoned Poland, objecting to membership of the EU, something voted for in a referendum and supported very strongly within Poland.

You can add me to that list. I'm American, have been here for 8 1/2 years and care strongly about Poland. You know that S&P recently downgraded its rating of Poland. That's strong vote of no confidence in Poland's current government and its policies and it came in an incredibly short time after the election. How do you explain that?

S&P are the least reliable of the 3 big rating agencies. They missed the boat re Lehman Bros and the Greek imbroglio and had to pay billions in damages for their muck-up. The other 2 agencies habve upheld Poland's high rating. All the rabble-rousing hoopla by the trough defenders did cause concern and the złoty dropped to 4.11 = $1 last weekend. There were fears it would plunge on Monday, but it levelled off at 4.09 zł. Chairman Tusk's meeting with President Duda today showed convergent views and both men called on the antagonists to cool it. He stressed that the European Council would not have the "situation in Poland" on their agenda because there was no exceptional situation in Poland.

scottie1113 It is not in Americas or the EU's interest to have a free thinking democratic Poland they will use any fiscal or political means to have a polish government in power that suits their cause.

The polish people voted in the current government if its a mistake then we will change it at the next election, but i do see dark forces abroad who are trying to undermine the current government, which i believe to be wrong whoever is in power.

You mean the CBOS one that show PiS with 39% support?

What a stunning success. Wasn't it at 3.68 as recently as 15 October, i.e. before the PISed up regime started trying to play at economics?

Fitch affirmed Poland's Long-term foreign and local currency Issuer Default Ratings at 'A-' and 'A', respectively, with stable outlooks (outlooks lower than that of S&Ps at the time)

The agency noted that the stable outlook reflected the assessment that upside and downside risks to the rating are currently balanced. That said, Fitch warned that any relaxation of the fiscal stance that worsens the government debt trajectory and weakening of policy credibility or economic performance, could trigger a negative rating action.


The EUR/PLN rate is much more relevant since the majority of business is with the EU and this touched a multi year high of 4.50. The dollar rate itself is at a multiyear high and means the country benefits less from falling oil prices.

For those interested, the summary from S&P:

"The downgrade reflects our view that Poland's system of institutional checks and balances has been eroded significantly as the independence and effectiveness of key institutions, such as the constitutional court and public broadcasting, is being weakened by various legislative measures initiated since the October 2015 election," S&P said. "In our view, these measures erode the strength of Poland's institutions and go beyond what we had anticipated regarding policy changes from the general election," the agency added. The rating outlook was also lowered to 'negative' from 'positive', suggesting at least a one-in-three likelihood that the ratings could be lowered within the next 24 months, if monetary policy credibility is undermined or if public finances deteriorate beyond S&P's current expectations. Further, S&P no longer expect Poland's fiscal metrics to improve, but foresee some reversals in Poland's sound macroeconomic management of the past years, for instance by targeting certain sectors with new taxes. The agency also raised the fiscal deficit forecast for 2016 to 3.2 percent of GDP, saying that various spending-side measures, either planned or announced, are not fully offset by revenue-side measures or expenditure cuts.

Its important to note that S&P did add at the end that they could upgrade their rating if the situation changes for the better with less government interference.

Did they convenient omit mentioning their poor track record re Lehman Bros and Greece? Also somehow they do not mention that it was the bank tax and the franc-debt controversy the triggered the downgrade. S&P do not specialise in constituional courts or public media, but are in the service of banks, stock exchanges and foreign investors.

The exchange rate is key. It should in theory be a good climate for inward investment however the unreliability of the current ruling party and the instability this has caused means that the country is failing to benefit from that.

Its is because of these failures that the agencies are taking notice of political change rather than simply economic, the ft ran a piece on this in relation to the poland downgrade.

Ratings agencies specialise in risk. And the risks for making investments in Poland is higher. If the risk of not getting your money back increases, you demand a higher return, hence Polish bond yields have gone up. Investors have voted with their feet. They dont feel as secure as sometime ago. We all remember the Hungarian debt crisis a few years ago.

And the FT is a bankster rag!

I think most people with already precarious jobs in manufacturing and services here (and more than 4 out of 5 Polish voters did not vote for PiS) would prefer EU intervention in the crisis than lose their livelihoods.

The West "helps fix" the corrupt Government today. Tomorrow they move thousands of North-African migrants into your neighborhood. Talk about losing livelihoods.

The FT now points out that PiS spent the entire election campaign claiming that the economy was destroyed and that Poland was ruined economically. But now that S&P listened to them and slashed Poland's rating according to what they were saying, they're screaming and crying about it.

How does that work, I wonder.

Very hard to disagree with that one.

Investors are actually very wary of exposure to Poland at the moment. Unsurprising given the instability since the election. And this of course means trade, jobs, tax revenue.

Thank God they kept them high for Lehman Bros, till they collapsed.


Thank you expats & 5th columnists.

Which means that in their opinion Poland has already started to collapse...

Now everything depends on Moody's. Their rating is gonna come out in two weeks, isn't it?

Decreased S&P rating is not yet a catastrophe, and the government should think how to get it back to the previous level. The problem is that if the government doesn't pull themeselves together, it will be really difficult... And, unfortunately, increasing the taxes for the banks isn't the way to do it.

If the Polish economy is in good shape, and everybody agrees it is, then on what basis did S&P carry out their downgrade? It appears they based it on media reports from anti-government sources. S&P did not react to the TK, police, civil service and media controversies but clamped down when the bank tax and franc-debt issue emerged. They did use the TK and media question to justify their move.

Then why did PiS spend the entire campaign claiming the economy is in smoking ruins? Just a day or two ago you claimed there has been no important change in the economy in the last 26 years?


Bank tax, retail tax, investors are wary of governments that want to tax everything that moves and who forment hostility against people who are professionally successful.

Campaign are based on hyperbole. They would have done better to emphasise how unfairly the wealth has been spread in post-roundtable Poland -- how the rich post-nomeklarura types got richer and the poor got poorer. Also how the economy is controlled by foreign interests.

Doesn't matter. PiS told everyone repeated how the economy and the country were in ruins. The Finance Minister claimed a few weeks ago that after an 'audit', the financial situation was much worse than PO claimed it was. They only have themselves to blame that S&P took them at face value and downgraded Poland as a result.

It is quite hilarious to watch PiS tell everyone that Poland is actually economically fine now, though.

Utter nonsense, as usual. They were saying state institutions were in ruin and that's quite a difference. How economy is doing one can figure out looking at indicators and forecasts (including those by OECD, the World Bank, European Commission etc.) and these are fairly good (by current global reality). Desides, even S&P admitted their decision wasn't based on economics.

You're trying a nice bit of revisionism, but we all remember how Szydło turned up in a ruined factory in Nowa Sól and tried to present it as being reality. Are you surprised that S&P took them at face value?


Strange how you're suddenly saying that everything is fine when everything was pretty terrible before, isn't it?

By the way, where's our 500zł?

So let's make it clear. You, foreign propagandist, say that guys at S&P were watching Szydło speech in front of a ruined factory in some town and that's why they decreased credit rating of Poland ?

Notice how you always resort to crude xenophobia when your lies are exposed.

The Nowa Sól speech was widely reported in Poland, and it was very clear throughout the campaign that they had some "economic plan" to recover the ruined Polish economy.

Don't worry Greggy. We know that in the world of the PiS doublespeak, PiS meant that the economy was in great shape and that everything was just fine.

So you mean the campaign speech, when she claimed that the effects of economic growth are often not reaching small towns and peripheral areas, was the reason behind S&P decreasing the credit rating of Poland ?


You mean saying the obvious thing that you are a foreigner trying to make an impression on the non-regular readers of PF that you are a Polish voter ?

It was certainly a powerful image. I'm sure S&P took all the propaganda into account, including the statements that the finances were actually very poor. PiS got bit by their own games, and you have nothing to complain about.


I vote here. What's new?

Don't worry, your ugly xenophobia serves as a perfect reminder as to why this government will not survive more than one term.