New Polish Government

Listened with great interest yesterday to the exposé of Prime Minister Tusk in the sejm – outlining the political direction for the new Government.

A clear message on the Polish European ambitions – aiming for the strongest possible position in the very centre of the EU, if I got it right from the translation. And on top of that many concrete reforms presented, not least in order to strengthen the public finances and the social insurance systems but also to promote administrative simplification.

I have strong personal memories from the period of structural reforms in Sweden in order i.a. to address the public deficits from the early 90’s. Challenging but long term measures really pay off. In our case very different ones from a new budget law restricting the possibilities to expand expenditure beyond what is economically feasible to tax and social insurance reforms stimulating labour supply and economic growth.

The continued reform process in Poland will definitely be interesting to follow.

First of all I look forward to listen to the comments – domestic and international. In the best of worlds I would be able to open a Saturday newspaper and catch the main messages. Still too early for my Polish.

But soon I will make a first try of at least getting some very general impressions from one or two main newspaper articles (adding to the excellent summaries I can get from my staff and from news services in English).

The incentives for my lessons in Polish get stronger every day. Certainly to be able to communicate on the basic every day level in shops.

But also to start getting deeper into the key issues coming out of an event like yesterday when Poland got its new Government.