Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has said that Poland should be able to reach French levels of average incomes “but without the riots and cars set alight,” which would amount to €2,000 per month in a matter of six years. Currently, the average wage in Poland is about 7,000 zlotys, which is approximately €1,500 euro.
The prime minister said that the government was committed to a vision of just economic development that would meet the aspirations of Poles. Morawiecki criticized previous liberal governments for creating inequality “glass ceilings and bottlenecks” that slowed down growth. He claimed that the present conservative government had tackled “impossibilism” and made state institutions effective.
Morawiecki told his audience in the city of Końskie during the Law and Justice (PiS) pre-election convention that previous governments had failed to collect taxes, leading to slower growth in infrastructure spending and the lack of social spending.
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The present government has “ceased disenfranchising people,” he said, also warning that the liberals wanted to return to the “rule of the jungle and Darwinism” in their approach.
The prime minister indicated that Poland was “one of the safest countries in the world” as a result of the defense and internal security policies pursued by his government. He said that he took great pride in economic achievements such as record values of exports, which now account for 60 percent of GDP, and the fact that Poland’s balance of payment surplus was higher than that of Germany.
Despite the “black swan” events of the war in Ukraine, the pandemic and global inflation, Poland’s economy has gone from strength to strength. As a result, tax yields have increased markedly: VAT by over 100 percent and CIT threefold since the conservatives took office. Even the PIT yield has risen by 50 percent despite the large cuts in income tax introduced by the government.
Morawiecki challenged the leader of the opposition, Donald Tusk, to say in which tax havens money was hidden during his term in office. Thanks to the fact that the money is now being collected, it means that pensions have risen and child benefits have been paid, all while the public debt-to-GDP ratio has fallen.
He said that Tusk had failed to protect Polish interests and was prepared to sell off “the family silver.” He added that Tusk had fled to Brussels and would likely do so again if he returned to office. It was time to say “Nein” or “Auf Wiedersehen” to Tusk at this election, Morawiecki mused while using German words, an allusion to the frequent criticism that Tusk represents German interests before Polish ones.
