China Research

Newspapers and politicians all over the world currently show a high degree of disappointment about Poland’s political development after last year’s general elections. Fears of markedly reduced democracy are expressed quite loudly. Economists, however, are more silent. This fact may confirm once more that foreign analysts at financial institutions and elsewhere usually are not well informed about economies outside the traditional OECD area (though Poland nowadays is an OECD country). This is – by the way – also true of China for which herd analysis usually dominates even outside the country, particularly among most financial players.

In my view, recent developments in Poland should not be underestimated. Poland’s strong emerging role during the transition to a working market economy was indeed impressive. Poland was even the first country among the former planned economies in (South) Eastern Europe that reached pre-1989 GDP levels. I have seen Poland’s impressive development many times with my own eyes since its opening-up in 1990.

The secret behind Poland’s success story until recently was without doubt that Poland – more or less – never moved backward in its reform policy. Sometimes Poland moved somewhat more to left of the road, sometimes a little more to the right – and the pace of reforms was during certain periods quite slow and during other periods more accelerated.

But the direction was always forward – and never really backward! This is probably the most important explanation of Poland’s political and economic recovery in the past 25 years. My own research has also confirmed in a number of studies that reliable and steady – sometimes quite slow – moves forward usually mean more to sustained economic growth than a mixture of fast structural improvements and following setbacks.

So, why should Poland want to jeopardize its achieved, good international credibility position? Foreign companies have invested a lot in Poland and, thus, contributed strongly to Poland’s fairly good international competitiveness. In other words: it should not be ruled out that reality and memory can take this quite large European country back to frameworks that are in line with nowadays valid European standards. However, good psychological feeling should be applied – particularly by Poland’s partners in the EU and in NATO. Such a position seems to be more promising than threats – if I understand Polish mentality correctly.

Anyway, the analysis of Poland’s political and economic development should be intensified in many international institutes and commercial organizations. We should keep in mind that Poland is an important European country – though often underestimated.

Hubert Fromlet
Senior Professor of International Economics, Linnaeus University
Editorial board

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