Page 28 - bne_newspaper_February_02_2018

28 I Outlooks 2018 bne February 2018
Poland Outlook 2018
bne IntelliNews
The year 2018 started early in Poland. The country’s most power- ful person, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the chairman of the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS), ordered a change
in the prime minister in early December.
The replacement of Beata Szydlo with Mateusz Morawiecki is designed to give the rightwing, populist, Eurosceptic, and nationalist PiS a fresh momentum midway through its four-year term.
Morawiecki has been tasked with adjust- ing PiS’ policy course more towards economic development. That, PiS says, should ensure the sustainability of the social policy decisions made in 2015-2017. Morawiecki, however, has described his government as one of continuity.
But Morawiecki, a 49-year old banker with little political experience, will have no shortage of political issues to handle.
Morawiecki will spearhead PiS’ drive to secure victory in the three successive election years, starting in 2018 when a local election is held. The ruling party will seek to cement its power on the local level to weaken the opposition further ahead of the crucial national vote that is scheduled for late 2019.
www.bne.eu
Controlling local governments will also allow PiS to tighten control over the EU funding that is finally beginning to flow on a larger scale.
With PiS in control over the legis- lative branch and – possibly very soon – of the judiciary, the opposi- tion faces very unfavourable odds of ending what have been two years of failed and desperate attempts to chip away at PiS’ current dominance of the country’s political scene. To make matters worse, recent changes to the electoral law to govern the local elec-
Poland manufacturing PMI
tion could enable PiS to manipulate the outcome, the opposition claims.
For PiS, the vision is there with the so-called Morawiecki plan, with which the new PM hopes to elevate Poland into one of the EU’s economic and indeed ideological powerhouses. The vision’s two pillars are a move away from the FDI-led development model, to rely instead on domestically built high-tech and manufacturing industries; the other pillar is a strong sense of national identity, which, PiS claims, is being diluted by the EU.