During the election campaign I kept convincing Polish voters that this country will manage to catch up with Europe’s moist developed nations. It was no mere propaganda trick. We Poles can make it. We clearly feel that Poland has found itself at a turning point. This view is shared not just by cabinet members, but also by many of my compatriots.
In a market economy based on voluntary co-operation, confidence is of primary significance. To build mutual confidence the government’s economic policies must rest on solid foundations. They must be long-term, reaching out beyond the next elections. To achieve this goal, given the urgent need to balance the budget, we need to meet obligations resulting from EU treaties. With this prospect in mind, our road toward adopting the single European currency is bound to be easier. In the coming years we stand a good chance of winning European financial support. Now is the time to release the nation’s vast amounts of energy. In this we will be able to use European funding to achieve a balanced policy that will allow wages to grow and taxes to be lowered, while keeping a tight reign on the budget.
We will be supporting private enterprise. We will change the laws that hamper business activity. The underlying principle of financial policies will be to gradually lower taxes and other public dues. At the same time we must ensure increases in public sector wages. But state assistance will be available to the weakest, and not to the strongest.
In 2008 we will draw up and submit to Parliament a system of changes in support of entrepreneurship. The main thrust will go toward streamlining economic and tax law, as well as insurance premium collection. Formalities required to set up a business will be minimized. We realize that economic courts need to be more efficient and that the time needed to execute receivables in court should be shortened. 2008 will also be the year of reducing the number of companies regarded as strategic and remaining in state hands. We need to speed up privatisation to raise the effectiveness of companies. Investment growth will be encouraged and the burden of servicing public debt will be lessened.
There are some areas of the economy on which state security and the security of all citizens depends. Energy security is crucial. It is perceived as a guarantee of uninterrupted supplies of energy carriers at acceptable prices. This policy will be implemented as part of the national strategy in conjunction with EU partners. It is in Poland’s national interest to support all EU infrastructure projects that could heighten the continent’s energy security, while at the same time offering a chance to resolve this country’s problems. We expect EU partners to fully understand Polish and regional circumstances related to energy security.
Road infrastructure is another key area of interest. Poland must take a leap into a modern future. This is also vital for the safety and comfort of living of every single Pole. We will do our best to speed up the construction of ring roads and motorways. It is our ambition to link cities that will host the Euro 2012 championships by means of an efficient road network. We will do away with procedural and legal barriers that hamper the implementation of investments in infrastructure. There is more EU funding available for road construction in Poland than we have been able to use up so far. It is all up to us.
EU funding and the state budget are the most important sources of financing for investments in infrastructure. And yet one of the main reasons for an unsatisfactory rate of their implementation was the very limited scope of co-operation with private capital. The system of public-private partnership may constitute an equally important source of financing these investments. The present state of road infrastructure in Poland does not just pose a barrier for development, but it can also constitute a genuine threat to the country’s territorial cohesion. Criteria of the state’s genuine security, integrity and cohesion must be perceived in a modern way.
Modern communication chiefly relies on the Internet. We attach particular significance to providing universal broadband web access. Universal web access offers a great opportunity for millions of Poles to be freed from bureaucratic constraints in their access to culture, information and knowledge. Within the nearest future Poles will be able to perform most official business, including filing tax returns, on the web. This is a real, practical and realistic implementation of the vision of a low-cost state.
Fast-paced moves are being made to speed up the implementation of the aforementioned objectives. The National Regional Development Strategy will be drawn up. The most urgent is the need to fully use EU funding to avoid returning it to the EU budget. In the next few months negotiations with the European Commission must be finalized concerning operational programmes within the National Strategic Reference Framework. This primarily concerns the largest operational programme “Infrastructure and the Environment”, which forms the bulk of EU assistance to Poland. The most important aim until 2013 is using EUR 67 billion in an effective way for the social and economic development of the country.
We appreciate the importance of promoting our image worldwide. We intend to modernise the promotion system to better use existing instruments. We are aware that in the past two years Poland has dangerously slipped in investment attractiveness and business environment ratings from the 5th to the 22nd position in the world. This means that fewer FDIs, technologies and attractive offers of co-operation may be coming our way. Of course this is linked with the fact that new emerging economies have presented their competing offers on the world market. But the Polish offer has attracted criticism. We know what some of our perceived weaknesses are, e.g. the shape of infrastructure. But other issues have also been given media exposure, such as the suggestion that “Poland is riddled with corruption” or that Poland is to blame for “the energy crisis resulting from quarrels with Russia”. These examples show how urgent it is to make efforts to change Poland’s image across the world. While building a new promotion system we must go about it the way we implement the investment programme. We must create conditions to combine the efforts of state institutions and private capital. I am convinced that together we will achieve success.