Poland
Polish Prime Minister Needs More Than Quick Fixes To Poland's Problems
Warsaw, Poland - 21, January 2008 As Poland's economy races forward, private sector wages are rapidly growing while the traditionally low wages in the public sector remain stagnant. As those public sector employees who have chosen not to head West for better pay take to the streets to demand more, the Polish Government is resisting making quick concessions and looking to avoid future problems by developing comprehensive solutions to basic problems that must be solved.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk promised an economic miracle. And people expect that him to deliver on his promise.
He is taking his time about it and, when it comes to the economy, saying little.
Despite all the glowing news about how great the economy is in Poland, the ranks of those who have been left behind as Poland grows into the European Union, are increasing. The ranks now include doctors, nurses, miners, judges, postal service workers, rail service workers, teachers and customs officers.
Unlike the old folk and people in the countryside who were left behind in the first round of shock therapy, these are the people that provide the basic services necessary for a country to survive. And they are organized. And they are demanding action and action now.
In the three months that he has been in office the miracle that Tusk has delivered is a change in the tenor of political discourse. Even though people are taking to the streets to demand action, local news coverage is not dominated by cranky old men complaining, accusing and threatening.
Tumultuous Polish politics have been toned down by Tusk publicly brushing aside problems and refusing to get into potentially politically hazardous meetings with disaffected people. He, instead, chooses to pass problems to subordinates who, in turn, avoid doing anything in the public view.
But the future cannot be avoided. The people left behind must be brought into the mainstream.
They are a problem for Tusk, but they are not the problem that Tusk must solve for Poland.
Tusk must solve the underlying rot of the socialist system that was not eliminated when the country moved away from communist control, and that has been avoided ever since.
The communists were taken out of the Government, but communism was not. The governing systems are holdovers. They are inefficient, corrupt and bloated. They are slow to change.
Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl recognized the problem of taking communists out of a government but not out of the people after German reunification. Things were so bad for him that he once commented that the banks in East Germany would not change until the people who had been in them during the days of communism all died.
Tusk does not have time to wait for a new generation. He needs a miracle now.
The people in the streets are a symptom of a rot that has to be cut out. That will take a major effort that takes planning and preparation for major resistance by the parasitic elements living off the old ways of doing business.
There are some who are now complaining that the Tusk Government is not doing anything. To be sure, the Government does not appear to be doing much publicly, other than changing the country's foreign policy positions. But what is being done privately, may be another question. The silence by Tusk and his people as to what they intend to do may be necessary to allow development of comprehensive solutions best developed out of the lights of cameras and away from inane, babbling journalists and bloggers .
The people demanding pay increases will get them. To make them meaningful and long lasting, however, long term solutions are needed. Throwing money here and there to calm people down and give journalists something to write about will not help in the long run.
The underlying rot held over from communism has to be cut out. And if that can be done, that will be Tusk's economic miracle.
