Conservatism has enjoyed a political renaissance in Central Eastern Europe after European Union expansion in 2004. This has been most profound in Poland, where a coalition of conservative-nationalist parties has formed a government. These political developments have been underpinned by an intellectual movement, which has created a new synthesis of conservative thought. Contemporary conservative thinking in Poland reaches back to the work of European and Polish conservatism during the inter-war period. It combines a criticism of both communism and liberalism, believing that both possess similar atheistic, nihilistic and immoral characteristics. Polish conservatism proposes the instigation of a new process of de-communisation and seeks to break from the supposed neutralism of liberalism. It proposes a politicisation of the public sphere and supports closing the gap between the Church and the State. Conservatism in Poland has grown as liberalism has suffered an inexorable decline due to its fusion of cultural and political liberalism with economic neoliberalism. The Polish left has become assimilated into this liberal framework, leaving conservatism as the main alternative mode of thought to the neo-liberal paradigm in post-socialist Poland.A spectre is haunting Central Eastern Europe (CEE)-the spectre of conservatism. As long as EU entry remained the destination point for the transition in CEE, then the ideological dominance of liberalism and the unity of liberal democratic and economic reform was assured. The allure of joining the EU, already excluded for many neighbouring states to the east, pulled the CEE nations through a series of intense structural and institutional reforms. However, once inside the Union much of the impetus for continuing along this course has been removed and the subjective unanimity of liberalism broken. The passing of liberal hegemony in CEE has been accompanied by a period of political instability and uncertainty. The left and liberal governments in Poland and Slovakia, favoured by Brussels, have been replaced by conservative and nationalist administrations; the Czech Republic has undergone months of political stalemate and the left-liberal
Purpose: To analyse the issue of public debt in Poland and examine its effect on other areas of socio-economic life as well as government policy.
Approach:The question of public debt is placed in its historical context by looking at how it grew during the Communist system and influenced the transition period. The article draws on a range of secondary economic statistics and considers in detail a number of public policy issues, such as the reform of the pension system.
Findings:One result of the large debt incurred by the end of the 1970s was that Poland became indebted to creditors in the West. This dependency helped to shape its economic policy at the end of the 1980s. The transition to a market economy placed new burdens on the country's public services, primarily due to the resulting large deactivation of labour. Furthermore, the creation of a compulsory private pension system at the end of the 1990s diverted significant funds out of the government's budget and swelled the country's public debt. Since the outbreak of the economic crisis, Poland has avoided a recession by increasing public investment by utilising available European Union funds. However, due to internal and external limits on the size of its public debt, the government is being pressured to reduce this spending. In order to create more fiscal room, the government has partly dismantled the compulsory private pension system as a short-term solution to the growing debt crisis.Value: In the wake of the global financial crisis and economic turmoil in the European Union, the matter of public debt has taken on increased importance. This paper considers this question from a long-term perspective in a country that has been relatively successful during the international economic downturn. By examining public debt from this broad perspective, we can better understand the economic situation in Poland and the European Union, whilst also shedding light on some of the surrounding academic perspectives and public policy debates.
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