Poland’s new government plans to slash bureaucracy and sell state-controlled companies immediately after the new parliament gets to work, said one of its leading economic advisers.
“In the first working session of parliament we will present our economic liberalisation programme,” Adam Szejnfeld, Civic Platform’s economic policy spokesman and a potential candidate to be minister of the economy, said in an interview with the Financial Times.
Civic Platform won Sunday’s parliamentary election leaving Donald Tusk, its leader, as the likely prime minister. The party intends to make a clean break with the often desultory economic programme of its predecessors from the Law and Justice party (PiS).
PiS, under the leadership of Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the prime minister, showed little interest in the economy, slowed privatisation, was unenthusiastic about the euro and undertook few concrete economic reforms.
“We really have to start from scratch because so little was done over the past two years,” said Mr Szejnfeld. “Our programme is to take politics and politicians entirely out of the economy.”
The new government will try to sell off most of the 1,200 companies still controlled by the state, retaining only strategic concerns such as oil and gas pipelines and power transmitters. Unlike in the past, no share will be retained in state hands.
Although Mr Szejnfeld was careful not to be too specific, early priorities will be power generators and coalmines, both sectors demanding enormous investment the state is reluctant to make.
Civic Platform’s programme, including privatisation, has wide support from business. Jacek Socha, a partner in PwC, the professional services firm, and a former treasury minister, called for a rapid resumption of privatisation, saying governments that delayed sell-offs often saw the value of their companies decline. He urged the new government to use the Warsaw Stock Exchange as the main means of privatisation to encourage the growth of Poland’s capital markets by increasing the supply of stocks.
“We can make Warsaw the leading regional financial market in central Europe,” he said.
The government will also scrutinise managers placed in senior corporate jobs by PiS in the past two years. Those appointed because of political ties, who have little experience, “should start looking for other work”, said Mr Szejnfeld.
The party is committed to revamping public finances, introducing a flat corporate and personal tax rate of 15-16 per cent, reforming social security and health spending and increasing employment. Poland has the lowest labour participation rate in the European Union.
Mr Szejnfeld added that the government would move to adopt the euro “as soon as possible”, saying 2012 was a realistic entry date.
The ambitious reform programme can be passed only with the help of a coalition government because with 209 seats in the 460-member parliament, Civic Platform does not have a majority. The party begins talks this week with the smaller Peasants party, which has 31 seats. However, the Peasants are leftists, ambivalent over privatisation, the flat tax and early euro adoption.
Mr Szejnfeld said: “There are more common points than differences.”
Source: By Jan Cienski and Stefan Wagstyl in Warsaw, 
