Tomasz Wróblewski is the ceo of the Warsaw Enterprise Institute, a Polish think tank promoting reforms aimed at strengthening Poland’s business environment and prosperity. He has worked as a journalist, publicist and youtuber, including as editor-in-chief of the weekly “Newsweek Polska”. (2001-2004, 2005-2006), and has also been working for “Profit” magazine, “Dziennik Gazeta Prawna” (2010-2011) and Polish daily “Rzeczpospolita” (2011-2012). From March 2015 to August 2016, he acted as editor-in-chief of Polish weekly “Wprost”.
He is interviewed exclusively for Brussels Report by Lorenzo Montanari, Executive Director of the Property Rights Alliance (PRA), for the fifth interview in a series of prominent European supporters of free market economics.
Lorenzo Montanari: “What’s the biggest challenge in Poland in terms of economic reform?”
Tomasz Wróblewski: “In the short term, inflation is undoubtedly the biggest challenge. It has now reached 8 percent per year. This is the highest level in 20 years. In our opinion, the government has lost control over inflation, which is not a good thing for any country, but in Poland, there has also been a significant increase in state interventionism in recent years. This has of course led to lower productivity and there is a serious risk we may end up with stagflation.
We have repeatedly drawn the government’s attention to these dangers and we have suggested a number of rapid reforms. Among them, we propose reform of the tax system, which is one of the least transparent and unfriendly systems in the world. Furthermore, it is needed to deregulate the labour market and improve energy efficiency.
The thing is that many of these areas are already regulated by the EU, and on issues such as welfare reform, new EU directives go even further. This threatens Poland’s financial stability. In recent years, Poland’s strength is due to the presence of competitive, flexible small and medium-sized companies. Many of them are successful on western markets, convincing customers. Unfortunately, the current situation may weaken their chances for further expansion.
These are the things that worry us, although our annual ranking of the speed at which Poland catches up with the richest EU countries shows that the period of the pandemic has been one of the best on record. Again, we have narrowed the gap with Germany in terms of GDP per capita. If we keep up the pace, within four years, Poles will be richer than Italians. However, this is only likely to happen if the government adopts our suggested reforms.”
Lorenzo Montanari: “Can you tell us more about the Warsaw Enterprise Institute?”
Tomasz Wróblewski: “The Warsaw Enterprise Institute is now eight years old. On a daily basis, we promote values and networks that strengthen the business environment of small and medium-sized companies. We consider it to be a key measure of the prosperity of societies and the best guarantee for personal well-being and democracy. Democracy is a very expensive system and it requires a perfectly functioning economy. We focus on the following four areas:
- The rule of law and administration management
- Demography, including the development of education or migration.
- Economic freedoms
- Strategic security – energy, defense
On average, we publish two reports per month, we run our own freedom publishing house and our online bookstore, where we publish and sell works from both Polish and foreign authors. On average, we currently publish one full-length book per month. We are also running several online media projects, generating monthly about 3 million viewers. We have a permanent staff of 10 people, plus associates, bloggers, and scholars.”
Lorenzo Montanari: “From a free-market point of you, how would you handle the current immigration crisis on the border with Belarus?”
Tomasz Wróblewski: “The Warsaw Enterprise Institute has been very active on migration topics for years, and we have been advocating for new workers to enter the Polish market. We have been pushing for more flexibility in migration law in the context of the labour market and the broadening of the labour pool for years. On many issues, we have been able to convince the government to make changes to open up the labour market in Poland. Here, we already have about 2 million workers from Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, India, Bangladesh, Georgia etc.
So far, Poland has not experienced any riots or anti-immigrant riots, which are common in Germany or France. In Poland, we have practically no immigrants that are unable to support themselves through work. Our welfare benefits are too low, which is why we manage to attract mostly economically active foreigners. People who do not rely on public support. We enjoy a variety of benefits from this. The most important one is that we are not dealing here with the kind of resentment that one typically finds in welfare states, and which is widespread in Europe, and secondly, a benefit is that we are able to compensate for labour market shortages resulting from demographic changes.
The issue of the border with Belarus has gone far enough and it is difficult to speak of peaceful, market-based solutions. Above all, we must protect the security of our borders. I think it is important to be clear about this: on the one hand, we must fully facilitate migration for people who want to work and, on the other, we should not allow in people who pose a threat to state security right from the start. We believe that migration must be mutually beneficial if it is to ensure a peaceful and safe adaptation process. Therefore, being clear and only welcoming people that have something to contribute to our society and that are ready to share our values can ensure peaceful migration.
We are currently working on creating a so-called “leave us alone” – coalition, bringing together people from all walks of life – artists, defenders of independent schools, free internet rights, gun owners, independent farmers. We want them to start speaking up not only in their own circles, but we want them to talk to each other so that together we can work out and strengthen the freedom platform.”
Lorenzo Montanari: “What do you think should be the priority of the government of Poland in terms of EU policy?”
Tomasz Wróblewski: “At long last, the European Union has decided to build a social Europe, thereby giving up on the free market economy. This is not only a matter of the last program – “Social Europe” – which is now being implemented – but also of changing mentalities.
Recently, on behalf of the European Economic and Social Committee – an advisory body to the European Commission – I prepared an opinion on the effectiveness of the European Commission’s actions during the pandemic. Each opinion is debated in groups and then subjected to a vote at a general assembly. Out of 18 hours of debate on my opinion, 4 hours were spent debating, or rather on pushing me, to delete, the passage where I appealed to EU countries to scrap public financing of jobs as soon as possible, in order to rebuild the free market. What was most hurtful to the EESC members, was the sheer mentioning of the “free market”, which according to most of them should not be a European priority.
In many respects, Poland still is a country of economic freedoms, but we are finding it increasingly difficult to defend this. Firstly, we do not have enough supporters of free market economics at the EU level and secondly, the Polish Government is getting into a lot of grotesque disputes with Brussels, fighting for things that rather weaken Poland, instead of strengthening it. These include Poland’s fallible judicial system, which is now further embellished with reforms.”
Lorenzo Montanari: “Where do you think the European Union offers most value for Poland and where is it failing to provide value?”
Tomasz Wróblewski: “Undoubtedly, the greatest benefit of the European Union is the common market and free trade, to which we owe such dynamic development. More problematic is political cooperation, where there is a lack of transparency in the EU decision-making process.
Many large European programs are geared mainly towards the interests of large companies, whereas Poland is still mostly a country of small and medium-sized enterprises for which climate, energy and social entitlements are destructive.
In addition, we have a whole sphere of bilateral disputes concerning the judiciary or the attitude towards the family and sexuality, which, according to Locke’s theory, should never be a subject of politics. Since it is, however, we must recognize that a strongly Catholic country will always have an uphill struggle in Brussels.”
Lorenzo Montanari: “What’s the most recent research project run by the Warsaw Enterprise Institute, and could you tell us a bit about it?”
Tomasz Wróblewski: “As already mentioned, we are currently working on forming a “leave us alone” – coalition, bringing together various organizations fighting state interventionism in areas ranging from free schools to gun rights. We want the voice of libertarians to be stronger in Poland and not limited to a few think tanks and academics advocating freedom. We want our think tank to be the voice of freedom for the people.”
Lorenzo Montanari: “Is there any book which would you recommend?”
Tomasz Wróblewski: “In Poland, I recommend to everyone a book by William Easterly, “The Tyranny of Experts”, which we have also translated and published.
Niemcy nie dowiozą celów klimatycznych w 22 i 23 roku, ale dalej będą naciskać na Francje i resztę, żeby atom uznać za brudną energię. Pies ogrodnika. https://t.co/tpcHW5rvAZ
— Tomasz Wróblewski (@tomaawroblewski) January 2, 2022
Lord Palmerston, the 19th century British statesman: “Half the wrong conclusions that mankind arrive at are reached by the abuse of metaphor.”
— Tomasz Wróblewski (@tomaawroblewski) December 28, 2021
Please also read the first, second, third and fourth interview of Brussels Report’s interview series of prominent European supporters of free market economics.
