Transcript Document

Poland in EU
• Poland in Europe
•Polish way to EU
•Consequences of
membership in EU
Republic of Poland
• EU accession: 1 May 2004
• Area: 312,679 km2
• Population (January
2010): 38,163,895*
*http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&language=en&pcode=tps00001&tableSelection=1
&footnotes=yes&labeling=labels&plugin=1
• Polish curency: złoty (PLN)
Political system: parliamentary
republic
President:
Bronisław Komorowski
Prime Minister:
Donald Tusk
Poland initiated the reform of its
political system and economy in 1989
• In this new situation, a return to the
West, as embodied in the form of the
EU and NATO, became realistic.
Already on 19th September 1989
Poland signed the agreement for trade
and trade co-operation with the (then)
European Community (EC).
• That agreement was not only the basis
for further relations but also a starting
point for future negotiations on the
subject of associating with EC.
• Such an intention was expressed by
Polish Prime Minister Tadeusz
Mazowiecki in his speech in the
European Parliament in February
1990.
•Slightly later in June 1991
Polish Minister of Foreign
Affairs Krzysztof
Skubiszewski declared in
his expose in Polish
Parliament that Poland was
determined to become a
member of the European
Community.
• On 19th May 1990 Poland officially
applied for a beginning of negotiations
for an agreement of associating, and
the negotiations began in December
1990.
• After eleven months on 16th
December 1991 the Polish
government signed the Europe
Agreement which established an
associate relationship between the EC
and Poland.
• The Europe Agreement set out the legal
grounds for the pursuit and
implementation of
economic,
political,
scientific,
cultural union.
• The agreements signed with the EC,
which at this time was preparing for its
transformation into the European Union
(EU), initiated Poland's process of
European integration.
• The Europe Agreement came into
force on 1st February 1994.
• Despite the fact that the EC very
early on signed a range of
association and customs
agreements with Poland, the
Agreement was in practice treated
as a completely new entity.
• It included resolutions on political
dialogue, obligations related to the
narrowing of the gap between the
association states and EC legislative
models, as well as guidelines
governing co-operation in the area of
culture.
• The EC gave its consent to the
Agreement foreword containing an
additional point: „Poland's ultimate
aim is membership of the Community”.
• In this way the Polish partner
established that the aim of the
Agreement was the creation of
frameworks for Poland's gradual
integration into the Community.
•Polish partner established
that the aim of the
Agreement was the creation
of frameworks for Poland's
gradual integration into the
Community.
• The most important from Poland's point of
view was that as a result of diplomatic
interventions by the states of the Visegrád
Group, the European Council decided at its
Copenhagen summit in June 1993 that: "the
associate member states from Central and
Eastern Europe, if they so wish, will become
members of the EU. In order to achieve this,
however, they must fulfill the appropriate
conditions."
• These became known as the Copenhagen
criteria, or simply, membership criteria.
• The Copenhagen criteria laid down the
following EU membership
requirements:
1. That candidate countries achieve stable
institutions that guarantee democracy,
legality, human rights and respect for
and protection of minorities.
2. That candidate countries have a
working market economy, capable of
competing effectively on EU markets.
3. That candidate countries are capable of
accepting all the membership
responsibilities, political, economic and
monetary.
• Another important stage on Poland's
way to EU took place at the
Luxembourg summit in 1997, when
the EU accepted the Commission's
opinion to invite several Central and
Eastern European states (Poland,
Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia,
Estonia and Cyprus) to start talks on
their accession to the EU.
• In 1999 EU made another decision
on the introduction of the access
negotiations with four next
candidate countries: Slovakia,
Lithuania, Latvia and Malta.
•The negotiation process started
on 31st March 1998, when the
first sitting of the International
Accession Conference took
place. After the meeting,
screening sessions began to
determine the extent to which
Polish law was in accordance
with community law, followed
by the two parties developing
position papers for each
negotiating position.
• The opening of negotiations in
given areas signified that the
European Council has granted the
European Commission the
relevant mandate to conduct talks
with the candidate states.
• After the final agreement
negotiations were temporarily
closed.
• In the final phase of all the
negotiations their results took the
form of entries in the accession
• Poland (with other candidate
countries) finished the accession
negotiations in December 2002. Than
the Accession Treaty was signed in
Athens on 16th April 2003.
•After the ratification of that
Treaty, Poland and other 9
countries became the
members of EU on 1st May
2004!!!
•Poland is considered to
have one of the healthiest
economies of the postcommunist countries and
is currently one of the
fastest growing countries
within the EU.
• Since the fall of the communist
government, Poland has
steadfastly pursued a policy of
liberalising the economy and
today stands out as a successful
example of the transition from a
centraly planned economy to a
primarily capitalistic market
economy.
• Poland is the only member of the EU
to have avoided a decline in gross
domestic product (GDP) during the
late 2000s recession.
• In 2009 Poland has had the greatest
gross domestic product (GDP) growth
in the EU. As of November 2009 the
Polish economy has not entered the
global recession of the late 2000s nor
has it even contracted.*
*http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a7k1g_PkuROs#
•The privatisation of small and
medium state-owned companies
and a liberal law on establishing
new firms have allowed the
development of an aggressive
private sector. As a
consequence, consumer rights
organisations have also
appeared.
• Restructuring and privatisation of
"sensitive sectors" such as coal, steel,
rail transport and energy has been
continuing since 1990.
• The biggest privatisations have been
the sale of the national telecoms firm
Telekomunikacja Polska to France
Télécom in 2000, and an issue of 30%
of the shares in Poland's largest bank,
PKO Bank Polski, on the Polish
stockmarket in 2004.
• Poland has a large number of private
farms in its agricultural sector, with the
potential to become a leading producer
of food in the EU.
• Structural reforms in health care,
education, the pension system, and
state administration have resulted in
larger-than-expected fiscal pressures.
• Warsaw leads Central Europe in foreign
investment. GDP growth had been
strong and steady from 1993 to 2000
with only a short slowdown from 2001
to 2002.
• The economy had growth of 3.7% annually
in 2003, a rise from 1.4% annually in 2002.
In 2004, gross domestic product (GDP)
growth equaled 5.4%, in 2005 3.3% and in
2006 6.2%.*
• In the last quarter of 2009 gross
domestic product (GDP) growth
equaled 1,2% and Poland was the
only one EU country which
achieved positive values of GDP.
*http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_PUBLIC/2-25062009-BP/EN/2-25062009-BPEN.PDF
• Although the Polish economy is
currently undergoing economic
development, there are many
challenges ahead. The most
notable task on the horizon is the
preparation of the economy
(through continuing deep
structural reforms) to allow
Poland to meet the strict
economic criteria for entry into
the Eurozone.
• According to the minister of finances
Jacek Rostowski, Poland is likely to
adopt the euro in 2013 or 2014.
• Average salaries in the enterprise
sector in April 2008 were 3137 PLN
(925 euro or 1434 US dollars) and
growing sharply. Salaries vary
between the regions: the median
wage in the capital city Warsaw was
4600 PLN (1100 euro or 1900 US
dollars) while in Białystok it was
only 2400 PLN (600 euro or 900 US
dollars).*
• Since joining the EU, many workers have left
to work in other EU countries (particularly
Ireland and the UK) because of high
unemployment, which was the secondhighest in the EU (14.2% in May 2006).
• However, with the rapid growth of the
salaries, booming economy, strong value of
Polish currency, and quickly decreasing
unemployment (6.7% in August 2008)
exodus of Polish workers seems to be over.
• In 2008 people who came back
outnumbered those leaving the country.**
**http://web.archive.org/web/20080726044258/http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/pls/portal/docs/PAGE/PGP_PRD_CAT_PREREL/
PGE_CAT_PREREL_YEAR_2007/PGE_CAT_PREREL_YEAR_2007_MONTH_10/3-31102007-EN-CP.PDF
• Commodities produced in Poland
include: electronics, cars (including the
luxurious Leopard car), buses (Autosan,
Jelcz SA, Solaris, Solbus), helicopters (PZL
Świdnik), transport equipment,
locomotives, planes (PZL Mielec), ships,
military engineering (tanks), medicines
(Polpharma, Polfa), food, clothes, glass,
pottery, chemical products and others.
• Poland is a part of the global tourism market with
constantly increasing number of visitors, particularly
after joining the EU.*
• Tourism in Poland contributes to the country's overall
economy. The most popular cities are Warsaw, Kraków,
Wrocław, Poznań, Lublin, Toruń, including the historic site
of the Auschwitz concentration camp near Oświęcim.
• Popular destinations include northeast Poland's Mazury
lake district and Białowieża Forest. Poland's main tourist
offers are sightseeing within cities and out-of-town
historical monuments, business trips, qualified tourism,
agrotourism, and mountain hiking, among others. Poland
is the 17th most (in the world) visited country by
foreign tourists in 2008.**
* http://www.euromonitor.com/Travel_And_Tourism_in_Poland
** http://www.tourismroi.com/Content_Attachments/27670/File_633513750035785076.pdf
Thank You 