How Poland Can Keep Its Place at the Heart of Europe
Twice it vanished from the map, swallowed up by its rapacious neighbours. After it emerged from the second world war as a Soviet satellite, it endured decades of oppression. Today, Poland has transformed itself into Europe’s most overlooked military and economic power—with a bigger army than Britain, France or Germany and living standards, adjusted for purchasing power, that are about to eclipse Japan’s. Yet, just when Poland should stand proud and tall once more, is it about to throw away its influence?
For the past three decades, Poland has shown how much a country can achieve by European integration and good economic policy. Since 1995 income per person has more than trebled. Since it joined the EU in 2004 Poland has never known recession apart from briefly at the height of the Covid-19 shutdown. During those two decades, its average annual growth has been almost 4 per cent.
The fruits of that growth are on display across the country. Warsaw, the capital, boasts Europe’s tallest building outside Russia, the Varso tower; and below it bustles with designer shops and cafés, IT startups and fashion houses. Out in the once-neglected countryside fine roads, often built with EU money, criss-cross vistas of well-tended fields, farms and new houses.
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