No shopping on Sunday! What do you think?

Poland recently approved a law that ban Sunday trading. This means that from today (11th March)  every other Sunday the bans will take place (with the exception of some Sundays before religious holidays). 

In Poland the law is the result of the pressure coming mainly by the Church and Solidarnosc, in order to allow employees to spend more time on Sunday with their family and participate in the Religious Ceremonies.

The discussion is really wide, as you can see on Wikipedia.

From one side, it is good to see that people already working the entire week in a shop can have one day break on Sunday and spend it with their families and friends. And for sure, as consumers, we can survive buying what we need in the remain 6 days of the week.

On the other hand, the risk to cut many part-time jobs or push some companies to open during the night or extend their open hours during the week is real, and it wouldn't improve the conditions of the workers at all.

I personally think that Sunday is a good day to rest for everybody. But if a good law is needed to regulate the ban of shopping, it is also needed to regulate the rest of the week, if not the workers will have to work more on the other days. 

Common sense and balance are always the elements the Legislator should consider to regulate a sector.

And you? What do you think?

For more information about Polish Sunday trading ban, you can check Wroclaw Uncut website.

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Poland's Holocaust law and the ghosts from the past

The news has been spread everywhere in Europe and not only: Poland’s Senate approved a highly controversial bill on Thursday that bans any Holocaust accusations against Poles as well as descriptions of Nazi death camps as Polish (source The Washington Post). If President Duda will approve it, the law will become effective with a penalty for the transgressors up to three years in jail.

It is a little bit difficult to understand why this law was issued.

During the II WW, six millions of poles died (the half were Jewish). Poland is the first country for number of Righteous Among the Nations (an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis): 6706. 

It is also true that some Poles helped Nazis during the occupation and the war like in the case of the Jedwabne pogrom, where 340 Polish Jews were killed by a group of Polish inhabitants of the town with the complicity of the Nazis.

US and Israel stated that this law is against the freedom of speech and also against the responsibilities of Poles during the II World War.

What I see is that it looks hard for all the countries take their own responsibility on the shame on the Holocaust and on the caused that originated the war. 

In a very interesting book - Origins Of The Second World War - the author, A.J.P. Taylor, in the Sixties was claiming how not only Germany was the cause of the war, but many other events under the responsibility of all the European Countries, UK and France of course, but also Poland and Czechoslovakia for instance.

Auschwitz was a Nazi camp and even if it is within the Polish border, it was created by the Germans during their occupation. But this doesn't mean deny the responsibility of everybody in what happened. 

An interesting article by Jonathan Freedland published on The Gardian explains well the Polish problem:

It’s not hard to see why this has happened. Polish nationalists want Poles to have been the untainted victims of Nazism: it’s hard to admit that too many were willing assistants to genocide. Like almost every nation occupied by the Nazis, and unlike Germany itself, Poland has not yet made a clear-eyed reckoning with its past. It has not fully wrestled with the fact that a Jewish community that once made up 10% of its population, and which was the largest in Europe, has gone, murdered en masse in just over three years. “Poland is not at peace with its Jewish ghosts,” says [Konstanty] Gebert. “These are phantom limbs. You amputate the limb and it still hurts.”

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Visiting Auschwitz

Today 27th January is the International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the media, as usual, commemorate the genocide that resulted in the death of an estimated 6 million Jewish people, 200,000 Roma people, 250,000 mentally and physically disabled people, and 9,000 homosexual men by the Nazi regime and its collaborators.

I think that the rhetoric that is usually adopted in commemorating this day, obscures partially what really happened in that period. It is really difficult to understand, at least till you have the opportunity to visit Auschwitz.

I live in Poland since over six years but just the last summer I have decided and planned to visit the Auschwitz concentration camp that is located in Oświęcim, 50km from Krakow.

Visiting Auschwitz should be definitely something everyone must do at least once in our own life. Because seeing all the shoes that where gathered by the people who arrived and died there, the grey hair and the amount of cups and glasses really make you realize the dimension of what happened.

When you arrive in the Auschwitz II (Birkenau) main entrance, the guide says that an estimated 1.3 million people were sent to the camp, of whom at least 1.1 million died. And you start to think about those people in line after hours of traveling in a train and just waiting to die.

It is impossible to imagine living in the camp during the winter (where the temperature is constantly under zero), with no food, no warming clothes, nothing.

It is so hard to imagine that life, so impossible to realize how some people could survive, that words are simply not enough. You need to go there and see.

We assume that it will never happen again, but we forget easily. And it is happening now with Rohingya in Myanmar, it happened with Tutsi in Ruanda and with Bosniak in the Former Jugoslavia.

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Where is Poland going?

Poland is considered as the best example of how positive can be the effects of being part of European Union.

European Funds, investments of the world most important corporations, political stability, German support and polish industriousness changed radically the country. Poland today is the most developed Eastern country, one of the world center for outsourcing and one of the most dynamic market in Europe.

The new Polish Government

Analyzing the last political elections in another post, I highlighted two main reasons for the victory of Law and Justice party. From one side, a large part of the Country is still poor: there is a huge discrepancy between the rich west and the rest of Poland. On the other, the development has been so quick that generated fear and confusion in a quite homogeneous society.

Now the new government needs to prove that a real change is in progress. But they started modifying the composition of the Constitutional Tribunal, and introducing new rules in the public media sector and in the judiciary power.

The relation with Eu is becoming more complex, also after the opposition of Poland to receive refugees arrived in Greece and Italy.

Two considerations must be done.

The first one regards Poland itself. Which country does she want to become? A solid member of Eu that contributes to the integration process, or a member that wants just to take profit from Europe without paying any price? 

If Poland is a two-speed country, this is not a fault of Europe, but the result of internal policies. If the salaries are still low and the costs are increasing, the new government should work to help people, not to limit the controls on his activities.

The second consideration affects directly Europe. As we wrote already many times, the idea of Europe is too weak to be able to go on with the integration. Too many countries don't want to pay any cost to be in Europe. And till European Union won't be able to have her own communication, everybody will unload their faults on Brussels.

Poland is the best example of European investments. But it can turn out as the worst surprise. 

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Let's start this year with Culture in Wroclaw

Here we are!

2016 finally arrived and will be the year of Wrocław (Poland) as Cultural Capital City together with  San Sebastian (Spain) . Also Wrocław have been nominated World Book Capital City 2016.

This is not the first time for Poland, as Krakow had the same title in 2000.

But Wrocław is an emerging city, one of the most dynamic cities not just in Poland but in Europe. And this title, awarded in 2011, represents a significant moment in the history of this city, that has definitely left the communist past and is launched towards a more international future.

There are many events programmed for this year.

www.wroclaw2016.pl

Since the Opening Weekend (15th-17th of January 2016) when there will be almost hundred cultural events to inaugurate the year of European Capital of Culture. "The 17th tens of thousands of people will participate in the Sunday finale- „The Awakening”, one of the most numerous and spectacular parades in city history. - Wroclavians will be able to unite in the common march and participate in an artistic story about city history and its people” (from the official site of the Cultural Capital).

And this is just the beginning.

We will see how this title will influence the perception of Poland as touristic and cultural destination.

Come to Wrocław and discover the Cultural Capital 2016!

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Elections in Poland: the victory of the fear

The result of the last political elections in Poland has caused a wide debate in Europe about their consequences. But nobody has tried to understand why Law and Justice won those elections.

Poland is one of the most important economies in Europe. Its GPD grew up also during the last years of crisis. Many foreign companies invested in Poland for the low salaries and for the high-level education system. Last but not least, Poland received a huge amount of money in the last twenty years from Eu. 

So why have not the government of Tusk Party been confirmed?

Two main reasons.

First. a part of the country has not been touched by the development. A large part of the population is poor and the salaries are still too low, even if the cost of life in many cities raised quickly in the last years. It means that the discrepancy between riches and poor has increased deeply.

Second, the changes have arrived probably too quickly. This has caused fear and confusion in a society quite homogeneous and with a long history of communism. 

The position of Law and Justice towards immigration, European Union and homosexuality is alarming. But its victory is just another sign that something is wrong in the communication of the idea of Europe. And something is wrong in this kind of economic development. 

It is time to reflect about that.

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Present and past in Wrocław: a complicate relationship

Have you ever been in Wrocław? 

Wrocław is one of the most dynamic city in Poland. Many Corporations have their delivery centers there, the local University is considered one of the best of the Country. It is also a very international city, with many foreigners who work and many Erasmus students attracted by the intense nightlife and by the low cost of life.

The new Bus Station

Huge investments have been made to give a new face to Wrocław. Now the city has a new airport and also the train station has been recently renovated. Wrocław hosted some matches of Euro 2012 and it will be also the European Capital of Culture in 2016.

The new Airport

The time of communism seems very far. Even if the heritage of that period is evident everywhere: from the typical communist blocks of apartments, to the architecture of the buildings, or in the structure of the streets.

But, which is the relation between the present and the past in Wrocław?

It seems complicated.

There is the strong will to show the new Polish development, but sometimes changing turns into deleting the past. Malls are everywhere in the city and recently also the old bus station have been demolished to give space to a new mall (the third in that area – for further information click here).

Market Square

The idea of building up new palaces instead of renovating the existing ones cannot be always the best option. In ten years we will see just malls and new buildings and no memories of the past.

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Who is Magdalena Ogórek?

The 10th of May the Presidential Elections will take place in Poland. The favorite candidate is the current President, Bronisław Komorowski, member of the liberal Party Platforma Obywatelska, the same of Mr. Donald Tusk. The major competitor will be Andrzej Duda, official candidate of Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, party leaded by the former Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski.

There are other candidates, with low possibility to pass the first round of the elections. Among them, media concentrated their attention to the candidate of the Social Democratic Party, Madgalena Ogórek.

Magdalena Ogorek

Who is she?

Magdalena Ogórek (36) is an historian with a Phd got at the University of Opole. She worked at the University of Warsaw and in the highest political offices. She has also collaborated with the National Polish Bank and she has been anchorwoman in a financial show. She has also had a career as actress, participating in some Polish movies and Tv-series, around 10 years ago. She was candidate and lost the Parliament Elections in 2011.

Miss Ogórek received many critics regarding her candidature by the Polish Media. She was attacked for her low political experience. Media also made jokes about her surname, that in Polish means cucumber. 

The campaign against her is covered by a trace of misogyny. Even if she doesn't have a strong political background, from some experts she could become a real new element in the polish political landscape. But she looks beautiful, she has also a past in Tv. And that seems enough to attack her above normal.

This case represents just an example of how empty can be the words used during the International Women's Day, when the general climate remains the same as always. 

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What is the economic relation between Poland and Russia?

In the last months, during the Ukrainian crisis, Poland and Russia have been strongly opposed. Warsaw has firmly supported Kiev against Putin interference. But the position of Poland has deeply exposed itself to the ban of import of some products decided  by Putin.

Even the contraposition between Poland and Russia has solid roots in the history, this has not prevent both the Countries to have a natural economic connection.

Which is the economic relation between Russia and Poland?

Russia is the fifth economic partner of Poland: more than 5% of total polish export goes towards Moscow for an amount of 9 billions of dollars per year. An important item is represented by apples that are the 27% of total apples imported in Russia. 

Instead, Warsaw mainly buys from Moscow oil (93% of the total) for a business of around 17 billions of dollars per year. The rest of oil comes from Norway (3,23%), Kazakhstan (2,07%) and Tunisia (0,45%) (Source: Observatory of Economic complexity).

Those numbers explain why the ban of fruit import decided by Putin in August has so deeply touched the economy of Poland. By the way, Poles have answered proudly with a movement born on Social Media: "Eat apples to annoy Putin" ,inviting to eat polish apples as protest against the President of Russia.

Finally, it is interesting to notice that the anti-Russian position has been hold against economical interests. Poland has paid economic consequences, but it has also had frictions with some European Partners. It is interesting to see that sometimes values seem more important than money.

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Few considerations after Tusk election as President of European Council

The 30th of August 2014 Donald Tusk has been nominated President of European Council. He will replace Herman Von Rompuy, President since December 2009.

The President of European Council is an important role in the Eu Institutional Framework: he/she is the principal representative of the European Union on the World stage and the person presiding over and driving forward the work of the European Council.

Simplifying, if European Union was a State, the Parliament and the EU Council could be the two branches of the Legislative Power, the Commission could represent the Government and the European Council (the college of Heads of State or Government of EU member States as well as the President of the European Commission) could be compared to the Head of State.

It will be interesting to see in the next months which consequences this designation will bring to Poland and, generally, to Europe. 

Two are the main fields to observe. First of all, the economy: Tusk is very close to the positions of Angela Merkel, that means a development with fiscal strictness and no space for more flexibility that Countries like France or Italy would like to have. Moreover, Tusk will preside over the Euro summit even if Poland doesn't have Euro yet. Will Tusk election push Poland in Eurozone? How the new President will manage the conflicts inside the European Council about the economic rules of the next years?

The second area of interest will be the foreign policy. Tusk is considered, for example, a hawk in the relations Eu - Russia. Will he persuade Eu to adopt a more rigid position against Putin? Or the new Miss Pesc Federica Mogherini will balance him (as she is considered a dove)? How will other Countries pro-Russia (as Hungary or Cyprus) react in a possibly cooling of the relations with Putin by the Eu?

Those are just conjectures. Probably nothing will really change inside the European Council, where States still have the last word. But for sure Tusk designation gives a new face at the European Union. It is the first time that a such important office is committed to a political exponent of a Eastern Country, exactly ten years after the Eastern Enlargement of Eu. For Poland, getting this role is definitely an honor and a recognition of its strategic importance and constantly increasing power inside Europe. Without forgetting the designation of Elzbieta Bienkowska as European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, another fundamental role in the European political arena.

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Poland's last Communist Leader - The enigmatic figure of General W. Jaruzelski

General Wojciech Jaruzelski has died today, 25th May 2014.

He has definitively been a central figure in the recent Polish history, especially in the transition to democracy.

It is difficult to judge the life of Jaruzelski, considering his political and military decisions in the decades between 60s and 80s.

He started his military career very early and in 1945, when he was just 22, he participated in military takeover of Warsaw and in the battle of Berlin, being part of the Polish Army. After joining Communist Party, he developed his career quickly, becoming Minister of Defense in 1968. As Minister, he ordered to occupy Czechoslovakia in August 1968. Moreover, he constantly opposed a strong repression of Polish striking workers. 

Probably the darkest period of Jaruzelski's career was during the proclamation of martial law in 1981, few months later becoming Prime Minister. The aim of the martial law was to suppress Solidarnosc, but Jaruzelski has often justified his decision in order to avoid the invasion from Soviet troops in Poland, a country that was becoming dangerous for the stability of the Soviet area. Anyway an hypothetic Soviet plan to invade Poland has never been discosed.

Jaruzelski has played a central role in the transition to democracy of Poland.  Thanks to the new political view of Gorbaciev, in 1989 negotiations were held in the famous roundtable talks with democratic forces. The agreements resulted completely changed Polish political system, with the recognition of Solidarnosc as legal organization and with a new institutional structure.

Even if Jaruzelski was able to win the Presidential elections in 1989, without the support of Solidarnosc he decided to resign.

What to believe about his political life? Was he a completely negative figure in the Polish history, or he really facilitated the Polish transition to democracy?

Two facts are objective. First, Poland has never been invaded from Sovietic Army since the end of the II World War. Even if the role held by Jaruzelsky is not clear, Poland didn’t have a similar destiny as Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

Secondly, the end of Communism in Poland was peaceful and without any division. Even if Solidarnosc was a strong movement and also Vatican was an important actor, also the Communist political leadership understood the situation and facilitated the transition.

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Poland: the leading outsourcing destination in Europe

I want to dedicate the first post of this blog to Poland, the country in which I live.

Poland is a really interesting case in Europe, in the last years has seen a robust economic growth in a reverse trend with respect to the crisis that has touched Europe bringing a slowdown of the economy and an increase of the unemployment rate and social contrasts.

Wroclaw 

Poland has used very well the Eu funds and the Government has implemented incisive structural reforms also helped by the stability of the political system.

A key element of the Polish development is represented by the delocalization of services like accounting, customer care and IT support from the West to the Eastern Europe. In the last ten years, many corporations have decided to create shared services centers in Poland in order to develop their business, maintaining high quality of service and bringing down costs.

There are two processes to be distinguished: outsourcing and offshoring. Outsourcing is the contracting out of a business process, previously performed internally, to an independent organization from which the process is purchased back as a service. Instead offshoring describes the relocation by  a company of a business process from one country to another: in this case the process rests within the company. It often happens that a company decides to implement both processes: it can create, for instance, a internal centre (but in another country) to delocalize some internal processes, and at the same time, it can commit other processes to an outsourcing center. It also can happen that the same company creates a BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) for external clients and a Global service center for its internal processes.

It is interesting to notice that there are an estimated number of 500 offshore outsourcing centers in Eastern Europe, and Poland is poised for major expansion in the coming years (www.sourcingline.com). According to KPMG, an audit and consultancy firm, Poland ranks third for shared services centers and business process outsourcing in the world after India and China. Poland's key assets are considered its trained and educated workforce, the economic and political stability and the depreciation of the zloty (the local currency).

The importance of Poland in the outsourcing strategies is evident also from the list of the 100 most important outsourcing Cities 2012 (http://www.cuti.org.uy). Although India took 13 places in the list (Bangalore got the first position) and China 8, Poland with 3 cities, Krakow (10st), Warsaw (36th) and Wroclaw (75th), is the most represented European country.

There are two main consequences of this phenomenon. First of all, investments in outsourcing have brought wealth, reflected in new and modern infrastructures, new international power and in a reinforcement of the domestic demand. Secondly, Poland is becoming a point of attraction for international workers, pushed to leave their own Country by the economic crisis of the last years.

Ten years ago in the Western Europe there was the fear of the famous Polish plumber, ready to invade France, Italy and Germany providing a low cost service. Today instead, it is estimated that over 600 thousands foreigners are officially residents in Poland and this number is estimated to increase. It seems to be an historical victory for a Country that came out just 20 years ago from the Soviet grip.

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