WARSAW: The EU Council has freed Poland from the excessive deficit procedure imposed in 2009, Poland’s Finance Ministry said on Twitter following the decision Friday.
“By the decision of the EU Council ECOFIN, Poland’s excessive deficit procedure was lifted today,” the tweet read. “This means that Poland is on the right track of public finance consolidation and limiting excessive debt, which goes along with the economic revival that we are recording,” Polish Finance Minister Mateusz Szczurek said in a comment a few hours ahead of the formal announcement of the EU decision.
“Naturally, the lifting of the procedure does not mean that we may suddenly become irresponsible in managing public funds, in spending taxpayers’ money,” he said. The move was expected since the European Commission recommended the lifting of the procedure on May 12, despite last year’s general government lightly deficit exceeding 3% of GDP, as the country bore the costs of pension system reform. Szczurek has noted that an adjusted 2014 reading would already be at 2.8%.
