WARSAW: Poland’s relations with the European Commission are terrible. And that’s exactly why a group of econosmists and the country’s leading business paper this week launched a push for the country to adopt the euro. The idea emerged from growing concern in Poland that, following Brexit and the election of pro-EU French President Emmanuel Macron, the bloc could consolidate around the 19-member eurozone. It’s a somewhat quixotic notion given the political realities in Warsaw: The ruling Law and Justice Party, which rides high in the polls, views Brussels with skepticism and among some of its leading lights views the euro itself as a German-dominated instrument of economic oppression. But this is just one of the ways that Brexit is shaking up views on Europe across the 27 countries that are staying in the block. Starting preparations to adopt the euro could become a way for Poland to get out of the impasse in which it finds itself,” the letter said, adding that the country should use the common currency to anchor itself in Western Europe. “Either in the future we’ll be in the eurozone, or in the zone of Russian influence.” The Polish government won’t exactly embrace this push with enthusiasm.
“We’re certainly not racing to the eurozone; it’s going through problems and has a lot of limitations,” Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told the ultra-Catholic Radio Maryja last month. “We’re in no hurry to give up our advantages, including the flexibility to react to potential crises.” The government hasn’t responded to the appeal, but the signatories hope it will have an impact on Morawiecki — a former banker who was a member of the economic council advising Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, when he was Polish prime minister. “Morawiecki is generally a rational person,” said Witold Orłowski, an economist at PwC and a past member of the economic council. “This appeal isn’t completely senseless. There is a chance it could have an effect.”
