由于金融危机从发达国家向新兴市场传播到市场经济体，很少有地方被努力成为中欧和东欧。该地区的国家近年来从国外提供了消费者和投资繁荣，蒸发全球流动性正在挤满困难。匈牙利和乌克兰转向了国际货币基金组织的多亿美元救助人员，罗马尼亚预计将尽快做同样的事情，而波罗的海各州则遭受任何地区最严重的衰退之一。
在这个大漩涡中，波兰是一个相对繁荣的岛屿。过去三年，中国经济以年均6%的速度增长，但在过去六个月里，经济增速大幅放缓，但至少仍在继续扩张——政府预测2009年的经济增长率为3%；私营部门的估计下降幅度大多在1%至2%左右。在华沙，紧缩的信贷抑制了蓬勃发展的住宅房地产市场，但建筑起重机仍在玻璃办公摩天大楼和杂乱无章的购物中心上空盘旋，这是相对乐观的明显迹象。”即使全球危机使经济增长有所下降，但仍将高于我们的邻国，”该国最大的商业游说团体Lewiatan的负责人Henryka Bochniarz坚称。与西方的欧盟贸易伙伴不同，中国政府不必为其银行体系纾困。”到目前为止，情况还不错，我们的银行仍在相互放贷ławi公司´恩斯基，华沙经济学院经济学教授，波兰国家银行货币政策委员会成员。
But the current economic gloom has exposed a host of unmet economic reforms that are making Poland increasingly vulnerable to the global downturn and putting pressure on the government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk to take decisive action. The government’s failure early in the crisis to set a clear timetable for adopting the euro has undermined confidence in the złoty, which has plunged by nearly 40 percent against the dollar since August. A long-stalled privatization process has burdened the country with inefficient state enterprises, deprived the private pension system of investment alternatives and earned rebukes from the EU authorities in Brussels. “The government remains the biggest employer in Poland, with companies under its control accounting for 25 percent of GDP,” says Jacek Socha, a former Treasury minister and now a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Warsaw office.
图斯克能接受挑战吗？许多观察家对此表示怀疑。这位资深政治家领导他的中右翼公民纲领党在2007年10月的议会选举中取得胜利，他承诺与总统莱赫·卡齐领导的法律和正义党的右翼民族主义政策决裂´恩斯基和他的孪生兄弟，前总理雅罗斯瓦夫卡齐´恩斯基。图斯克誓言要改善与欧盟和俄罗斯的关系，让波兰走上采用欧元的轨道，推进拖延已久的经济改革。但首相上任第一年几乎没有什么可展示的。图斯克在议会中的多数席位不足以克服卡齐总统的否决权´他阻止了首相试图减少提前退休的人数，并结束了法律和正义党对公共电视的控制。而图斯克的团队在其他有争议的问题上犹豫不决，比如私有化，显然不愿意冒任何可能危及他挑战卡齐前景的风险´在2010年的总统选举中。
“斯斯克正试图保持高水平的公共支持，然后，伦敦乡村经济学家Zbigniew Kominek表示，波兰的重建与发展。但逃避不受欢迎的行动，例如将补贴削减到近乎破产造船厂或向外国投资者销售州立公司，可能无法确保斯萨克联合政府现在享有的近60％的批准评级。“People are starting to ask, ‘If you were elected as reformists, then why aren’t you carrying out reforms?’” says Lena Kolarska-Bobinska, director of the Institute of Public Affairs, a Warsaw think tank.
为了应对全球经济危机，图斯克最近几个月开始采取更加激进的立场，这增加了改革倡导者的希望。今年9月，他承诺政府将在2012年前采用欧元，并将其吹捧为困难时期的稳定之源。他并不是唯一一个持这种观点的人，考虑到欧元区国家与邻国享有低利率和汇率稳定，这并不奇怪。匈牙利和波罗的海国家的目标是尽快采用欧元，捷克共和国政府计划在今年晚些时候宣布一个目标日期。
不过，让波兰走上欧元轨道并非易事。全球经济低迷将使图斯克政府难以达到进入欧盟的经济标准，其中包括将通胀和公共赤字维持在较低水平以及将欧元区与欧元区挂钩ł在欧洲汇率机制（ERM II）中，oty对欧元的汇率为两年。波罗的海国家和匈牙利此前曾希望在2010年前采用欧元，但由于国内经济困难，它们已经不得不推迟计划。
Tusk is also enmeshed in a political dispute over the euro with President Kaczy´nski, who argues that Poles must agree in a referendum to amend their constitution — which stipulates that only the Polish central bank can issue currency and set monetary policy — before the government embarks on a euro strategy. The prime inister believes Poland can peg the złoty to the euro in the first half of this year and defer constitutional change until later, but some analysts regard that as a risky strategy that could invite speculative attacks on the złoty. Having set his sights on the euro, arguably the biggest decision facing the government, Tusk can’t afford to back down. “If the Tusk government backslides on this issue, its credibility would be shot,” says Preston Keat, the New York–based head of research for Eurasia Group, a political consulting firm.
The Tusk administration has also pledged to jump-start Poland’s privatization campaign. Efforts to sell off government-owned enterprises have largely stalled since the first burst of privatization in the early 1990s; some 1,200 companies, which generate about 25 percent of Poland’s gross domestic product, remain in state hands. “That’s far too high a proportion for healthy economic growth,” Treasury Minister Aleksander Grad told Institutional Investor in a recent interview. His ministry has begun preparing more than 300 companies for sale and aims to privatizatize 750 firms by 2012, notwithstanding the turmoil on the global markets. “If we cannot list them on the stock exchange, then we will sell them directly to strategic investors,” he says.
Grad will have to start delivering to convince skeptics, though. The government met its 2008 goal of 2.3 billion złoty ($697 million) in privatization revenues only by selling its minority interests in four power companies to two state-controlled energy utilities, ENEA and PGE, for a total of zł1.4 billion in December. Despite the likelihood that market conditions will be as bad this year as last, the government insists it will achieve a much larger 2009 target of zł12 billion in privatization revenues. “It is an incredibly ambitious plan that most analysts don’t believe will be fulfilled,” says EBRD economist Kominek.
波兰在寻求避免动荡蔓延至中欧和东欧时，可以指望的一件事是相对健康的银行业（见相关报道，保守主义在Pekao享受）。匈牙利的银行和波罗的海国家近年来通过欧元和瑞士法郎的贷款贷款来推动消费者繁荣，携带低利率。但在过去一年中，这些国家货币价值的急剧下降，增加了这些贷款的负担，深化了那里的经济衰退，留下了面临沉重损失的银行。相比之下，许多波兰银行往往在Złoty中倾向于贷款，从货币贬值的影响中拯救他们。2008年上半年，仅25.4％的波兰消费者和企业贷款的计数，匈牙利为53.2％。
“外币贷款不是一个系统问题，因为他们占我们银行资产负债表的相对较少的比例，”中央银行的Sławi'nski说。
Still, Polish banks face a much tougher climate than in years past. In an article in the Dziennik newspaper last month, two top bankers, CEO Jan Krzysztof Bielecki of Bank Pekao and CEO Jerzy Pruski of PKO BP, warned that credit growth in the banking sector could fall by more than two thirds, from zł145 billion in 2008 to zł40 billion this year. They called on the central bank to increase liquidity by cutting reserve requirements and buying back central bank securities.
Entry into the euro zone would eliminate the risk of złoty depreciation and give Poland the benefit of lower interest rates, which explains the Tusk government’s determination to adopt the currency. The National Bank of Poland cut its reference rate by 75 basis points last month, but that still left the Polish rate at 4.25 percent, well above the European Central Bank’s 2 percent.
To adopt the euro, Tusk must meet the EU’s economic criteria and amend the Polish constitution to permit a change of currencies. On the economic front, Poland needs to bring down its inflation rate, contain the budget deficit and keep the złoty for two years in the ERM II, which requires the government to limit the currency’s fluctuation against the euro to plus or minus 15 percent. Inflation is currently running at a rate of 3.3 percent, above the 2.4 percent required under the EU’s Maastricht Treaty. In the meantime, the economic crisis is likely
促进波兰的预算赤字。上个月欧盟委员会预测，今年该国赤字的赤字占GDP的3.6％，高于追求欧元的国家的3％的天花板。“赤字将有压力 - 这是肯定的 - 因为私有化收入和税收的不足，以及对失业救济金的可能更大的付款，”ebinek说。12月失业率达到了9.5％，11月份上涨了近半个百分点。
Under the 2012 timetable announced last year, Tusk wants to peg the złoty to the euro in the ERM II in the first half of this year. But that goal is being challenged both by the National Bank of Poland and the political opposition. In a recent Polish magazine interview, central bank Governor Sławomir Skrzypek asserted that Tusk’s timetable is too risky and that the złoty isn’t strong enough to stay within the ERM II. “In a situation of instability of financial markets and, especially, high volatility on the currency market, holding the złoty within the allowed grid would be either very costly or impossible,” Skrzypek said.
与此同时,Kaczy´nskis”法律and Justice Party opposes early euro membership, and President Kaczy´nski contends that the government must win a referendum on a constitutional amendment before putting the złoty in the ERM II. He wants the vote to be held in June, to coincide with elections for the European Parliament. If Tusk goes along, that would push back the earliest date for adopting the euro to 2013. Winning a referendum will be no piece of cake, which is why some analysts suggest that the prime minister will instead try to settle the issue in Parliament, where a two-thirds majority can amend the constitution. “The game plan now is to try to flip at least seven Law and Justice deputies either to cast votes in favor or abstain,” says Eurasia Group’s Keat.
重新启动波兰的私有化运动给图斯克和他的团队带来了另一个巨大的挑战。为了取得重大进展，政府需要将最后两个亏损严重的国有船厂卸下，这是首相和他的前任一样试图回避的问题，直到欧盟委员会迫使他出手。
这家总部位于布鲁塞尔的执行机构长期以来一直认为，对格丁尼亚和什切钦陷入困境的造船厂的补贴违反了欧盟的竞争规则。自2004年以来，政府延长了€6.62亿美元（8.71亿美元）的直接援助和€向两家船厂提供14.85亿美元的生产担保，但有一项谅解，即它们将进行重组并出售给私人投资者。相反，这些钱被浪费在臃肿的工作岗位和无利可图的长期造船合同上。
11月，EC终于失去了耐心，并在2009年5月销售了造船厂的资产，并使用收益偿还院子里的债权人并退还国家援助。
乌克兰钢铁制造商的Dondbass工业联盟提出，获得GDynia造船厂并将其与2007年买的着名的格但斯克院子合并，波兰挪威合资公司对Szczecin的兴趣表现出兴趣。但两者都制定了波兰国家维持补贴，欧洲委员会拒绝的条件的优惠。12月，政府讨论，通过法律指定管理员拍卖造船厂的资产。“我们将尽量确保资产尽快出售，”财政部毕业生说。
今年1月，在格丁尼亚造船厂，超过95%的员工同意提前退休，并获得从zł20000至zł60000.预计什切钦的工人很快就会效仿。
The government has failed to resolve another lengthy corporate saga, the privatization of Powszechny Zaklad Ubezpieczen, better known as PZU. The state-controlled company is the largest insurer in Poland and in Central and Eastern Europe, and it has given fits to its foreign strategic investor, Eureko. The Dutch insurer, which owns 32.12 percent of PZU, first took a stake in 1999 with the promise that it would be allowed to take majority control, but various governments have repeatedly prevented it from doing so, even though Eureko has won two arbitration court rulings on the matter. Following the second ruling, in 2007, the Dutch company demanded €10 billion in damages from Warsaw.
After Tusk took power, the government restarted talks with Eureko in January 2008, but the two sides failed to reach agreement and broke off discussions in September. Now Tusk’s administration, like its predecessors, looks like it wants to push the Dutch out. “Given the long history of this problem and the perceptions it has created among ordinary Poles, an amicable exit by Eureko from PZU seems to be the best solution,” says the Treasury’s Grad.
According to Michał Nastula, managing director of Eureko’s operations in Poland, the company will drop its damages suit if the government agrees to sell it a majority stake in PZU. “We would rather not be compensated by Polish taxpayers,” he says. “We still think coming here was worth it because PZU’s value has risen — and could have been even higher if all this hadn’t happened.”
波兰保险公司是一个值得等待的奖品。PZU在波兰保险市场占有35%的份额，几乎是其最接近的竞争对手的三倍，并享有波兰所有金融机构中最好的品牌认可度。总保费收入在2008年前三个季度增长了47%，达到zł173亿，主要得益于寿险业务的快速扩张。净利润下降34.3%，至zł22亿，主要是因为投资收入下降了65.8%。它还宣布，计划花费多达200万欧元ł100亿欧元，并表示有兴趣竞购美国国际集团在中东欧的部分业务。
One reason the PZU privatization has dragged on for so long was the desire by previous governments to create a national financial champion by combining the big insurer with state-owned PKO BP, one of the nation’s two largest banks, with a market capitalization of €6.4 billion. The Tusk administration appears to have discarded that vision, though. The Treasury’s Grad insists that the government aims to privatize the rest of PZU after reaching a settlement with Eureko and that it intends to reduce its 51.5 percent in PKO BP to about 25 percent and “allow the bank to become a national champion on its own.” Hungary’s OTP Bank, whose chairman and CEO, Sándor Csányi, met in September with Grad, is rumored to be interested in PKO, but Grad insists that the Polish bank will remain independent. “Of course, it’s possible that a foreign bank might make a takeover bid for PKO, but our stake would be strong enough to prevent this,” he says.
波兰在部分能源部门私有化方面取得了进展。卡奇´nski政府一直反对私有化，认为这样做可以使财大气粗的俄罗斯利益集团获得对该行业更严格的控制。俄罗斯已经提供了波兰95%的石油和45%的天然气。
去年11月，政府将波兰第三大电力生产商和分销商ENEA公司18.7%的股权出售给瑞典国有企业Vattenfall，收购价为zł16.6亿美元（当时价值6.134亿美元），作为7.24亿美元IPO的一部分。Vattenfall表示，它希望最终购买这家波兰公司的全部股份。格拉德上个月在接受《卫报》（Gazeta Wyborcza）采访时表示，他希望今年能以约20亿欧元的价格出售政府持有的ENEA剩余76.5%的股份ł70亿。欧洲复兴开发银行持有ENEA 2.5%的股份，私人投资者持有剩下的2.3%。
格拉德还告诉II，政府希望在2009年出售国有的波兰最大的电力公司PGE。
大国企业私有化的延误反过来又减缓了发展波兰养老金制度的努力。1999年政府决定推出私人养老基金，以补充贵族国家社会保障制度。“这意味着有义务创建这些养老基金可以投资的私营公司，”前财政部长索契说。
相反，私人养老基金已成为政府廉价的资金来源，同时为未来退休人员提供低回报。每年，这十家养老基金都会聚集在一起ł140亿美元。但根据法律，这些基金只能将其资产的5%投资于外国股票；由于华沙证券交易所的波兰公司寥寥无几，这些基金被迫将超过65%的资金注入低息政府债券。”这不是你通常看到的资产配置，除非你预期所有养老基金成员都将处于退休边缘，”欧洲复兴开发银行的Kominek说。
政府确实在养老金改革中试图，但它被总统潜伏在一起。In a bid to reduce the country’s high rate of early retirement — fewer than 50 percent of Poles older than 50 work — the government last autumn passed a bill that aimed to deny benefits to 760,000 of a potential 1.1 million early-retirement claimants in their 50s. Tusk gambled that President Kaczy´nski wouldn’t dare veto the bill, but the president called the bluff and rejected the legislation in December, forcing Tusk to scramble to arrange zł4 billion in funding for early retirements.
如果他们认真对待经济改革，托斯和他的政府将需要在未来几个月内展现更多的解决和政治技能。