Analysis-Inflation, budget risks await Polish vote winner
By Karl Badohal, Pawel Florkiewicz and Gergely Szakacs
WARSAW (Reuters) — Less than three weeks ahead of Poland's hotly contested general election, Warsaw pensioner Jadwiga Buczek is feeling better about a cost of living crisis which, for the past two years, has hit central Europeans harder than most.
«Let me tell you, there was a time when I couldn't even afford to buy salmon, for example. And now I'll go and buy myself a piece of salmon and have it at least once a week,» Buczek told Reuters of a favourite treat.
«I think that the government is really doing a lot, and those who think that this is some kind of mistake or that they are doing something wrong, that is absolutely not true,» said Buczek, a supporter of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party.
Buczek has benefited from the fact that PiS has raised her pension as part of hefty welfare spending moves which, opinion surveys show, are easing Poles' concerns over high inflation.
Now, PiS and its rivals are vying to outdo each other with promises of even more generous spending — meaning that whoever wins the Oct. 15 election must pick up the tab for policies that risk fanning inflation and straining the state budget.
Poland's economy, the largest of the ex-communist countries which joined the European Union, has since the COVID-19 pandemic seen a two-year surge in foreign investment as firms take advantage of its skilled but still relatively cheap workforce.
That has helped the socially conservative PiS fund the expansion of a pro-family policy of child benefits, hikes to minimum wages and payments to pensioners — in turn prompting rivals to come up with even more expansive election promises.
While such welfare supports are modest compared to those in western Europe,
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