The current opposition politicians’ attacks on the President of the National Bank of Poland, Prof. Adam Glapiński, and now they do not want to take him out of the Central Bank building by force, but bring him before the State Tribunal.
Let us not forget that last summer the leader of the Platform, Donald Tusk, tried to undermine the candidacy of Prof. Adam Glapiński for the second term as president of the National Bank of Poland (NBP), publicly accused him of mismanagement of the central bank and additionally threatened that if the Platform came to power, he would be forcibly removed from the NBP building deleted .
In July 2022, Tusk said at the convention in Radom: “Adam Glapiński is not only incompetent, not only indecent in what he does, he is also illegal. He will not be president of the National Bank of Poland for another day. You don’t need an account. If the Platform wins the elections, I will personally remove Glapiński from the National Bank of Poland.
The main motivation for these sharp and absurd attacks by Tusk on President Glapiński was to prevent his appointment for a second term as an opponent of Poland’s entry into the Eurozone.
Because Prof. During his first term at the NBP, Glapiński made no secret of the fact that he was a strong opponent of Poland’s entry into the eurozone. Moreover, after being nominated by the President of the Republic of Poland, Andrzej Duda, as a candidate for the As President of the NBP for the second term, he directly announced that our country will not join the Eurozone as long as he heads the central bank is.
Of course, entering the Eurozone is a long procedure, you must complete the so-called to meet the Maastricht criteria (fiscal and monetary). In addition, for this to happen in Poland, a referendum is needed, and perhaps also an amendment to the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, but those who give Tusk an order in Brussels Returning to Polish politics, Poland wanted to be included in the ERM II zone, i.e. pegging the zloty to the euro with a permanent exchange rate, and this already determines entry into the eurozone.
But to apply to the ERM II zone, it is sufficient that the Prime Minister of the Government and the Governor of the Central Bank submit a joint application to the ECB in a confidential manner, presenting exchange rate proposals at the same time. which the central bank must then defend during the entire period of its stay in this zone (only deviations from this rate +/- 15%).
This is enough, rather only after 2 years or a little later the country is already a member of the eurozone, with all the consequences that entails, and what these consequences are, it is enough to map out the situation of Slovakia, how many citizens were poorer after this country’s entry into the eurozone in 2009.
Now that the story has changed, there is no mention of the NBP president being forcibly removed, but there is a threat that he will be taken to the State Tribunal, and this was recently made on TOK FM radio by MP Paulina Hennig-Kloska, a candidate of the emerging coalition for Minister of Environment and Climate.
She accused President Glapiński of disrupting the stability of the Polish zloty, indirectly financing the state budget through the purchase of government bonds, and intervening in the foreign exchange market that weakened the zloty, which in her opinion was an inflationary stimulus.
Indeed, the Constitution of the Republic of Poland provides that the President of the NBP must be brought before the State Tribunal, but only in a situation where he has violated the Constitution and other laws in connection with the position he holds or within the scope of his office .
However, the State Tribunal is responsible for individual decisions, and the accusations of MP Hennig-Kloska regarding interest rates or the so-called quantitative easing are collective decisions, the first by the Monetary Policy Council, composed of ten people together with the President of the NBP, in which each member has one vote, the latter by the nine-member board of directors of the NBP, in which each member also has one vote.
This means that opposition politicians are launching a public apparatus of accusations against the President of the NBP, which could cause enormous financial damage to Poland, without even checking whether it is formally possible to initiate a trial before the State Tribunal, in a situation where collective decisions are involved, not individual decisions.
It should be emphasized that politicians’ attacks on an independent central bank are unique in a democratic country and affect international prestige, and can also have serious negative financial consequences, including speculative play on the devaluation of the zloty and an increase in costs . of paying off Poland’s debts.
Let us also recall that the NBP is part of the European Central Bank system, which means that its independence is guaranteed by the European Central Bank and other EU institutions, including the CJEU (this EU court recently blocked the decision to remove the president from office). Latvian Central Bank from its function).
The continuation of attacks by opposition politicians on the President of the NBP and the announcement of his resignation, as well as the announcement of the dismissal of judges from the Constitutional Court or the National Council for the Judiciary, is a deliberate creation of an atmosphere of “play “, since under the rule of the new coalition there will be a lack of “bread”, as evidenced by the resignations resulting from the implementation of many previous election declarations.
Source: wPolityce