“We are waiting with great anxiety for the results of today’s Council of Ministers, which will adopt the draft state budget for 2026″ – wrote Mateusz Morawiecki on social media. The former Polish prime minister also formulated several key financial questions for the ruling team.
Today, the government meeting is taking place. The key item on the agenda is the adoption of the draft state budget for the coming year.
Former Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland, Mateusz Morawiecki, is also waiting for the result, and he writes directly: “Minister Domański will finally have to lay his cards on the table and show the broader picture of public finances.”
So far, he has provided only single pieces of the puzzle such as the monthly execution of state budget revenues and expenditures. However, that is far too little to assess the full condition of Poland’s finances – he adds.
Nevertheless, the Law and Justice (PiS) politician points to another issue. Namely: “This year, once again, the new leadership of the Ministry of Finance (MF) did not publish the Convergence Programme Update in the spring, which is an in-depth analysis of the macro-fiscal situation. The question is why, and on whose orders is Andrzej Domański hiding such data?”
Three questions to the government
Later in his post, Morawiecki formulated three specific questions regarding the Polish budget. They are as follows:
- Will we exceed the 60% threshold of public finance sector debt-to-GDP ratio this year? And what will be the trajectory of its growth (as only hopeless optimists are probably still counting on a decline) in the coming years? We left Domański this ratio at below 50%!
- What will the deficit of the public finance sector amount to? Let me remind you that this year it is forecast at as much as 6.3%-6.4% of GDP (after being equally high in 2024, when it reached 6.6% of GDP). Next year the European Commission (KE) and financial markets expect it to be reduced to 4.5% of GDP. This means the necessity of fiscal consolidation of even 40-50 billion PLN in just one year.
- How will funds be secured for defense spending, pro-development investments such as Central Communication Port (CPK) or the nuclear power plant, as well as shields protecting all – not only selected – households from increases in electricity and heating prices?”**
Summing up, he writes: “It seems that the Ministry of Finance must reconcile fire with water. Unfortunately, they themselves grew this ‘fire’ with their ineptitude in tax policy and in stifling economic growth. And what do you think – will the 2026 budget include a tax-free allowance of 60,000 PLN and a number of other pledges from the ‘100 specifics’? Well, it cost them nothing to promise.”
The post also includes a graphic showing government and local government institutional debt in relation to GDP. It is clear that Poland is approaching the 60% level, which does not bode well for the future of Polish finances.