Liberal-left elites live in an alternative reality. Focused on an uncompromising fight against Law and Justice (PiS), reassured by the supposedly high approval ratings of the Civic Coalition (KO), they fail to see that the train is once again pulling away from the platform. And yet the warning signs of troubling economic changes are plainly visible. In the autumn review round, Fitch and Moody’s revised Poland’s rating outlook to negative. Had the right been in power, the largest liberal media outlets would have been howling to the heavens. Now they conceal inconvenient facts behind a curtain of silence. It will do them no good.
In the first half of December, we learned the latest ratings on Poland issued by reputable agencies. Strangely, liberal-left media were conspicuously quiet about it. No wonder. Fitch and S&P rated Poland at A-. Moreover, Fitch and Moody’s changed Poland’s rating outlook to negative in the autumn review round. Only S&P kept it at stable. This is a clear indication that dark clouds are gathering over the Polish economy. Those in power attempt to talk their way out of it by opening successive infrastructure projects that were carried out with full determination by Law and Justice. Investments such as Warsaw’s Western Railway Station are almost entirely the заслуга of the previous team: the tender in 2019, the contract a year later, over PLN 2 billion well spent—and Donald Tusk steps in at the finish line, generously doused with “clean water,” a man widely known for a rather noncommittal approach to hard work and a poor grasp of economic issues.
This is not even a poor imitation; it is a pitiful caricature of Edward Gierek. Communists coped with Poland’s industrialization with varying success—Tusk is a politician who for years during his earlier governments underwrote German policy in the region and now latches onto the investments of people he sincerely hates, either squandering whatever he can or promoting himself on others’ achievements.
The Polish Economy Is Slowing
Let us return to the ratings. Fitch clearly signals that the Polish economy is now slowing. Poland’s GDP growth forecast for 2026 is 3.2 percent; for 2027 it falls to 2.9 percent. Another problem is the “moderate investment recovery,” linked to insufficient use of funds from the National Recovery and Resilience Fund. This is hardly surprising—the current authorities prioritize the beauty industry, swingers’ clubs, and financial pumping of businesses owned by their politicians, their spouses, relatives, and friends. For society at large, there is a horrendous rise in energy prices, soon to be followed by further increases. Add to this the stalling of wage growth. An old pattern repeats itself: liberals and post-communists most enjoy governing an impoverishing society, dulled by anti-right-wing hate with the help of lavishly paid representatives of big-city elites. And anyone who steps outside this logic has, since the heyday of Leszek Balcerowicz’s triumphs, been labeled a populist.
It is therefore no surprise that enterprises continue to collapse in Poland: the authorities of Chorzów are appealing to the government for help for the Królewska Steelworks, which ArcelorMittal plans to shut down; in Szczecin, Elogic—a manufacturer of electrical cabinets, control cabinets, and control panels—has just gone bankrupt; Orange has announced mass layoffs that, by current estimates, will soon affect up to a thousand people; the Aptiv conglomerate (formerly Delphi), one of the largest employers in the Żywiec region, is also carrying out mass redundancies. And this is only a brief survey of such news from the world’s 20th-largest economy. The situation increasingly resembles the punchline of an old joke: “The operation was a resounding success. Only the patient died.”
Nor is this the end of the “good news” from Poland under a liberal–post-communist yoke. Too strong words? How else should one describe a situation in which—almost as if by a magic wand—within two years those in power have managed to bring about a catastrophe in public finances and a collapse of healthcare? Only exceptionally predatory parasitism produces such outcomes. This is not journalistic exaggeration. Trade media report that public debt rose by nearly PLN 211 billion over the first nine months of 2025. Total public-sector indebtedness exceeded PLN 2.2 trillion. These are not my headlines; they are Bankier.pl’s: “The 2026 budget assumes another year of a sharply excessive deficit and crossing the constitutional public debt limit. This is a path toward fiscal catastrophe, from which politicians will find it difficult to turn back in an election year.” And Rzeczpospolita adds: “Forecasts for the public finance deficit and public debt constitute the most serious warning,” noting that forecasts have deteriorated since June, possibly linked to the Ministry of Finance’s autumn publication of the “Public Debt Management Strategy,” which “assumes a worse deficit and debt path than previously expected.”
A Mortally Dangerous Trap
I wrote this several weeks ago and I reaffirm it with full conviction: the current authorities are laying a mortally dangerous trap for their successors. I vividly remember the mockery by liberal and left-wing commentators around 2015, scoffing at the slogan “Poland in ruins.” Soon they will have to multiply their jeers, because Tusk and his team are doing everything to paralyze the state’s social and economic policy. I await an outpouring of foolish and malicious snickers from people currently feeding at the trough. They have already forgotten a simple fact associated with every PiS electoral victory: macroeconomic indicators may have been better or worse, but the lives of ordinary people clearly improved. The current authorities are doing everything to undo that.
All the more so because economists agree that the coming slowdown in economic growth will further worsen public finances. Healthcare will feel it most acutely, but increasingly deep cuts to public services will follow quickly. Local governments will feel it too: on the one hand, they will reduce offerings for residents; on the other, they will more eagerly reach into our pockets—feeding into political decisions as voter dissatisfaction grows. I would bet dollars to peanuts that liberal-left lamentations and hair-tearing will then intensify, warning of populism, fascism, the “Putinization” of politics. These will be the words of people with an extraordinary talent for driving Poland into mediocrity, social decline, and economic trouble—people who love to boast of their competence and Europeanness, and who, when push comes to shove, vanish into thin air and accept no responsibility whatsoever—like former Health Minister Izabela Leszczyna.
Donald Tusk’s Manor Farm
When I scan liberal media lately, I see one pattern: socio-economic topics quickly evaporate from the headlines—or never appear there at all. There is plenty about the evil right and the “terrible” President Karol Nawrocki, the governing coalition’s valiant struggle for the rule of law (one could laugh out loud), some lifestyle fare, and, as usual, criticism of the Church. But all of this shows that liberal-left elites are fleeing ever faster into an alternative reality. Focused on an uncompromising fight against Jarosław Kaczyński’s party and savoring KO’s supposedly high ratings, they are unable to notice that they are once again losing touch with real social moods. They hide bad news about the economy and public finances from their audiences—such as the already mentioned fact that Fitch and Moody’s revised Poland’s rating outlook to negative in the autumn review round. But this cannot be concealed behind a curtain of silence: first, for all their flaws, social media can rapidly amplify what is inconvenient for those in power; second, mass layoffs, canceled visits, procedures and operations, and forecasts of rising energy prices are not things that can be hosed away, no matter how hard the “clean water” specialists try; third, the total crisis of the satellite parties forming a dysfunctional governing coalition is only a prelude to shifts in the polls.
When the current authorities were luring society with the vision of “one hundred specifics,” they wholeheartedly professed the philosophy of “the worse, the better.” They rejoiced in wartime inflation and the pandemic-related difficulties of the government. It gave them genuine pleasure, because they cared little about the fate of ordinary Polish women and men. Their present rule—conducted for the benefit of liberal-left elites alone—only confirms this. Unfortunately, we all have to live in this Augean stable. Or rather: on Mr. Donald’s manor farm.