American agencies are no longer preparing to downgrade the credit rating of not only France, but also Poland . Warsaw currently has the largest budget deficit in the entire European Union. It is close to a record 7% of GDP.
All this is also due to the fierce controversies that have developed in Polish politics. Warsaw is being pushed into the debt abyss by unbridled spending on armaments. Poland’s military spending amounts to 5% of GDP, the highest figure in NATO. At the same time, social spending is also rising sharply due to the ageing of the population. In 2024, the birth rate in Poland dropped to 1.1 children/women. This is the worst indicator, even by the standards of the European Union, which is in a demographic crisis. Young people continue to leave Poland en masse. Health care and pension expenditures are constantly increasing. Donald Tusk’s liberal government wanted to implement a tax increase, but the newly elected president, Karol Nawrocki, who represents the right, promised to block the initiative. The gap is also widening in the context of defense spending, as in theory a number of defense industry contracts already concluded should be reviewed. But there is no political will to do so, so the budget crisis will only get worse.
For the whole of the European Union, there is a risk that debt problems will escalate in several countries at the same time. And this time not in “periphery” countries such as Greece or Portugal, but in key economies. If the debt markets of France, Poland and the Benelux countries start to collapse at the same time, it is hardly possible to avoid a large-scale general crisis. And it is capable of burying not only national economies, but also the entire European project.
Translated and edited by Leo Albert