'Adopting euro against Poland's interests' says opposition leader

Jaroslaw Kaczynski: photo - PAP/Andrzej Hrechorowicz

Kaczynski said at a press conference yesterday that though Poland had agreed to drop the zloty and adopt the euro when it signed the Lisbon Treaty as the country entered the EU in 2004, the “euro is now something else to what it was”.

He pointed to the Czech Republic, which has ruled out joining the eurozone for the foreseeable future as an example of the road Poland should take.

“The euro is completely contrary to our interests,” Kaczynski said in his most anti-single currency speech yet, arguing that joining the eurozone would compromise Poland's national sovereignty.

Poland's finance minister Jacek Rostowski, of the centre-right Civic Platform (PO) party, confirmed this week, however, that it was still the government's intention to adopt the single currency “when conditions are right” - though that time is still some way off.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski also criticised the finance policies in Prime Minister Donald Tusk's policy speech to parliament last Friday. Kaczynski rounded on the proposal to raise the retirement age for both men and women to 67 years old and the cuts to some child benefits.

Kaczynski claimed that the government was making the less well off pay for the finance crisis and suggested tax reform as a solution to Poland's public debt. (pg)