Beata Szydło delivers policy speech

Poland's Prime Minister Beata Szydło said in her inauguration speech, delivered before parliament, that Poland will inject PLN 1 trillion into the economy to boost innovation and economic  growth. Beata Szydło started her address with a reference to terrorism and the refugee crisis, stating that the EU cannot burden European countries with problems that other EU members created.  "The issue of refugees is making us aware that the question of solidarity must be defined clearly," Szydło said. "One cannot call attempts to export problems, which some countries have created without others' participation -solidarity," she continued. The Prime Minister announced that her government will support Polish SMEs by lowering  the CIT tax rate to 15 percent for small companies. Szydło highlighted that her government will base Poland's economy on investments and innovation and not on cheap labor. "We have to break out of the middle-income trap...In order to do that, we must use all of the reserves that we have." Speaking about boosting growth, she pledged to invest PLN 1 trillion. "This is the one trillion zlotys for economic development projects which we were talking about during the election campaign." The Prime Minister also reiterated her party's earlier promises: to increase the tax threshold to PLN 8,000, lower retirement age, hand out PLN 500 for every child and raise the minimum hourly wage to PLN 12. Szydło also declared that she will introduce taxes on large retailers and banks.