Bloomberg: Poland to be Brexit's biggest loser?

Poland might be one of the Brexit's losers, according to Bloomberg. The UK's exit from the EU, might hurt Polish economy directly and indirectly and cost it billion of euros. “It’s obvious that Brexit is crucially important to us,” Deputy Foreign Minister Konrad Szymański was quoted as saying. “If we don’t carry it out well, it will harm the internal market. And it will probably be difficult to coordinate on residency issues because the stakes are uneven,” he added. According to Bloomberg, when the UK, EU's second biggest net contributor leaves the bloc, the funds earmarked for CEE countries including Poland will be lowered, as the EU budget will be slimmer without the UK funds. Poland is the biggest net recipient of EU aid, having received €250 billion so far, more than the US funded Marshall Plan which helped Western Europe overcome economic troubles after the World War II. EU is also mulling different scenarios after Brexit, one of which assumes different pace of integration between EU members. If Poland continues its current plan to weaken EU institutions after Brexit, it might suffer in result, former Finance Minister Mirosław Gronicki said. “Poland’s biggest success isn’t how much EU funds it absorbed, but how much its economy opened up and gained from the single market. If some EU members start deepening their relations without Poland, we will surely lose out,” he explained. The current EU financial framework will end in 2020, one year after the Brexit negotiations will conclude. How the next one will look like remains to be seen.