Gowin in FT: Poland should buy up foreign banks
14:20
Foreign capital “definitely has too much power” in the Polish banking industry, Minister of Science and Higher Education Jarosław Gowin told British newspaper the Financial Times arguing the state should act to increase the level of Polish ownership as part of a program of "economic patriotism."
"We should use the opportunity that some of the foreign banks are in trouble, and move to renationalize them,” Gowin said. "In that transition phase, the Polish state may buy up these banks … but only to privatize them later."
"[But] if I had a choice to sell a bank to a foreign investor or a Polish investor, and if the conditions are comparable, even if the Polish investor is my steadfast opponent, of course I would prefer to sell it to the Pole," Gowin continued.
The official also suggested that the government was concerned by the dominance of foreign companies, mainly German, in the country’s media market.
“Why would I assume that German owners of Polish newspapers are less patriotic than I?” he said. “I assume they are wonderful German patriots and whenever there may be any collision of national interests they would try to smuggle the German point of view [into their newspapers]."
