Honestly it cuts both ways

The common agricultural policy, which at €80 billion consumes two-thirds of the entire EU budget, has long been a festival for crooks and schemers. It was once claimed that if there really were the number of olive trees in Italy declared in official claims for subsidies, there would be no room left for anyone to stand up. Indeed, should Sicily become an independent state, its GDP might consist entirely of a positive inflow of funds swindled from the CAP. Fraud is the word most observers associate with a sprawling swamp of almost completely unpoliced spending: year upon year the Court of Auditors, watchdog over EU expenditures, issues solemn denunciations of profligate pilfering of taxpayers' money. But, apart from the exposure of the occasional isolated scam, the rackets roll on unmolested in every area where common sense and market forces have been replaced by indiscriminate subsidies.

Now the consuls in Brussels, the 20 executive commssioners, have drawn about them the crisp white robes of moral probity and instructed the Polish Government and nine other countries patiently standing in the membership queue to attend to the problems of rampant domestic corruption lest they sully the carpet once they are let through the door. It is disingenuous to argue that the charge, certainly as levelled at Poland, is not true: the problem lies with the ethical credibility of those who are pointing their fingers.
The present commission is a successor to a previous one which, not so long ago, was fired en masse; as much as anything else for incompetent stewardship of the European Union's finances. The new incumbents, despite all their chest beating and dedications to greater transparency, remain unreconstructed. The budget is inscrutable in terms of ensuring European taxpayers receive value in exchange for their money. In no small part, this is due to vested interests firmly entrenched inside the apparatus of the Union, who prefer matters to remain as they are. Whistleblowers inside the Commission who alert those who should be the guardians of fiscal stringency are - and there has just been another such case - suspended on full pay and then effectively silenced.
The EU has a massive fraud and waste problem exacerbated in many instances by incompetent administration. The situation has been tolerated for years by member state governments, by successive executive commissions and by Euro MPs, who as the elected representatives of the taxpayers, ought to be the most concerned. Brussels is adept at making charges, such as those just addressed to Poland, while failing to attend effectively to its own extensively soiled laundry. Government negotiators in Brussels just might care to take note.

How indebted we are
The Governor of the National Bank is surely right in warning that Poland is going over the brink in terms of public debt. Unfortunately, these strictures are somewhat devalued by Professor Balcerowicz's contribution as Minister of Finance in amassing this poisoned inheritance for future generations. It is true that as the minor partner in the late and unlamented AWS coalition, Balcerowicz and his Freedom Union colleagues endured sustained hostility from the union-driven factions in the government as well as the catholic nationalists on its fringes, when they quite properly preached fiscal conservatism and the missal of lower taxes to stimulate growth.
And yet, the future governor could see clearly enough that by allowing the senior coalition partner to compound debt with debt, and with barely a grosz invested in schools, hospitals, transport or other public infrastructure, the result must be misery.
One can almost detect hollow laughter from poor Edward Gierek's tomb, he who died a pauper after bankrupting the country. Poland has earned billions of foreign investment euros this past decade. This should have been the seed corn money to construct a modern state. The utterly wretched railway system, invisible motorways and an explosion of poverty are what we have instead. The national addiction to debt instead of using taxes as an incentive is, as the Monetary Council warns, fraught with risk. What a pity Professor Balcerowicz did not use the splendid opportunity when he had it in his hands to excise the culture of borrowing.