Politicians should stay out of private company business, Balcerowicz says
Finance Minister Leszek Balcerowicz seems to be warming to the political challenges of the next 18 months.
President Aleksander Kwasniewski is up for reelection late this year and, so far, no one even seems likely to knock him off course, let alone the head of Solidarity Election Action (AWS), Marion Krzaklewski, or the Nobel laureaute and former president, Lech Walesa.
Elections in late 2001 will decide whether Kwasniewski has enough coattails to elect enough Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) deputies to wrest control of Parliament, and thus the government, from the AWS coalition. Most Poles predict that will happen.
But Balcerowicz is not going to make it easy for them. In a breakfast address to a packed house at the American Chamber of Commerce, he fleshed out some of what will be key campaign arguments by reformers.
For example, political control over private companies. That's bad a legacy of the past. And getting the politicians away from dictating what state enterprises do, let alone what private companies do, is a key reason why privatization needs to be kept on the fast track, he said. Balcerowicz wove the nuances of that argument through his speech and in 45 minutes of fielding questions from investors. He got the first crack at it from a question about the furor surrounding Deutsche Bank's takeover moves against BIG Bank Gdanski (BIG BG), including its attempted ouster of BIG BG President Boguslaw Kott and his supporters on the board. Was this just part of the global trend toward takeovers or, as some Polish media had it, "a catastrophe, especially for those from the SLD?" The questioner noted that SLD official Marek Borowski had lambasted Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek on the Deutsche Bank-BIG BG affair.
"This is freedom of speech," Balcerowicz said of Borowski's criticism of Buzek, drawing his first laugh. Then he went on to say, in essence, that this wasn't a government matter that BIG Bank had been private for years and was already majority-owned by foreign capital. "So the nature of the conflict is between foreign shareholders," he said.
If there has been "any infringement of the rules," he continued, this will be handled by the enforcers of the rules the banking supervision office and the Securities and Exchange Commission (KPWiG). "And they will have to decide that, but without political intrusion."
Then Balcerowicz inched up the irony so it was clear for all to see.
He didn't have to remind people that Kwasniewski had called Marek Belka in Davos to grill him about it (Belka being both Kwasniewski's economic adviser and a BIG board member who was ousted).
"Perhaps this is a favorite bank among some politicians, but that is another matter," he said.
Prime Property's Janet Choynowski refused to say whether she thought Balcerowicz was using the breakfast to try out political themes. She says she stays out of politics. However, she agreed with the hands-off position of the government about Deutsche Bank's move on BIG BG.
"If we want the government to keep its hands out of business, that's what they should do," she said. "This is private capital, a private bank and a private board meeting. It's nobody else's business. Would the U.S. government be expected to render an opinion on Chase Manhattan?"
She added that Deutsche's and BIG BG's foreign shareholders "don't get on. They don't like each other. That may be news, but I don't think it's a political matter."
On other topics, Balcerowicz also engaged in a spirited back-and-forth exchange with Dorothy E. Hansbery-Biegunska, vice president and general counsel of Polska Telewizja Kablowa, owner of @Entertainment.
What is the central government doing to enable Warsaw to improve its infrastructure so it can compete with the Berlins, Budapests and Pragues of other transitional cities in the coming fight for regional headquarters, she asked.
Does that mean you want higher taxes? Balcerowicz asked.
No, no, no. "It means you'd keep more of Warsaw's tax money in Warsaw," she said.
"This means less money for other regions?" he asked.
"Yes," she said.
"I see. Just point out the other regions you want to get less money," he said. He added that he supported her core premise of bolstering Warsaw but, in his answer, also showed a real political sense for trouble in an election year.
