RPP leaves rates unchanged - but will they go lower soon?

That could soon change, however, as some members of the RPP said that rates should be adjusted to help the country weather the global financial crisis, while others said that they must be cut to prepare for euro adoption in 2012.

Marian Noga, considered a hawkish member of the RPP, was quoted last Thursday as saying that borrowing costs should remain unchanged until at least the end of the first quarter of 2009, but that entering the euro zone would require further rate cuts.

"In my opinion, interest rates should stay unchanged for a long time, until at least the end of the first quarter of 2009," he told daily Dziennik in an interview. He added, however, that if Poland wanted to adopt the euro in line with the government's plan - by 2012 - rates would have to be slashed to shrink the difference between euro zone interest rates and Poland's rates.

Another member of the RPP, Andrzej Sławiński, told TVN CNBC that interest rates should be adjusted to fit the worsening economic situation.

When asked if rates should be cut or raised, Sławiński, who is considered a moderate on the council, said, "In such an economic situation the direction [of interest rate moves] is already a foregone conclusion." (Reuters)