Main issues of public debt in Poland in comparison with EU countries

Abstract

The purpose of the paper is to present the main problems related public debt in Poland in com­parison to EU countries. These comprise: low rating and high servicing costs, high level of foreign debt in the State Budget, high level of the deficit in central government (excluding the year 2018), high level of debt in foreign currencies open to variability in exchange rates, lack of long-term debt strategy, failure to satisfy all the requirements of accession to the EURO area, and lack of optimal debt strategy in the economic and financial sense. The current financial policy of Poland, featuring a significant increase in budget expenditures in 2019 and the following years, does not foster the solving of these problems. The direction of indebtedness of Poland after the international crisis in 2008 is not consistent with other EU countries, especially in terms of decreasing debt profitability and servicing costs. It is also related to the lack of a fixed date for accession to the euro area, i.e. be­longing to a small group of countries without a common currency and low GDP level. The progress of Poland in terms of debt reduction at the end of previous century and the situation of countries having healthy public finances indicates the directions of optimization for the debt strategy. Many problems require resolution in the shorter time-horizon (about five years): reduction of debt/GDP ratio to the level from the year 2000, achieve the rating of at least A+ (according to S&P), decreasing of servicing costs to a level below 1% of GDP, and start of accession to the euro area.