One of the institutions of the European Union, which investigates corruption among countries – members of the Union, published the results of its research. It follows that the degree of corruption in Poland is 1 of the largest in the full Union. Only in Bulgaria and Romania is worse. What do you think? The first thought that came to my head was that it was most likely the biggest defeat of the present form of Polish statehood. This is simply a major disaster in the political and legal systems. In that order.
For over 30 years, we have not developed a political strategy in Poland that would at least impede corruption. We entered the EU as a country with the top corruption. As you can see, for almost 20 years nothing has changed. By the way, I will note that there was no, no, and there will be no completely corrupt strategy besides in countries arrogant of the fact that there is barely any corruption in them. And that's what the "almost" is about. I know that from my experience. As 1 of the top successes of my twelve-year-old presidency in Stalowa Wola, I consider the regulation of corruption. A very large restriction, but unfortunately not elimination.
What is most corrupt in the political strategy in Poland is the organization system. The essence of this strategy was the acquisition of power for positions and circumstantial publishing and the trade of thousands of jobs in offices and enterprises. I dare say that in political parties in Poland as much as eighty percent of the time and energy are devoted to individual issues on a basis of who against whom, and erstwhile the organization has taken power, these issues dominate the functioning of the government and immediately translate into doing business whose core is corruption.
If you look at the past 30 years of political life in Poland, do you gotta ask whether exposed and even more undisclosed corruption was the biggest problem in the functioning of the state? I don't dare say yes to that question, but I will insist that he is surely 1 of the 3 biggest problems. In Russia and Ukraine, corruption has become almost a constitutional part of the state strategy and almost no 1 in the political circles of these countries imagines that this could change. This is best seen by Russia's problems in the war against Ukraine. Corruption had a immense influence on the bad condition of the Russian army. Corruption in Russia and Ukraine is 1 of the biggest brakes in their development. I wonder if Poland has reached a phase specified as Russia or Ukraine? most likely not, but under the Law and Justice, we're dangerously approaching this state.
Since 1989, all governments have been fighting corruption, but to their satisfaction they have always lost. Once, corruption was temporarily won and the government lost. This happened between 2002 and 2003 in the case of the Rywin affair resulting in the collapse of the government of the SLD. After that, no government collapsed due to corruption. In this respect, things got worse. The apogee came during the current PiS rule. Before the PiS institutionalized corruption, he gained power under the slogans of ruthless fighting against it. Its symbol became the establishment of the Central Anti-corruption Office. However, it shortly became apparent that this service was becoming increasingly political police in the hands of the presently ruling force.
A peculiar accomplishment of the Law and Justice has been the legalisation of corruption. They haven't figured this out in Russia or Ukraine yet. Corruption there is indeed an almost authoritative part of the state structure, but it has not been incorporated into the legal system, it has not been legalised. In fact, corruption is simply a form of theft, and in fact no 1 questions it in Russia, Ukraine or Poland. What, then, is the situation where a individual buys millions of vaccines or thousands of respirators without a tender and without any control? What's not corruption – stealing is simply a situation where 1 guy present starts a foundation, and another guy who's advanced in government, gives him a million-dollar grant for almost the next day? It all happens within the limits of the law, the law created by the Law and Justice.
In the field of the circumstantial legalisation of corruption, the theft of the Law and Justice Office is possibly even more successful. It consists of the acceptance of specified practices by a large part of the society, which is included in the phrase "steal but divide". We most likely don't realize how this got us close to Russia and Ukraine.
The parliamentary election run is already underway. However, I do not hear parties opposing the governments of the Law and Justice organization saying that they will destruct the strategy of legalized corruption – theft. Nor can it be stressed that the most effective way to fight corruption is not to appoint police services to prosecute it, nor to strengthen the law punishing it, but to rebuild the strategy of law and state structures to destruct opportunities for corruption.
Corruption has no place between private companies. It only takes place at the interface between the state and local government sector and the private sector, as well as between the various institutions of the state and local government sector. The expanding influence of the state on the economy and complexity of the law, frequently the consequence of conscious action, will foster the improvement of corruption, and the demoralizing impact of the organization strategy on society, will increase the scale of authorisation for this form of theft. And the only way to improve Poland's quotations in the EU erstwhile it comes to the degree of corruption is not to accept Ukraine.
Andrzej Szlezak
