Jacek Bartosiak & Albert Świdziński talk about Poland’s journey from peripheral position and its prospects (Video)

Hi everyone, my name is Albert Świdziński. Welcome to another Strategy and Future podcast. We switched roles today. Usually it's Jacek who's the founder of Strategy and Future. It is usually him who starts our conversations. But we decided to swap roles today because Jacek and another colleague of ours Marek Stefan are in process of writing a new book. I I think it's the first call-up between them in the book form, which concerns Poland s role, Poland s path, Poland s travel from periphery to core. Poland historically, while obviously we like to repeat to ourselves an integral part of Europe, has been, especially in terms of

The way its legal system has developed, the banking system, the ability to mobilize capital, the industrial production has usually been considered to be not necessarily the very core region of Europe. And Jacek and Marek's book both describes, I suppose, this path and also how, proposes a way to change it, which is especially difficult since At least this is my feeling. The core we used to aspire to, which is Western Europe, more broadly speaking the West, Poland is not really the core of the global economic system of the innovation ecosystems anymore.

That has moved either across the Atlantic or to East Asia. So, Jacek, if you could give us a brief rundown of your book, the main premises, where do we want to find ourselves in 10, 20, 50 years time? The subject that we are trying to debate in the book with Marek Stefan has been a central point of concern for Polish strategists for the last couple of hundred of years. Especially the English speaker, for those in the world who speak English, who are educated in the Anglo-Saxon Poland and countries in this part of the world are a flyover zone between Germany and Russia.

This entity was more modern, more advanced, more technologically savvy and society was less feudal. Poland was trapped. Once a great power in this part of the world under the name of the Commonwealth, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, reaching one million kilometers, a great agrarian empire whose model of development was based on the mentioned agrarian production and a very effective military system based on almost 10% of gentry serving in the army and making sure that the political system is balanced.

Let's not go into further details. And it lasted for several centuries until it collapsed under the weight of its own backwardness, but most importantly under the growing power of Russia, under Peter the Great and the following rulers of Russia. And then Russia entered the European game. And the former geopolitical arrangement, where the Commonwealth was an important part of it, collapsed, was destroyed. And in the modern era, the Western thinkers didn't have to take into account the old gravity. Jacek Bartosiak, Jacek Bartosiak, Świdziński, Albert, Poland.

Jacek Bartosiak, Jacek Bartosiak, Świdziński, Albert, Poland. Poland was the nice way to put it. Or the Germans called it Poland seasonal state. The Soviets called it the bastard of the Versailles Treaty. And there were many other nice words. But for the Westerners from Western Europe and from Great Britain and the United States, Poland was the country from which everybody wanted to flee. You know, if you want to become an actress or a supermodel, you went to Paris or New York.

Makinder mówił, że to dlatego, że siły i siły terenu zniszczyły się tam. To jest dokładny wpływ zniszczeń. I można powiedzieć, że wojna w Ukrainie jest epitomem tego. The sea power of the United States that entered the old continent and moved eastwards with the expansion of NATO to include Poland and Baltic states and maybe Ukraine and Ukrainian ambitions that didn't want to be trapped in this continental thing. And always a permanent fear of Russia shadowing over us and our independence and also our progress.

So Poland always has two strategic dilemmas. One is how to keep Russia out of the European system of balancing game. NATO and the United States did it for us for the last 35 years. Before that, the Soviet Union was occupying us and we had also the interwar period after we had defeated the Soviet troops. But before that, only before Peter the Great, we could exist because Russia was out of the system. So now the Polish objective is to keep Russia out of the European system, which will be a very tough Jacek Bartosiak, Jacek Bartosiak Albert Świdziński

Jacek Bartosiak Poland has been for the last 400 years a peripheral country in terms of economic development. So we were poorer, less developed, less advanced and we had to rely heavily on other in macroeconomic system. On imperial Russia to prosper, on Germany like in the last 35 years to prosper as a subcontracting economy. Also, you know, thanks to the EU funds.

And there is a revolution maturing in Poland because the new private sector that had to go through the hardship of the privatizations of the foreign capital, penetrations of the 90s and the unemployment and then grew up and this is the sector that delivers the growth of which Poland is famous in Europe will want to have a political right, political power very soon. And also will demand reforms. And it will demand a different place for Poland in the European macroeconomic system. Not anymore the peripheral country that provides raw subcontracting services or raw materials or agricultural products.

And the new leadership will need to emerge that will address it. Of course we will see how it plays out. But those are two challenges that occurring at the same time, keeping Russia at bay and also advancing in the value chain, simply. With the chaos that Trump and this geopolitical contest between the US and China over who is in charge of the edifice of the global capitalism, so Poland will also play its game to advance, to advance fast and swiftly. Jacek Bartosiak, Jacek Bartosiński

So for you to know, just to summarize, Poland intellectually is not a peripheral country. We have strategies and we used to form empire. And we are just undusting old books, old texts and thinking how to do it. But keep always in mind there are those two objectives at the same time and they are very difficult, it's very difficult to serve them both. Albert, back to you. I guess that's a good start to have a more in-depth conversation. So basically if I could broadly Maybe help you paint the snapshot of where we find ourselves right now.

This is changing. You can see different countries in the EU taking different approaches to this. You see Spain for example looking to find itself a place in the Chinese value chains. Jacek Bartosiak, Świdziński, Albert, Poland. With it being particularly problematic for Poland because the country is too big to just ignore.

If Poland doesn't play ball, it has the potential to destabilize the region, destabilize the cooperation between Russia and the Western Europeans. It could be a thorn. And at the same time, in and of itself, it is too small to be an independent element defining the rules. Jacek Bartosiak Albert Świdziński Jacek Bartosiak, Jacek Bartosiak Albert Świdziński

How, even in 17th century, at the heyday of Polish mine, 15th, 16th, 17th century, we used to export raw wood, you remember, grains. Yeah, that was mine at the time, that was the main product and the main capital was soil. And whether this was a product of, you know, going all the way back to not having, you know, any, due to the, you know, Teutoburg Forest, You know, no access to Roman legacy, whether it was lack of access to capital, whether it was the problem with, you know, the gentry petrifying the social relations in Poland. But the bottom line is we used to, in some ways, economically, we still are semi-peripheral, but the core is no more.

We cannot really, even if we are comfortable and unambitious, And we would be happy to stay in that position. It's unlikely to be a possibility simply because the core is withering. So what do we do with that? So on those three levels, where do you, because we have to find a clearly that things cannot go on as they had, even if we wish them to. So where do we go from here? We are trying to put a genuine light on Poland s ambitious growth and people are even jealous in Europe of how fast we grow. But it must be admitted that this growth was based on the model of development that is expiring.

And Poland will need to find a new engine. For the new engine to be found, you need to have a new political representatives, new representation, new elites. And the political power of the middle class That was created in hardship of the 90s and 2000s has to be manifested in how the elections work and how the country is being reformed and their reforms will have to be thorough. And then Poland will be strong enough to address the two issues that are most acute. Keeping Russia at bay, at best, you know, and most preferably with our friends in the region. Because as we talked before, the future of the United States is unknown and is

Involvement in European matters is unknown and at the time the United States is bent on becoming a predatory hegemon especially to its allies that are too vulnerable and to leaning on the United States military protection. So Poland will also have to jettison this approach. This approach was very convenient because we didn't need to think about our own security that manifests itself in the failing military industry and a kind of a lukewarm army, let me put it that way. This will have to change. Also our industrial policy will need to be changed to address the growing particularisms and protectionist regimes in the global economy.

Our relationship with the core of the EU will have to change in order to keep the accumulation of wealth in Poland and the capital. And that concerns the price transferring abroad and other policies and behaviors that are typical of the peripheral countries and were being kind of imposed upon us in the 90s. Jacek Bartosiak, Jacek Bartosiak Albert Świdziński, Jacek Bartosiak Albert Świdziński

He had to adjust. So things are changing. We will see if they will change for good and for the long time. It will very much hint upon the outcome of the war between Russia and Ukraine and the reforms, the major reforms that will need to be undertaken in Poland in order to move Poland past the middle income trap. And the political leader that will emerge, who will be Who will be capable of grasping the breadth of this challenge, the importance of this challenge and the necessity to carry it through and implement the change will change Poland and will change the region.

So that's the case and I think that the situation is maturing in terms of the structure of politics and the wishes of the society. Albert? This is a question we asked ourselves in our private conversations, but access to capital has also been something that has been a severe problem here in Poland, right? And also access to innovation. At this point in time we will have to still, even though we're looking to remove ourselves from the periphery, We ourselves clearly are not forming a core region in and of itself.

Labor force, broadly speaking, while Russia provides both space and raw resources. So we find ourselves in a position where we can either try to block the cooperation between that budding Eurasian synergy with Western Europe or be a gatekeeper of it. How would you position Poland and region more broadly vis-a-vis that megatrend? Capital, where do we find the core and how do we position ourselves vis-a-vis globally integrating Eurasia, economically integrating Eurasia. That's also a tough question and a tough issue for many reasons and on many layers.

Poland is part of the western Jacek Bartosiak, Jacek Bartosiak. Jacek Bartosiak, Jacek Bartosiak.

Because they want to remain at the core, at the center of the world capitalism with the greatest yields and they don't care about European yields actually. So they are transforming the system and Canada is the best example. Canada being a sub-peripheral, semi-peripheral is becoming a fully peripheral if Canadian government The same fate may happen in Europe if it doesn't go its own way. Opening a discussion with China might be an option. For Poland, continental, Continental consolidation of Eurasia is both a threat under some conditions and a benefit under other conditions.

So it is a threat if the continental consolidation is being undertaken and implemented under the leadership and the decisive vote of Russia. And it's been a disaster for Poland during the Second World War and in the 19th century and when that was the case. If it is China that is doing it, and in the terms of trade and political consequences of those, negotiate between China and the European Peninsula, This is the new world that we've never been in.