Determinants and Long-Term Implications of the Strategy for Poland

Abstract

The Strategy for Poland was a multi-layered programme of dynamic socio-economic development that emerged between late 1993 and early 1994. It was embedded in the foundations of social market economy institutions and structural reforms responding to the challenges of globalisation. The Strategy for Poland was a medium-term programme, yet it also laid out priorities for the long term. In hindsight, it offered an essentially correct diagnosis of the conditions of sustainable development and outlined its long-term goals. Much of what the programme said about structural reforms and institutional changes as well as internal and external development determinants a quarter-century ago is still valid today. This in particular applies to challenges such as the imperative of creating a social market economy and the competitiveness of enterprises under conditions of wide openness to the world. The strategy also accurately assessed the benefits of integration with the European Union and adequately addressed social security system reform, while also highlighting the need for efficient financial supervision and an economy increasingly driven by knowledge.

Keywords

• development strategy
• economic policy
• social market economy
• post-socialist transformation
• real socialism