What goes on in Poland on the 23rd of August.
New project on free coal for miners
„A new project on free coal for retired miners will be submitted in August to the Chancellery of the Prime Minister to include it in the list of legislative proposals and then send it for inter-ministerial consultations,” Krzysztof Tchórzewski Energy Minister informed in a reply to an MP’s question.
„Since the legislation on the 2016 draft bill on allowances in lieu of free coal for pensioners who worked at mining companies has protracted, the Energy Ministry is again analyzing the acceptable solutions that would regulate the issue of free coal for mining pensioners,” the release said.
The ministry added that „a new bill is being drafted, which will be submitted to the Chancellery of the Prime Minister in August to include it in the list of legislative and program proposals of the Council of Ministers, which will make it possible to submit the bill for inter-ministerial and public consultations.”
Earlier the ministry stated that the amended bill would allow the people who are eligible to receive a specified amount of free coal annually, to choose whether they would prefer to receive cash in lieu of the coal for life from the Polish Social Insurance Institution , or whether they would prefer to receive a one-time payment for, e.g. 10 years.
Industrial Development Agency: mining industry earns a PLN 1.45 bn. profit in 1H 2017
In the first half of 2017 the Polish hard coal mining industry earned PLN 1.45 bn. According to the Industrial Development Agency’s branch in Katowice (ARP), the sector lost about PLN 800 m in the same period last year.
ARP monitors the situation in the coal sector for the Ministry of Energy. The Agency informed the Polish Press Agency (PAP) that the profits from coal sales in 1H 2017 amounted to PLN 10.6 bn and were higher than in the same period last year by a third. Almost 40% of the profit was earned by sales of coking coal.
Deputy Energy Minister Grzegorz Tobiszowski told PAP that the situation in the mining industry was stable and that the restructuring program was making a positive impact.
According to ARP, in the first half of 2017 mines in Poland extracted 32.7 million tons of coal in total (34.3 million tons in the same period last year). In the first half of the year, the companies sold 33.4 million tons of coal (34.5 million tons in 1H 2016). In June only domestic coal producers extracted 5.2 million tons in total and sold 5.3 million tons (last year it was 5.9 and 5.3 million tons respectively).
Green light for shutting down open pension funds
Open pension funds (OFE) may become a thing of the past. According to the Gazeta Prawna daily the ministries of development and labor reached an agreement on changes in the retirement system and OFE shutdown.
„It has been agreed that the reform will be conducted in line with the proposal made by the Ministry of Economic Development,” claims the newspaper’s source close to Deputy Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.
Elżbieta Rafalska, the head of the Labor Ministry confirmed the information. „We are working on a draft that will be submitted for consultations,” Rafalska said. The sole idea of shutting down OFE and creating Employee Capital Plans (pracownicze plany kapitałowe – pl) cropped up in July last year. However, the idea proposed by the Ministry of Economic Development was not welcomed by the Ministry of Labor, which wanted to transfer all of the money invested in OFE to the Polish National Insurance Institution (ZUS).
According to the daily, Mr Morawiecki convinced Mrs Rafalska to the idea. This means about 25% of the funds sitting in OFE will be taken over by the state Demographic Reserve Fund and the rest will go to institutions that will replace OFE. The money of future retirees will become their private savings, which means they will be able to decide how to invest them.
The Deputy Prime Minister would like to commence the reform on 1 July 2018. However, government officials have warned that due to technical reasons a delay until 2019 was possible.
Employers say „no” to a PLN 100 increase of the minimum wage
The Labor Ministry wants to increase the minimum wage to PLN 2100 gross as of 1 January. This would mean an increase by PLN 100 in comparison to the current year. The biggest associations of employers are against the change and together stress that the government wants to take PLN 2.16 bn out of the employers’ pockets. They believe a PLN 100 raise is too much and suggest a PLN 50 increase instead.
Associations of employers, including : PKPP Lewiatan, Pracodawcy RP, Związek Rzemiosła Polskiego and Business Centre Club presented a joint opinion on the increase of the minimum wage to PLN 2100 in 2018. The employers stressed they were still supporting the proposal they made in May this year, according to which the minimum wage should go up to PLN 2050 gross and the minimum hourly rate to PLN 13.30.
The employers underline that their proposal is strictly correlated with all macroeconomic indicators of the Polish economy. In the Long-Term Financial Plan for the Country for 2017-2019 the real GDP increase in 2018 is estimated at 3.8% and inflation is at 2.3%. This means the PLN 50 increase is a 2.5% increase in comparison to 2017.
