The conflict between the central bank and the government does not seem to be going away. The government has heaped all the wrongs of the economy onto the central bank and made it the scapegoat. Central bank head Leszek Balcerowicz says that the problem is that the government needs to get its own finances sorted out and not just to blame others. This is a view shared by the EU commission and that of a recent leader article in the London Financial Times.
Leszek Balcerowicz says that if the monetary policy committee of the central bank did not make decisions on interest rates but rather the management of the bank itself, then in all probability interest rates would be roughly the same.
The government is proposing to increase the size of the committee in order to get their people on board in order to push through the SLDÃs policies. This is a rather similar method to the one used in Britain ninety years ago to increase the size of the House of Lords to get new lords to effectively vote for their own dissolution. Finance minister Marek Belka says that increasing the size of the committee is just a matter of time. Balcerowicz says that to increase the number of members is absurd, especially as the government is planning its own legal changes which suggest a totally different policy. He says that the question that needs to be examined is the consequences of this type of action.
Of course it may be easier for Balcerowicz just to convince the president not to sign into law any bill that would reduce the powers of the bank. Balcerowicz has argued with Kwasniewski that the only way to produce long term, systematic economic growth is to strengthen macroeconomic foundations and reduce the current account deficit as well as structural reforms reducing the state deficit at the same time as making the right environment for job creation. This, Balcerowicz claims, is what is generally accepted, but cannot be introduced as there is too much political opposition.