05-02-2014, 12:22 PM
Curious, one of the scarce EU economic success stories of late, very little attention, I'll gather some info here.
Of the 10 mostly post-communist countries that joined the European Union exactly a decade ago today, none has benefited more from membership than Poland. First and foremost, there's the cash: the country received £56bn in development funds between 2007 and 2013, money that was used to build hundreds of kilometres of highways and express roads as well as youth sports facilities, modern sewerage systems, kindergartens and pre-schools. Add to that the £60bn earmarked for Warsaw in the EU's 2014-20 budget and the country will have enjoyed a windfall equivalent to roughly double the value of the Marshall Plan, calculated in today's dollar figures. And that does not take into account the tens of billions of pounds that Polish farmers continue to receive in agricultural subsidies from Brussels. What we are witnessing is, without doubt, one of the largest wealth transfers between nations in modern history.
How the EU transformed Poland | Remi Adekoya | Comment is free | theguardian.com
The Polish stock exchange, the WIG30 is the main index, hasn't been a top performer though (see graph below). Here is the official portal, and here is the composition of the WIG30