Poland does not expect the EU Council to lift this year the Excessive Deficit Procedure, an EU mechanism for enforcing fiscal rules. The country missed its public-deficit target for 2012 according to the recently released data from the Central Statistical Office (GUS).
Warsaw has been subject to scrutiny from Brussels since 2009 for running public deficits above the EU’s limit of 3% of gross domestic product. Despite initial plans to shrink the gap to 2.97%, the 2012 deficit ended up at 3.9% of GDP, GUS said.
“The Polish government believes it will reduce its general government deficit to 3.5% of GDP in 2013, thus paving the way to lifting excessive deficit procedure in 2014 versus previously expected 2013”, Polish Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski said at a news conference.
Of the EU’s 27 members, 20 are currently under an Excessive Deficit Procedure for missing deficit targets.
Poland is the only European Union country to have avoided a recession since the Lehman Brothers’ collapse in 2008, but its expansion decelerated to 1.9% last year from 4.5% in 2011, according to recent data.
With the prolonged troubles of the eurozone undercutting the country’s export industries, rising unemployment, and pressure on private consumption and investment, the finance ministry cut its growth forecast for 2013 to 1.5%