It will not be a short-term crisis headlines Rzeczpospolita and publishes the results of a poll it had commissisoned.

Press reviewed by Agnieszka Bielawska

Forty-six percent of respondents state that the government cannot handle the present crisis. Sixty-three percent think that the crisis will last at least some two years and the pessimists primarily come from large cities with Varsovians in the lead. Over 53 percent of those polled are of the opinion that in order to help solve the situation some of the ministers should be replaced with more competent persons. Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Deputy Premier Waldemar Pawlak have committed mistakes which can cost Poland a lot, writes Rzeczpospolita. Not intervening into the financial market hit some 1,5 million Polish families which have felt the effects of the weakened Polish currency. Thus, the prime minister hit a very huge group of the Civic Platform electorate adds the daily. However, Rzeczpospolita goes on to say that only every third Pole tries to spend less due to the crisis, and it is mostly women, who care more about spending.

In an interview for Gazeta Wyborcza daily, Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski says that the situation in Poland can be even worse than in the ‘black scenario’ envisaged by the government. One of the effects of the crisis can be the postponement of Poland entry into the euro zone, which the government planned for 2012. The Finance Minister adds that even though he does not expect recession to hit Poland, he takes into account that the economic development may fall below the envisaged 1.7 percent GDP. The situation is exceptional, Jacek Rostowski explains in Gazeta Wyborcza. The world has been hit with the largest financial disaster since the 30s. Poland is facing the second big challenge since the transformations of the early 1990’s adds the Finance Minister. Jacek Rostowski also declares he sees a slight paradox in the solution chosen by many western countries, which is falling into debt as a recipe to solve the crisis. Poland’s finance minister says that increasing state debt as a cure for reckless living in debts and mortgages cannot be effective in the long run.

‘We eat modified food and no one cares,’ alarms Dziennik. Poland is one of the five EU states boasting the largest area of land under genetically modified plants and is confronted with a rather alarming problem that no one is in control of the crops. In 2008, over 3,000 hectares were used for such GMO cultivation, which is nine times more than in 2007 read statistics of the ISAAA the US Agency monitoring agricultural markets. No such statistics are conducted in Poland and thus the government has little idea what is the situation in practice. There are still no regulations pertaining to GMO monitoring writes Dziennik. It is astounding adds the paper, how can the cultivation develop without being watched over by authorised institutions?