Polish Finance Minister

Polish Finance Minister Jan Vincent Rostowski says the recent EC economic prognosis anticipating a pessimistic scenario for Poland is simply wrong.

The European Commission has published a prognosis, in which it anticipates a "mild recession", the fall of the GDP by 1.4% and the rise of the budget deficit to 6.6% of the GDP. Due to a predicted large budget deficit, the European Commission will most probably want to punish Poland, said Joaquin Almunia, EU commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs.

Polish finance minister said the prognosis of the European Commission was not reliable. 'We disagree with it. We think it's wrong and that our prognoses, which forecast further economic growth in Poland, are more reliable,' said the minister.

One expert said earlier today on Polish Radio that the EC prognosis is most probably based on outdated information and that in reality, the situation in other EU countries is much worse than that in Poland.

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