Many companies in the country may face losing small fortunes for venturing into high-risk deals, writes Rzeczpospolita.
Press review by Agnieszka Bielawska
Polish companies can lose billions of dollars headlines Rzeczpospolita adding that it is the price the companies pay for speculating on the financial foreign currency market. The companies took the risk entering complicated deals, disbelieving the drop of the Polish currency. That was shortsighted and brought losses which are already being felt. The Polish market is a relatively young one, comments Rzeczpospolita, we got used to the strong zloty but apparently the time has come that foreign currency credits cost more than companies expected. Simple preventive measures could have been taken to avoid the situation. However, it is not the case of blaming banks for the lack of information, companies for unnecessary risk, it is a case which points that Poland should be in the eurozone for only then speculations with foreign currencies would be cut short.
The end of compulsory conscription heralds Gazeta Wyborcza, reminding that next year contact with the Armed Forces for men will be limited to a visit at the draft office and not necessarily in person. An email will do, writes the paper. From Tuesday until Thursday, the recruitment commission will accept some 3,200 conscripts and they will be the last to serve the nine-month obligatory military service in Poland. From 2010 the Defence Ministry sees the Armed Forces as a professional body with 120,000 volunteers who chose to become soldiers.
Poland is getting closer to fulfill the criteria allowing for lifting visas to the USA, according to experts it may happen in 2009, writes Metro. Visa-free traffic for Poles to the US has been a problem with which Poland has been struggling for years. It was hoped it would be solved after Poland’s joining the US-led mission in Iraq, but the hopes were shattered. Meanwhile, the US administration lifted visas for the citizens of Hungary or the Czech Republic whose involvement in operations in Iraq or Afghanistan was none. The criteria allowing for visa-free traffic embrace the introduction of biometric passports and lowering the percentage of rejected visas to 10 percent. Metro writes that the Polish Foreign Ministry revealed that in 2008 there were some 13 percent of rejected visa applications for Poles by the US embassy, which is a huge drop, adds the paper, since over the past years the rate was over 26 percent. This, comments the daily, is easily explained as the number of Poles wishing to visit the US dropped significantly.
And to brighten up the chilly, bleak and rainy day in Poland today a surprising report published by Dziennik, which states that Poles have the greatest sex appetite in Europe. Apparently, 12 percent of Poles have sex every day while the European average is eight percent. In addition, the amorous attitude towards the partner in Poland does not wane with the appearance of children, on the contrary. Dziennik comments the myth of a frigid Pole is shattered, and adds: and ‘so is the myth of the passionate lover from the south of Europe’.