The Chances and Dangers of the Development of Export and Competitivenessof the Polish Economy Before and After Obtaining Membership of Poland inthe European Union

The greatest challenge for Poland just before and after accession to the European Union is the acceleration of economic growth, being a necessary although insufficient condition of limiting the second most serious weakness, i.e. the high unemployment rate. The external surroundings in view of the stagnation tendencies in the EU do not favour the realization of this challenge. All the more important is therefore the harmonization of the budget policy, monetary policy and broadly understood structural changes in the real sphere. The economy is becoming increasingly more dichotomic, composed of large enterprises with the share of foreign capital and thousands of small subjects with Polish capital. The first group (and exporters) is prepared to compete on the unifiorm EU market, the second one rather not. The accession of Poland to the EU will cause an increase of competition on the Polish market, particularly for small and medium enterprises for which a barrier will become the observation of union safety, sanitary and environmental protection standards. In a long period the chances of Poland depend on the development of education, increase of outlays on research and development and the innovativeness of enterprises. The implementation of such a direction of development, in accordance with the assumptions of the EU Lisbon strategy, requires an urgent working out of our own strategy of improvement of the competitiveness of the economy and society at least for a period until 2010.