“In Poland, inflation is artificially deflated by 5-6 percentage points. Instead of 8%, we would have inflation at the level of 13%. Inflation is lowered by the government and Orlen, which has introduced artificially reduced gas prices at petrol stations. Poland is threatened with significantly higher inflation than the average in the European Union,” said Ryszard Petru, at a press conference on Friday, dedicated to the latest inflation data in Poland.
Ryszard Petru suspects that Orlen may be using strategic reserves. “There are suspicions that Orlen is using strategic reserves, i.e. reducing the country’s security. Strategic reserves are for times of armed conflict, serious international situations, crises in a given country, and today there is no such crisis. A difficult international situation was when Russia attacked Ukraine, even then the strategic reserves were not used on such a scale as today.”
“This artificially lowered inflation is only so that PiS can win the election. After the election, the price of fuel will increase from PLN 1 to PLN 1.5 per liter,” added Ryszard Petru.
Anna Radwan-Rohrenschef, a candidate for the Sejm, said that the Polish government is aiming for a Hungarian scenario, in which Orban, by lowering prices before the elections, contributed to an economic crisis. “Hungary is first in terms of inflation in the EU, so it seems that PiS is trying to follow the Hungarian scenario. Last year, before the elections, Victor Orban froze prices and manually controlled the economy to gain voter votes. The day after the elections, energy prices rose by 60%, and fuel prices by 30%, causing a gigantic economic crisis. Do we want to follow this scenario?”
