Abstract:

Poland’s current economic situation is changing dynamically which is affected i.a. by political decisions associated with the introduction of extraordinary measures and the already announced state of epidemic. In the Polish legal order constitutional extraordinary measures include martial law, a state of emergency and a state of a natural disaster. Introduction of one of the above constitutional measures affects the application of government debt brake mechanisms, but in a manner established by statute. The state of epidemic is not a constitutionally defined state. Nevertheless, announcing it measurably affects public expenditure and revenue. The impact of the state of epidemic is definitely unfavourable also from the point of view of the 60% government debt-to-GDP ratio. On the basis of statistical data, the author will demonstrate the dynamics of state public debt (SPD) and its relation to the GDP in 2015-2019. This will make it possible to establish to what degree the introduction of the state of epidemic may affect the security of the public finance sector in the context of the government debt limit in subsequent financial years. The issues analyzed carry exploratory importance and gravity. Various research methods are employed in the study: examination of applicable laws, analysis, legal comparison. Research methodology is based not only on the analysis of the Polish and EU legal order, but also on the views of legal scholars and commentators and data published in official documents of the Minister of Finance. Adopting a different research methodology would make the assessment not comprehensive.