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The capital of Poland is Warsaw, its area measures 312,700 square kilometres, the population is made up of 38,318,000 inhabitants, the gross domestic product is 187,1 billion Euros. The inflation is 3.3%, its unemployment rate is 19.1%, the deficit is –5.4% and its National debt is 47.7%. Poland is a democratic republic, whose constitution dates back to 1997. As far as its form of Government, Poland is organised like a semi-presidential republic. The President is elected every 5 years by universal suffrage with ballotage, while the bicameral Parliament is renewed every 4 years. The Low Chamber is made up of 460 deputies elected by a proportional system with a blocking clause fixed at 5% for the single parties and to 8% for the coalitions. The Senate is made up of 100 members elected by a majority system. The last political elections took place in September 2005 and thy saw the victory of a centre-rightist coalition: it included the Conservative “Law and Justice” party, whose roots are in Solidarnosc, that gained the relative majority, 28%, and the Liberal “Civic Platform” achieved the 26% of the votes. As the Liberals left the coalition, the Conservatories created a minority Government with the external support of the Farmers’ Party and of the Polish Families League. The President of Republic is Lek Kwasniewski, belonging to “law and Justice”. He’s been elected in October 2005 and he will remain in office for 5 years. Poland has been a member of the European Union since 1st May 2004. In June 2003 a referendum was held in order to decide about Poland entrance into the Union. The victory of “yes” was clearly-cut, with 77% of the votes, while the affluence was the 59% of the voting people, slightly higher than other elections. Poland has 54 deputies within the European Parliament. The European elections were held on 13th June 2004 and they saw a remarkable result for “Civic Platform” that gained the 24% of votes and 15 seats. The result for the parties that made up the Government coalition was quite disappointing: the leftist alliance and the Work Union get 9.3% of the votes all together. A part of the votes that used to go the Government coalition parties went to a new party, the Polish Social-Democracy, born from the scission of the Leftist Alliance, as it gained 3 seats. The anti-European lists, like the Polish Families League, achieved a great success with 10 seats and 16% of the votes, as well as the nationalist “Auto-defence” gained almost the 11% of the votes and 7 seats. 4 seats went to the Union for Freedom and the Agricultural Party. However the electoral result were affected from the low affluence to the polls, less than the 21%. The Polish members within the European Commission is Mrs. Danuta Hübner, responsible for the regional policies.
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