In the territory between Frankfurt and Moscow Warsaw is the city with the most international investment banks, since Poland, which is the fastest developing member of the EU, is an attractive target for ever increasing numbers of finance companies and institutions. Furthermore, the government is doing its utmost to create a favourable economic and financial climate.  Privatisation, which was announced by the cabinet led by Donald Tusk, who came to office in 2007, is steaming ahead in Poland. In this year alone the Poles are hoping for 8-9 billion dollars in revenue from privatisation, and by 2011 over 800 state companies, ranging from industrial concerns to small furniture and paper factories, will wholly or partly come into private ownership. One of the main beneficiaries of privatisation is the Warsaw stock market, which, since it was established, has never floated such a large number of shares.

Warsaw can do with the revenue.  Since the explosion of the Greek crisis the state budget has been of key importance in Poland too. However, one of the most important indicators of the country's maturity for the Euro is far from being ideal in Poland: the budget deficit doubled in 2009, and reached 7.2 percent of Poland's GDP, while the national debt comprised 51 percent of the GDP. Although it is anticipated that the deficit will continue to grow by about one tenth of a percent, experts do not regard this as cause for concern. (This is thanks to the International Monetary Fund's safety net of 20.5 billion dollar credit line in the background, although the Poles have not availed themselves of one single dollar of this sum as the zloty has held up nicely). Indeed, some World Bank analysts have advised Poland to avoid rushing into austerity measures designed to cut the budget deficit since they could suffocate the economic upswing built on domestic consumption. Supporting this is the fact that Poland was the only country in the EU that saw any growth in the crisis last year, even though the 1.8 percent economic growth in 2009 did not even approach the five percent pace of growth in 2008 or the 6.8 percent in 2007.

Despite the unusual advice from the World Bank, the Polish government is planning to restrict salary rises in the public sector, a measure through which it hopes to curb inflation, which continues to rise, and thus enable it to keep to the 2.5 percent consumer index, a goal it set itself for next year. At the same time this would not require such substantive effort because since the summer of 2007 the pace of price rises has never been as slow as in May 2010: it barely exceeded two percentage points. However, one of the signs of economic recovery was the dynamic rise in salaries and, thanks to the 4.8 percent rise, the average wage has come close to 3,500 zloty (this is approx. 245 thousand forints).

So the Poles know something. It was no coincidence that during his first official trip abroad, in Warsaw, the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, said, "Without the Polish economic performance the picture for the whole of Europe would look far grimmer. This is a sign of confidence for Hungary because it shows that an economic policy can be followed in this region which can keep spending in check but at the same time achieve economic growth". Like many other states, Hungary has discovered that in Central Europe Poland has become an indisputable power. Yet, both states need each other as allies: in the first half of next year Hungary will fill the post of the EU's revolving presidency, followed in the second half by Poland.