When Poland joined the European Union in 2004, it could not afford to join the Eurozone. 22 years later, while the country has become a driving force for European construction, it no longer wants it. In an interview given to Financial Times On Monday January 26, Polish Finance Minister Andrzej Domanski cooled European leaders by announcing what was happening in recent months. “Our economy is now clearly doing better than most of those with the euro,” said the Polish minister. “We have more and more data, research and arguments to keep the Polish zloty.”
In April 2024, the former economics lecturer, who entered the government at the end of 2023, had already spoken out against Poland’s entry into the euro zone. A United Surveys poll for Wirtualna Polska, also published at the same time, claimed that 66.8% of Poles would prefer to keep the zloty and that almost half of them were “definitely opposed”. Only a little more than a quarter of Poles were in favor of a changeover to the euro.
An economic decision, not a political one
Less than a month after Bulgaria’s entry into the euro zone, the Polish position marks a blow in European development. Especially since the country’s economy has been growing since Donald Tusk returned to power in October 2023. If he campaigned for a switch to the euro in 2008, the former President of the European Council now sees the zloty skyrocketing, from 0.2231 euros per zloty on October 16, 2023, the day of Tusk’s election, to 0.238 on January 27 2026. The price even rose to 0.2421 at the end of February 2025.
“Two years ago I was a little worried that Poland would be left behind in a two-tier EU and outside the eurozone, but today Poland is clearly at the first economic level, and I see no strong reason to abandon our own currency,” adds Andrzej Domanski, who assures that this position for the Polish currency is only economic and not political.
However, European countries are required to join the euro zone as soon as they tick the necessary criteria such as price stability, exchange rate stability, the viability of public finances and several legal criteria. Points that Poland now fulfills. But the Minister of Finance brushes them aside, considering that this decision is political and remains in the hands of Warsaw.
Heavyweight of the European economy
Sixth European power, Poland now exceeds 1,000 billion GDP according to IMF figures. For the OECD, the country should even experience growth of 3.4% this year, the highest forecast of the 27 EU countries. The only downside for Poland: its deficit, at 6.8% last year, which far exceeds the 3% requested by the European Union. A figure which should drop to 6.3% in 2026 according to forecasts from the European Commission. According to Andrzej Domanski, this reduction in the deficit is made possible in particular by a strong labor market and one of the lowest unemployment rates in the European Union.
While relations between the Polish government and the central bank were complicated since Donald Tusk’s return to business in 2023, relations have normalized, says the Minister of Finance. Prime Minister Tusk had accused the president of the National Bank of Poland, Adam Glapinski, an ally of the opposition PiS party, of mismanaging the institution and politicizing monetary policy, even threatening to take the 75-year-old to court. “As Finance Minister, I treat the independence of the central bank very, very seriously,” says Andrzej Domanski, who met Glapinski twice this year.
Danish example?
After Bulgaria’s entry into the Eurozone, six European countries now remain on its doorstep. If economic criteria can justify this situation for certain countries such as Hungary, the case of Denmark is a precedent which may interest the Poles. The Nordic country signed an exemption clause in 1992 when signing the Maastricht Treaty. Without signing an agreement, Sweden was able to justify their wish to keep the Swedish crown in the name of monetary independence and monetary sovereignty.
Without joining the euro zone, Poland does not lose its ambition. Invited as an observer by Donald Trump to attend the G20 meeting in Miami, the Polish government is now seeking a permanent place there.
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