Poland now 6th-largest EU economy, ahead of Switzerland and Belgium

Polish living standard in major metro areas are significantly above Belgian standards. I lived in Poland and Belgium, among a few other places, and I'd choose Poland over Belgium for a number of reasons. Its a great country, good infra, excellent engineers, high education standards, you can talk to anyone in English, the government usually does work, and if you want an appointment with a specialist doctor, it takes a few days tops (on a private insurance, which is cheap by most countries' standards).

If you're in the bottom 70% of the working class anywhere in western Europe you'll live pretty much the same way: you will never be able to afford a new car, you'll never be able to retire early, you most likely will never own your own place. Nobody feels rich because the entire system is built by parasites exploiting the bottom 2/3rd. The only meaningful difference is how often and how far you can go in vacation and how much a good little consumer bitch you can be, and if that's how you measure your quality of life you already lost the game

This is about country's total GDP. Per capita graph in TFA shows Poland is still behind Belgium [1].

[1] https://images.euronews.com/articles/stories/09/86/71/11/108...

It tells you little about living conditions but it tells you a lot about importance of a country as a whole. GDP per capita of China might be far from US but due to its size it still makes China very important actor.

Its absolutely meaningless. Wealth cannot be measured. But nails and hammer blabla

Can you share more? What makes you feel less rich in comparison?

It doesn't matter for quality of life but it matters politically. Larger GDP in nominal terms = more influence in the world.

Doesn't matter which kind of GDP you use - it won't tell you how wealthy a country or its people are.

That's because GDP measures how much you did in one year, and wealth is accumulated over centuries.

Using GDP to measure wealth is like using speedometer to measure distance. You can be the fastest on the road at the moment, but if you just started driving and people drove faster than you for 100 years it doesn't mean much.

You need to integrate it over time.

Look at household income adjusted for PPP, that gives a more accurate global ranking in that respect (20s-30s). I expect this has improved as well.

This is not viable long term, but cool to ride the train while the outsourcing lasts.

Indeed, this is a great example of how the EU manages to grow its internal market.

Good investment.

They're probably focusing on people who work rather than trying to tax people who work and innovate to pay for people who don't work or innovate. Strangely, focusing on economics is good for economies

> How much money did they get from EU in last 5 years?

A lot. About 1 percentage point of Polish GDP in 2025.

They also had a lot of government spending, with the 2025 budget deficit being 7% of GDP.

Minimum wage was raised with ~10% in January 2025.

There is an irony in people attributing it to conservatism/rightwing politics rather than pretty much the exact opposite. Spain is another example of economic growth in the EU.

15-20% of Mississippis GDP is healthcare cost.

Gdp is not really a great measure of how well an economy works for it's inhabitants, if it was we should all spend our time breaking each others windows.

I don't think you realize how absurdly overpriced everything is in the US, which inflate GDP quite a lot... I paid less to build my entire top of the line house in eastern Europe than some American spend on a garage extension and a concrete driveway

That example is a good reason nominal GDP has limits on what it can measure, as a drive thru Mississippi would show a poor state with small pockets of wealth

Poorest is a function of per-capita income and larger economy is a function of population. You're comparing different things.

> there a lot of micro-nations in eastern Europe that have outsized influence over the union as a whole

Would you give an example of when that has happened?

> It just seems like the EU is too top-heavy

The EU intentionally admitted many poorer countries, to promote freedom, security and stability in Europe in the long term. Without EU membership, they would be under pressure from Russia and others.

> discontent

What discontent do you mean? There's always something, of course.

The conclusion you should draw from this is therefore "GDP is a shit metric for measuring anything and even worse as a target".

The US is a great example of why GDP is a largely meaningless metric.

Yes, the States' GDP is ginormous, and yet it's basically a third-world country masquerading as a first-world one on most metrics that actually matter to people.

Wouldn’t „more freedom of expression“ imply less conservative?

Or what aspects of conservatism, and what aspects of freedom of expression, are you referring to here?

It would be good to have real insights into how Poland is doing well just now, but (gestures at thread) it seems to be a lot of people bringing out their pet solutions.

Is the boom related to the removal of PiS in 2023? Is it linked to Ukraine (businesses and people relocating across the border? Arms sales?)

While you were in Poland, did you call it "Eastern Europe" to people's faces? How did they react?

There’s a reason the solidarity movement arose in Poland

Remarkable culture

That commitment probably won't change anytime soon but more and more people are dissatisfied of the church here - how it interferes with politics, tries to dictate what is morally right and of course covers up pedophilia cases.

During pandemic (which also happen during the right-wing coalition govt) public TVP2 channel ran breakfast TV segment where one of questions was if audience should kneel at homes during the broadcast of the Mass if they decided to "participate".

https://natemat.pl/303229,czy-klekac-przed-telewizorem-w-cza... (in Polish obv)

Still, this isn't as easy to digest as it may seem - you'd of course have to study our history to understand that connection to faith.

I am really happy for Poland getting rich (they deserved it!), but with little knowledge about Polish politics you just have to shack your head.

" Warsaw with a German friend who had relocated there. He said it was more Conservative than Germany and there was more freedom of expression." In Poland the constitutional court isnt working very good because of the former authoritarian Orban like PiS government. In case of a next Pis government only the European courts might help in case of a freedom of speech matter.

In Germany the constitutional court does work.

"they were never able to pull them away from their commitment to the Catholic church. " They do. Poland and especially the younger generation is securalising and also becomes more open to queer people. Also you can ask catholic officials how much they are willing to do for freedom of expression of atheism ("crazy") and gay men ("perverts").

Not to remove any merit from Poland, but I think the EU deserves a bit of recognition here.

I wonder if the title was meant to say Sweden, as the text mentions Sweden and Belgium?

The map at the bottom correctly excludes Switzerland. It does however include Norway and Iceland.

It isn't an EU member but it is part of the EU single market.

Technically correct. However, it's so closely aligned with and integrated into the EU that it's quite convenient to include it in comparisons.

Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein (EEA), and Switzerland ("Special Relationship") are basically EU in all but final official membership. They even contribute to the EU financially.

But it does look that they probably meant Sweden (according to the text of the article)