SEPTEMBER

Welcome to the newest edition of MSLGROUP’s Warsaw Insight. We present this to you via the concept that additional knowledge and insight about the legislative, regulatory, and leadership changes in the Polish government and Europe-an Union is worth having. This newsletter is not meant to be exhaustive. Instead, it seeks to pro-vide summary and updates affecting the market and thus, your business. We generate this infor-mation via our daily work at MSLGROUP and feel that such information has a value to our clients and the market.

For MSLGROUP, understanding the markets within which we operate is a guiding principle. Therefore, we believe that our Warsaw Insight will provide you with a valuable source of knowl-edge, information, and news. We present the Warsaw Insight to you with hope that it meets your expectations.

If you would like additional information regard-ing our services, we would be more than happy to talk to you.

Łukasz Jachowicz, Head of Public AffairsMSLGROUP Polandlukasz.jachowicz@mslgroup.com @ljachowicz

Mr Donald Tusk will become the new President of the European Council, replacing Herman Van Rompuy on the 1st of December. He is being el-evated to one of top European positions after 7 years of being the Prime Minister of Poland and 11 years of heading the Civic Platform.

Donald Tusk has been replaced in the Polish gov-ernment by Ewa Kopacz, former Speaker of the Sejm (lower house of the Polish parliament) and former Minister of Health in his government.

Ewa Kopacz’s cabinet will mostly consist of pre-vious ministers, with the following changes:

Minister of Foreign Affairs Radosław Sikorski has been replaced by Grzegorz Schetyna, for-mer Deputy Prime Minister and former Minister of Interior, leader of the strongest fraction of Civic Platform’s internal opposition. Mr Sikorski has now become the Speaker of the Sejm.

Minister of Justice Marek Biernacki has been re-placed by Cezary Grabarczyk, the leader of the internal fraction of Donald Tusk’s supporters.

Minister of Interior Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz has been replaced by Teresa Piotrowska, MP with no previous experience in internal affairs.

Minister of Infrastructure and Development Elżbieta Bieńkowska has been replaced by Ma-ria Wasiak, former member of Polish Railways’ board. Mrs Bieńkowska will now be European Commissioner.

Minister of Administration and Digitization Ra-fał Trzaskowski has been replaced by Andrzej Halicki, MP.

Mr Rafał Trzaskowski has now been appointed Secretary of State in the Ministry of Foreign Af-fairs and will be responsible for European pol-icy.

CHANGES IN THE POLISH GOVERNMENT

Additionally, Mr Tomasz Siemoniak, Minister of Defence, has become Deputy Prime Minister. The change proves the increased influence of Presi-dent Bronisław Komorowski on the new govern-ment.Personal details of new ministers are avail-able in our presentation: http://www.slide-share.net/ljachowicz/polish-government-af-ter-change-in-2014

Mr Tusk has ostentatiously left Polish politics, preparing for his new function and leaving ev-erything in the hands of Mrs Ewa Kopacz. He is expected to make his return in 5 years when the final term of President Bronisław Komorowski ends.

The new government is often described as the “government for just one year”, as the next par-liamentary elections are planned for the second half of 2015. The next 12 months will be a time for consolidation of Civic Platform, building the position of Ewa Kopacz as the new leader (at the moment, as the deputy chairwoman of Civic Platform, she is the “acting leader” of the party) and winning back undecided voters.

First reactions to the changes were very positive towards the Civic Platform: for the first time in months, the party went back to the position of polls leaders. The most recent, 20th of September, pre-local elections poll saw both Civic Platform and Law and Justice at 27%, SLD (the Left) – 11%, PSL (co-alition party) – 10%, Janusz Korwin Mikke’s New Right - 3%, Janusz Palikot’s Twój Ruch – 0%.

The low support for Janusz Palikot’s party (third political power in the Sejm only three years ago) coincides with the de-facto end of the party’s parliamentary club; at the end of September, 12 MPs left the club, leaving it with just 15 mem-bers (the minimal number required to register a parliamentary club), the next personal moves are expected to take place in the next weeks.

Ewa Kopacz’s plans for next year

On October 1st, Mrs Ewa Kopacz delivered her speech outlining her main goals to be reached by the end of her term (exposé). Key messages were:

The new government is the government of Ewa Kopacz, not Donald Tusk (Mrs Kopacz underlined her independence)

The main goal of Ewa Kopacz is to rebuild the trust in government. She appealed to leaders of opposition to end the constant war between the ruling parties and the opposition.

“What was planned for 3 years will be done in one”, she said regarding the reform of tax pol-icy: the basis for the new tax law is to be pre-pared at the beginning of 2015.

The Prime Minister’s policy will be focused on in-ternal security, family policy and social security for families at risk.

Poland will be engaged in further help for Ukraine.

The Prime Minister will continue the project for energy solidarity in the European Union.

The government does not agree to raise energy prices.

Poland will focus on energy security and protec-tion of coal mines against unfair competition.

Poland will build its own innovative military potential within the Polish Armaments Group (PGZ).

2% of GDP will be spent on the army after 2016.

Poland echoes the desire of an increased Ameri-can military presence on the Polish territory.

Polish government will support signing the TTIP (free trade agreement between EU and USA).

The introduction of euro will only be possible during a period of economic stability in the re-gion – stronger Eurozone and stable Polish econo-my will determine the date of euro introduction.

De-minimis guarantees programme will be ex-tended until 2016.

Within 12 months, the government will prepare a new tax code (basics are to be ready at the beginning of 2015) and changes in the sole pro-prietorship law.

New Construction Law is planned for the be-ginning of 2015 as well as the anti-crisis act for entrepreneurs who suffered losses as a result of the conflict in Ukraine.

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Iwona Sulik has been appointed the spokesperson for the government. She graduated from the Fac-ulty of Journalism and Political Science at the Uni-versity of Warsaw. She worked in Kurier Warsza-wski, then Warsaw Television Centre and TVP Info. She was a reporter, leading publisher, as well as parliamentary reporter. Since 2011, she was the spokesperson and adviser to the Speaker of the Parliament.

September 23

Prof. Bogusław Pacek –former defence advis-er has been nominated by the North Atlan-tic Treaty for the post of the adviser of the military education system reform in Ukraine.

September 26

The government will introduce regulations that will prevent the sale of “junk food” in schools from September 1st 2015.

PLN 13.5 bn is to be spent until 2020 on new trams and buses.

The Ministry of Health will focus on implementa-tion of the new oncology legislation and creation of Geriatrics Institute.

The exposé was surprisingly well- received by most of the commentators and will most probably re-place in the public memory the not so well con-ducted introduction of the new government two weeks ago. Mrs Ewa Kopacz presented her goals not only for the next 12 months (even if some of these projects, like the new Tax Code, must be present-ed early next year in order to have a chance of be-ing accepted by the parliament by the end of the

term), but also for the following 5 years. It is a clear signal for voters that the Civic Platform, in contrast to opposition, has a vision of changes and is ready to implement them.

The vote of confidence is planned for this eve-ning. The ruling coalition has enough votes to win the vote.

Lukasz JachowiczHead of Public Affairs MSLGROUP Polandlukasz.jachowicz@mslgroup.com @ljachowicz

The Ministry of Economy, in cooperation with the Delegation of the European Commission, organ-ised a meeting devoted to information and consul-tation service aspects of the Transatlantic Agree-ment in Trade and Investment (TTIP). They also spoke about the negotiations for the Agreement on Trade in Services (TISA).

September 19

The Ministry of Economy presents “The analysis of aims to implement energy cooperative institutions to the Polish legal system based on the best prac-tices of EU countries”. The document contains an analysis of legal regulations in the European Union.

September 11

ENEA, KGHM Polska Miedź and TAURON Polska will each purchase 10 percent of PGE EJ 1 for a total of 30 per cent of shares. PGE EJ 1 is responsible for the preparation and construction of the first Polish nuclear power plant with a capacity of ap-proximately 3,000 MW.

September 4

The Ministry of Economy published an invitation to the 46th Annual Meeting on Nuclear Technology (AMNT) in Berlin for Polish industry and research centers. The conference and exhibition will be held from May 5-7th, 2015.

September 3

An application developed by a team from the War-saw University of Technology “SkyDe” has won the Ministry of Administration and Digitization contest for the best “privacy friendly” mobile application. SkyDe allows you to send messages between users of Skype using steganography techniques.

September 26

The Ministry of Administration and Digitization will be the point of contact supporting the Euro-pean Commission in the implementation of the telecommunications segment of the “Connecting Europe Facility” - CEF Telecom.

September 24

The Ministry of National Defense decided to con-duct an urgent overview of the implementation of activities related to trading specially licensed military equipment.

September 24

The Press and Information Department of the Ministry of Defense announced a competition for graphic design of the web pages of the Ministry of Defense.

September 22

Lieutenant General Janusz Adamczak was appoint-ed Chief of Staff of the Allied Joint Force Com-mand Brunssum (JFC Brunssum). Over the next three years, he will lead the work of the interna-tional headquarters of one of the most important NATO commands.

September 12

October 15 is the deadline for submitting request under the “Connected Communities” initiative. The best ideas will be funded by the “technical assistance” from the World Bank as part of the “Connecting Europe Facility”. The “Connected Communities” initiative is designed to support innovative pilot projects for the development of broadband networks, which could become a mod-el for similar efforts across the European Union.

September 29

The Ministry of Finance has allowed testing of the Universal Document System (UBD) to be transmit-ted in connection with the PIT-11, PIT-8C, PIT-R and the PIT-40 declaration as multi-documents.

September 29

The draft budget bill for the next year assumes a GDP growth and inflation at 3.4% and 1.2%, re-spectively. State budget revenues are planned for less than PLN 297.3 billion, and PLN 343.3 billion of expenditure. The maximum deficit should not exceed PLN 46.1 billion.

September 24

From September 22nd 2014, Poland’s western and Lithuanian border controls regarding fuel tanks entering the country will be intensified.

The next session of Sejm (Lower House of Parliament) will be held on the 8th, 9th & 10th of October 2014.

The next session of Senate will be held on the 8th, 9th of October.

The 16th of October will feature ECO-Match Poznań Science and Technology Park and EEN (Enterprise Europe Network) holding individual business meetings for rep-resentatives of companies and research units operating in the “eco” business sector.

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MOEuropean Week of Small and Medium Enterprises starts on the 29th of September.

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High ethical standards underlie all our activities. We are entered as a professional body en-gaged in lobbying activities in the register of the Ministry of Interior and Administration. We act accordingly to the Code of Good Practices of the Polish Public Relations Consultancies Association (ZFPRR).In the frame of the Public Affairs we offer the following services:• Analysis of the environment in which our clients operate,• Identification of stakeholders and creation of a map of influence,• Polish and EU legislative process monitoring,

Copyright (c) by MSLGROUP Poland Sp. z o.o. 2014

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CONTACT:CEO Corporate & Financial CommunicationsPaweł TomczukTel. +48 600 489 609e: pawel.tomczuk@mslgroup.com

Head of Public AffairsŁukasz JachowiczTel. +48 601 416 560e: lukasz.jachowicz@mslgroup.com

Governmental Affairs Practice LeaderMałgorzata DworzynskaTel. +48 605 296 457e: malgorzata.dworzynska@mslgroup.com

Associate Public AffairsJakub OlekTel. +48 606 319 500e: jakub.olek@mslgroup.com