They cannot be serious

Samoobrona and LPR want to ban Sunday and holiday trading and block retail investments in small towns and cities. Despite the real danger of this, associations of shopping centre owners and commercial networks are not making much of an attempt to protect their interests.

Populists from LPR (the League of Polish Families) and Samoobrona (the Self-Defence party) are still attempting to win over the electorate and to do this, at the end of last year, they revived plans to introduce a ban on trading on Sundays and holidays. The first town affected by the restrictions was Radom. However, the idea was short-lived and turned out to be a complete failure. In addition to the mooted ban on trading on selected days (put forward by LPR), Samoobrona also proposed restrictions for companies planning to open large shopping malls. Adding piquancy to this is the fact that the authors of the proposal are represented by Waldemar Nowakowski, the founder and owner of the Lewiatan chain, which mainly has a presence in small towns and cities. 

Against the law
Associations of companies connected with the retail market, such as the Polish Organisation of Trade and Distribution (POHiD) and the Polish Council of Shopping Centres (PRCH), have told journalists that they regard the bill to ban trade on Sundays and holidays for shops with more than 5 employees as contrary to the Polish Constitution. It would also bring with it wide-reaching economic consequences, including layoffs, and a fall in the number of contracts signed by architectural and construction firms as well as by their suppliers. "If the bill is approved, the sales of retail chains might drop by even 25 pct and the employment level could decline by 15 pct," says Anna Szmeja-Kroplewska, general secretary of the PRCH.

Nowakowski\\\'s plan
The ban on trading on Sundays and holidays is no less harmful than the investment paralysis which could result from Samoobrona\\\'s proposals. "We are of the opinion that the bill put forward by Samoobrona will hamper the construction of shopping malls with areas over 400 sqm in small and medium cities - the places in fact which need investments most," explains Ms. Szmeja-Kroplewska..

Who will suffer more?
Maria Andrzej Faliński, the general director of POHiD, points out that Samoobrona\\\'s proposal to partially ban large scale buildings would mainly hit shopping malls which house not only stores, but also bars or restaurants. "Large-scale distribution will survive on the market. In the future the situation may be resolved by investing in smaller stores with areas of a few hundred square metres. Besides, some companies have already been putting this into practice, for example TESCO," says Mr. Faliński.

Not to be intimidated 
Investors, however, seem unruffled by these plans. We have obtained no information on investments being abandoned as a result of political declarations. Metro and Geant in fact plan to spend at least   EUR 200 mln and PLN 500 mln respectively in 2006-07. Perhaps, quietly and unofficially, nobody really believes that LPR and Samoobrona\\\'s mission to \\\'protect small Polish businesses\\\', can succeed.

Ewa Andrzejewska