Acts and agitation

Earlier Czechs, Bulgarians, Lithuanians, Germans... and Poles - mostly young people - took to the streets to protest against the signing of the agreement. In Poland the demonstrations have put the whole process on hold and undermined the until-then unshaken administration of Donald Tusk, who is now into his second term of governing the country.
It is extraordinary that such legislative solutions have stirred up so much emotion and brought protestors onto the streets. It leads me to wonder how dramatic a crowd of serious-looking gentlemen dressed in suits and ties would look (probably perfect for a picture story in a future issue) if they protested, for example, against the act on the protection of home buyers - the so-called 'Developers' Act'. This enters the statue book on April 29th and is set to revolutionise residential developers' operating methods. Perhaps bankers, dressed equally elegantly, might also be prompted to take to the streets to vent their anger at the new regulations known as Basel III, which have been devised to secure the banking system against a re-run of the credit crunch. These latest legal solutions are detailed and discussed on the pages of this issue, and are also certainly generating some hostility due to how they will force us to change the way we have done things so far. But street protests against this new legislation, however, are likely to remain a figment of my imagination.