A GENERATION ago, Poland rationed sugar and flour while its citizens earned a fraction of West German wages.
Today, its economy has edged past Switzerland to become the world’s 20th largest, with more than US$1 trillion in annual output – a historic leap from the post-communist ruins of 1989-90 to a European growth champion.
Economists say the transformation offers lessons in how to spread prosperity widely.
It has also drawn political attention, with the United States backing Poland’s invitation to a summit of the Group of 20 leading economies later this year – a largely symbolic gesture, but one that reflects the country’s rising weight.
The shift is visible in the lives of people like Joanna Kowalska, an engineer from Poznan, a city of half a million between Berlin and Warsaw.
After five years in the United States, she chose to return.
“I get asked often if I’m missing something by coming back to Poland, and, to be honest, I feel it’s the other way around,” she said. “We are ahead of the United States in so many areas.”
Kowalska now works at the Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Centre, which is developing Poland’s first artificial intelligence factory and integrating it with a quantum computer – one of 10 funded under a European Union programme.
After graduating from the Poznan University of Technology, she landed what she once saw as a “dream come true” job at Microsoft in the United States.
But something was missing.
“I missed having a sense of mission,” she said. “Especially when it comes to artificial intelligence, the technology started developing so rapidly in Poland. So it was very tempting to come back.”
Poland’s prospective G20 presence does not change the club’s membership rules – no guest country has been elevated since the forum’s creation in 1999, and any expansion would require consensus. The original members were selected not just for economic size, but for their “systemic significance”.
Still, the numbers underline the shift. In just 35 years – less than a working lifetime – Poland’s per capita GDP has climbed to US$55,340 in 2025, about 85% of the European Union average.
That is up from US$6,730 in 1990, or 38% of the EU average, and now roughly on par with Japan when adjusted for cost of living, according to International Monetary Fund data.
Since joining the EU in 2004, Poland’s economy has grown by an average of 3.8% a year, far outpacing the European average of 1.8%.
No single factor explains the escape from the post-communist “poverty trap”, said Marcin Piatkowski of Kozminski University in Warsaw, author of a book on Poland’s economic rise.
A crucial step was building strong institutions for business – independent courts, an effective anti-monopoly authority and financial regulation robust enough to prevent banking crises from choking off credit.
As a result, Poland avoided the concentration of wealth and power in oligarchic hands that plagued other post-communist economies.
European Union support also played a central role. Billions of euros in aid flowed in before and after accession, alongside access to the bloc’s vast single market.
Above all, Piatkowski said, there was a rare political consensus on the country’s direction.
“Poles knew where they were going,” he said. “Poland downloaded the institutions and the rules of the game – and even some cultural norms – that the West spent 500 years developing.”
Communism itself, for all its repression, left an unexpected legacy by breaking down social barriers and expanding access to education.
A post-communist boom in universities means about half of young Poles now hold degrees.
“Young Poles are, for instance, better educated than young Germans,” Piatkowski said – yet earn roughly half as much. That gap, he added, is “an unbeatable combination” for attracting investment.
The rise of Solaris, a bus manufacturer founded in 1996 in Poznan by engineer Krzysztof Olszewski, illustrates another pillar of Poland’s success: entrepreneurship.
Under communism, Olszewski ran a small car repair shop, using spare parts from West Germany to fix domestic vehicles.
While most of the economy was nationalised, authorities tolerated small private workshops – what economist Katarzyna Szarzec calls “enclaves of private entrepreneurship”.
In 1996, Olszewski partnered with German bus maker Neoplan to produce vehicles for the Polish market. EU membership later proved decisive.
“Poland’s entry to the EU in 2004 gave us credibility and access to a vast, open European market with the free movement of goods, services and people,” said Mateusz Figaszewski, the company’s head of institutional relations.
Then came a gamble. In 2011, Solaris began producing electric buses – well before most European competitors.
Larger Western firms, Figaszewski said, had more to lose if the technology failed.
For Solaris, the risk created an opening.
“It became an opportunity to achieve technological leadership ahead of the market,” he said.
Today, the company holds about 15% of Europe’s electric bus market.
Yet, Poland’s success is not complete.
Demographic pressures are mounting, with a low birth rate and ageing population set to shrink the workforce and strain pension systems.
Wages still lag behind Western Europe, and while small and medium-sized firms thrive, relatively few Polish companies have grown into global brands.
Poznan’s mayor, Jacek Jaskowiak, sees the country entering a third phase of development.
In the 1990s, foreign manufacturers set up factories to tap a skilled, low-cost workforce. Around the turn of the millennium, multinationals expanded into finance, IT and engineering.
“Now it’s the time to start such sophisticated activities here,” he said, pointing to investment in universities as a priority.
Poland is moving up the value chain, but not fast enough for everyone. Szarzec said innovation still needs to accelerate.
“There is still much to do when it comes to innovation and technological progress,” she said.
“But we keep climbing up that ladder of added value. We’re no longer just a supplier of spare parts.”
Among younger Poles, expectations are rising. Students point to persistent urban- rural divides, high housing costs and the difficulty of starting families.
They also argue that immigration – including the millions of Ukrainians who arrived after Russia’s 2022 invasion – should be seen as an economic asset in an ageing society.
For some, however, the country’s trajectory is already clear.
“Poland has such a dynamic economy, with so many opportunities for development, that of course I am staying,” said Kazimierz Falak, a 27-year-old graduate student. “Poland is promising.” — AP
