Rafał Brzoska is my guest, the CEO of the InPost group. Good morning, Mr. CEO. If you allow, we'll start by reminding ourselves how you got involved in this. Exactly, involved, entangled, invited. Let's recall the meeting at the Warsaw Stock Exchange.
I'm looking, I think that wouldn't be a bad idea. Yes, yes, looking at you, Mr. Rafał, for example, Mr. Rafał Brzoska. I read in the last few days even some...
saying that it's not difficult, you just need to... that you, in particular, what needs to be done. Listen, well, if we're talking specifics, then specifics. Well, then you should take it on. You have great companions here and...
companions, I can, I can seriously...
I mean, it's a race against time. I mean, time and pace play an absolutely key role here. So if you, for example, would be willing to commit, together with a group of those who would like to help you, if you could prepare as quickly as possible first recommendations for changes that don't require laws, meaning a long process and always with some political risk that someone won't like it, there won't be a majority or a signature. Well, you know, the President of Poland. But you know the circumstances in which we all work. But I know that you know much better that there is a whole set of actions we could take quickly. But I would like these to be actions precisely and accurately described by people like you, not by officials. I'm sorry if I'm putting you in a difficult situation, Mr. Rafał, but are you taking this on?
I heard a 'yes' when you came in, but you said you don't know if you'll regret it. Challenge accepted. Challenge accepted. And the question is, is this a setup or not, Editor? I don't play political games, I read commentators. However, I think that anyone who read my last five interviews knows that I've been quite critical of how we look at the development of our country, how politicians don't engage business in development. The situation we have in the United States and the dramatic situation that awaits us in Europe soon requires drastic actions. So I assume that this gauntlet thrown by the Prime Minister to the entire business community has been picked up by that business. And the fact that my face was attached to this in the process, I have a short mission. I set a personal goal for myself: 120 days to build a professional team from the world of business, from the world of experts. And so, the Prime Minister probably called the wolf out of the forest because it turned out that in the last week alone, several hundred volunteers, almost 3,500 applications for the deregulation team. Note that 30% of the submissions were not from companies, but from citizens who have been fighting the bureaucratic machine for years, who were often...
destroying the country. This shows that we are dealing with some kind of grassroots movement. But I wonder how much time you are able to devote to this? Because if you say it's a success that several hundred people are submitting specific solutions, well, that's several hundred problems to solve. Yes, yes, from the first day, and they will be growing. So I wonder if, like when you got home on Monday evening, sat down with your wife by the fireplace, didn't you think to yourself, why did you do this? Why did I do this?
Fortunately, my beloved partner, who is Joanna, who looks for solutions and doesn't say that something won't work out, she builds me up optimistically and says, 'Good, you got such a challenge as a business. Not taking up this gauntlet would be cowardice. I am not a coward.' And that's why I think the key is to understand how we work at all, or what my vision is. First, we are building professional teams for today in 20 different thematic areas, starting with the most crucial one for me today, which is changing the practice where offices and state institutions do not adhere to statutory deadlines. Each of us, you, Editor, all the listeners, have seen and experienced more than once a situation where we go to an office to handle some matter and we don't know when it will be resolved. Imagine that today, statutory deadlines are only on paper. According to research, over 85% of these deadlines that offices have set in laws, regulations, and instructions are not met. Imagine, for example, we have a provision where the Provincial Administrative Court, which very often resolves disputes between citizens and authorities, citizens and local government. We are wronged, we go to court, there is an appeal, the office appeals to the Provincial Administrative Court. The court issues a verdict. This verdict should be in writing within 14 days. Why in writing? Because only if we have a written justification can we appeal to the Supreme Administrative Court. Do you know how long it takes today on average in Poland to issue a written justification for a verdict that the court issued orally at a hearing? So it probably knew what it was talking about. According to the law, two weeks. Yes, that's the average. The practice today is six months. Which means that very many people, not just businesses, waiting for this justification, within six months, simply go bankrupt, lose their assets, have no means to continue the fight, give up, throw in the towel.
Mr. CEO, and what will be the outcome of these works? I mean, after these 120 days, what will happen? Will bureaucracy in Poland be reduced?
No, we are not the legislative power, I remind you. We have a very simple task. A team of experts, analysts, economists, lawyers from various fields has the task of preparing a package, I hope, that is my ambition, my personal ambition, of 200-300 projects with the greatest impact on the widest layer of our society, a positive impact. So, first of all, I select those projects that will directly concern citizens and micro-enterprises. And 200-300 projects is not 200-300 new regulations. No, no. Imagine a very simple provision, a provision that in point three affects a specific social group, for example, disabled people, and we will propose to make this provision realistic, change it, cause it not to affect this group, eliminate it. We are not talking about creating a new law, and we won't be creating it. That is the role of politicians. We will say that there is a provision that today hinders the energy of Poles, hinders their development, sometimes insults their dignity, as in the case of disabled people, extreme cases. And politicians must take up this gauntlet and change it. Raise their hand for this change which is good from the point of view of Poles, of business. But you know, and here a problem of an unethical, immoral, but state nature appears. I mean, the question is whether it is business, active business, that should create solutions for itself, or shouldn't it be a separate role, the private sector and politicians with a democratic mandate who received a majority and legitimacy to create law? But that's exactly how it is. Please note, we are showing absurdities, displaying them very transparently on the website. What we showed on Monday, just after a week, we showed about 20 projects that we are first taking on the so-called chopping block and we are now starting to analyze them to move to the next stage and say that of these first 20, we believe 10 make sense, and these 10 that make sense we pass to the government's plenipotentiary, who will then do with them what he deems appropriate.
