Welcome, everyone. Thank you for the introduction. That is already prehistory, I would say, when it comes to deregulation. Ladies and gentlemen, I will not repeat everything I have been saying for the last, well, actually a year and a half, because in February 2025 a gauntlet was thrown down — to me personally, but also more broadly to the business community — to do something about deregulation. It was somewhat in response to my critical articles in several press outlets, in which I indeed stated that our competitiveness is declining. Ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately, this project has essentially stalled, and saying anything else would be, quite simply, dishonest.
Let me just remind you that my personal adventure with deregulation lasted 100 days, because that is what I agreed with the Prime Minister — that I could hand over my child, my company, that is InPost, to my managers for 100 days, so that after the holidays I could come back and continue developing the company, and in those 100 days build a professional team that would truly show not only the government but the entire political class that deregulation — real deregulation — can make sense and can succeed, on one condition: that it is not done by politicians. And that is, I think, the key point that is absolutely unchangeable.
It took me one week to gather 600 experts, divide them into 34 working teams, which in just 100 days prepared an open, transparent project that anyone can check to this day — what was proposed, what was rejected, what was changed or passed in the Sejm and signed by the previous and the current president.
And, ladies and gentlemen, that was over 16,000 proposals that citizens submitted on our website. There were some very exotic proposals, such as abolishing taxes entirely, or lowering VAT to 10%, or a flat tax — but we focused on those we considered most important from the point of view of every citizen and of small and medium-sized enterprises. During that process, together with social partners, that is business organizations, we eliminated all lobbying proposals — and there were such proposals. I will say more: there were very many of them. They were submitted by many circles, many organizations, through various channels. We wanted to avoid a situation in which we would be accused of simply lobbying for the largest players.
The result of this work was, in fact, over 500 proposals that we submitted to the government — or rather to the government center for deregulation led by Minister Bork. And I must admit that there was indeed a great openness from all political options to sign on to such a project that would be good for everyone, that would improve the functioning of our state. And there were very many of these proposals. Many of them touched not so much on deregulation as on the digitalization of our lives, on expanding the functional possibilities of one of the best apolitical projects in this country — simply the mObywatel app, which has become a natural platform today for each of us, thanks to which we can handle more and more official matters directly in the app. So digitalization, simplification, approaching from a completely different side — from the side of professionals, practitioners, from entrepreneurs.
Ladies and gentlemen, it cannot be that an automated logistics warehouse is built in 6 months, equipped with automation in 3 months, yet is inspected by five different institutions over the next year. This is an absurdity that almost every entrepreneur, every local government, every investor faces. And simplifying this one simple procedure is one of the cards we proposed: that it is not the fire brigade, the sanitary inspection, the building supervision inspectorate, and several other offices — depending on the type of business being conducted — that come and each make, by authority and by exercising that authority, the acceptance inspection at a time they set themselves, on a schedule they set themselves, and sometimes ask for supplementary documentation, not responding for 60 days. No — there is simply 30 days for the acceptance inspection. I report the inspection, 30 days. Each of these institutions may come, check, ask. If it does not come, the acceptance is deemed made silently by the building supervision manager, who has run the entire investment from day one, has all the qualifications, and is subject to criminal law if he were to violate legal provisions.
Why do we need this? Unfortunately, this card has not entered into force to this day, so we are not unlocking investments, we are not accelerating construction processes the way we would like. It is one of many, unfortunately, good proposals that to this day have either gotten stuck in committees, or gotten stuck in the Sejm, or are not being discussed — simply because they are not convenient for our esteemed rulers and the political class. Why am I talking about this? I am talking about it because what was the case in February 2025 bears no relation to what we see around us today.
Ladies and gentlemen, we live in a completely new era — an era in which humans are increasingly being replaced by artificial intelligence and related tools. We are today in a completely different situation than we were a year and a half ago. If the Prime Minister were to throw down that gauntlet today, most of the cards we submitted would contain that very element of what will happen in six months, what will happen in a year. Today we marvel at a flying car that lands straight out of Back to the Future, while we do not see what awaits us.
Ladies and gentlemen, according to the Anthropic report, within three years over 60% of intellectual professions — so-called white-collar jobs — many of you will have to change your profession. Not your job, not your company — your profession. We have very few choices, and today we are discussing whether parental leave should be six months, and it is stuck in a committee. We are discussing whether a warehouse should or should not be accepted within 30 days, or rather within a year. And we do not ask ourselves fundamental questions: Where is our economy heading? Where is public administration heading? What does demography look like, and what threats will face the 60-some percent of people who are white-collar workers today? What are they to do? What are they to do for a living?
The number of visits to therapists, psychiatrists and psychologists fell by 20% within half a year. Today, the best psychotherapist for most teenagers is ChatGPT. For people with family problems before a divorce — 50% of people today consult ChatGPT on how to talk to the person they want to divorce. The number of orders for graphic designers and architectural firms fell by 35% in the United States. Today we are discussing something that is completely unimportant in relation to what awaits us. Europe, our country, faces a shock for which we are completely unprepared.
So today's talk about deregulation 2.0, the races between business organizations over who will bring what folder to the Prime Minister, is completely meaningless. I would like to see entrepreneurs who come to the Prime Minister, to the President, and talk about what the world will look like in 12 months and whether we realize where we are today. And unfortunately, to conclude, because I have 19 seconds left, I must say with regret that nobody is interested. Nobody. Nobody has the guts today to talk about where Poland should be in three years. And that is the saddest thing. Thank you.
Many questions. We await the answers. I hope we will hear them during the course of today. Thank you very much, Mr. President, for that speech. And now we move on to the discussion. Symbiosis of relations: state and business. A discussion about how the partnership between the state and entrepreneurs should look in practice. How to build trust? How to reduce regulatory uncertainty? How to ensure that administration and business do not operate side by side but jointly carry out projects important for Poland.
The discussion, ladies and gentlemen, will be led by Dr. Marek Niedużak, National Director of the European Initiative for Energy Security. We warmly welcome you, Doctor. And I also invite to the stage the participants of this panel. Once again, Mr. Brzoska. Welcome. Chairman of the Capital Group Integer. I invite Professor Grzegorz Brona, President of Creative Instruments. Good day. Welcome. I invite Jacek Dąbrowski, Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer, Partner at Scenerize. Welcome to the stage. I also invite the President of the Selena Group, Krzysztof Domarecki, and Dr. Maciej Klem, President of the Management Board of Advanced Protection Systems and ICORE, as well as the panel will be joined by Maciej Mylik, Head of Finance and Revols at ElevenLabs, and Robert Kroplewski, President of Constellation PSA. Thank you. Welcome. A big round of applause.
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. As you can see, the panel is a distinguished one. I actually fear this potential, because so much energy and potential gathered in one place seems to me it could be slightly explosive. We also unfortunately have very strict time limits. There are counters on the sides here. So let's get to the topic. Essentially, there will be one question to be put to each of the participants: What can we change in the way we arrange relations between the state and business so that these relations are more partnership-based, so that they are truly more symbiotic, to the benefit of both sides? Mr. President Domarecki — Domarecki, I apologize. Let's start, let's start with you. I would just ask, and at the end I will perhaps try myself, that the most important conclusions also resonate, so that the next panel also has a chance to work with some concrete proposals.
Good day, everyone. This forum is called Ideas for Poland. The first panel today, the political one, was conducted in such a way that there were not many ideas in it — so all the work, as usual, falls to the entrepreneurs. So I, as a former academic employee, came with one idea, and it so happens — what a coincidence — that it also relates to what Rafał was just saying. Namely, I wanted to remind you that 250 years ago the Industrial Revolution began. First in Great Britain, later in Europe, and thanks to the Industrial Revolution and its successive achievements, Europe gained world leadership for the next 200 years.
At some point it had to share that with the United States. Nevertheless, we owe the greatest prosperity in human history to that revolution. The rest of the world had to accept its subordination, and Europe benefited from it. And indeed entrepreneurs are talking about this now; politicians, I think, will eventually catch up. We are witnessing another revolution in the world — an economic revolution that will be based on the use of artificial intelligence, which we see more and more of, and some of us are already benefiting from it. Moreover, this revolution will use artificial intelligence only to remodel all — and I mean all — processes in the economy, whether in the military, healthcare, production, marketing — whatever you can think of.
And what distinguishes the current industrial revolution from previous ones is that it is unbelievably fast, and in some parts of the world — unfortunately ours is among them — we do not yet notice it. But its speed is staggering. The absolutely fundamental condition for participating in this revolution is access to energy — access to a huge amount of electrical energy, both in terms of connected capacity and energy consumption per unit of time. Under these conditions, both the United States and China have adopted very clear strategies, and that strategy comes down to two words: Energy abundance. Energy abundance. That is today's strategy of the United States, and that is today's strategy of China.
I would like to draw attention here that both in the United States and in China — countries with two completely different systems — we see an unbelievably large and, in Europe, incomprehensible consolidation and agreement at the summits of power, business, intellectual elites, media, and public opinion. We started this morning's panel with deep divisions and a war in the sandbox. Meanwhile, over there there is a gigantic alliance of all these forces — I emphasize, unprecedented in Europe. So if you ask me, if the slogan of today's conference is Ideas for Poland, then I have here a fundamentally basic idea lying at the foundation of economic prosperity: namely, Poland and Europe need a new energy doctrine.
Adequate to the challenges of the 21st century, adequate to the revolution that AI will bring, adequate to a world divided into economic blocs, a world entering a completely new acceleration — at a time when the European Union's share of global GDP is on a downward trend. Currently it is between 13 and 17%. And now, if we are talking about this energy doctrine for all of Europe — because not only for Poland — then this doctrine must be written anew. It must take into account that the basis of economic competitiveness for 200 years has been access to cheap energy in large quantities.
Now, if we want to seriously think and strive for our own — I emphasize our own, not vassal — share in the global economy based on AI, we must remember a truth that has been valid for these 200 years: that cheap and stable energy is its foundation. You will ask me how cheap? I will give you two answers. First, at our Selena plants in the south of Brazil we pay 130 PLN per megawatt-hour with all fees. With all of them. In the north, 180. At our production plant in Kazakhstan we pay under 200 PLN. We are now building a second one. In China, where we are not — we are a tiny plant — with no privileges, we pay between 200 and 280 PLN depending on the season. In Poland, which has, some say, a bad energy mix, and in Spain, which has a great energy mix, we pay similarly — 750 PLN each.
Do you feel that difference? Therefore, if we talk about how cheap — well, it must be energy that is in the range of 130, 170, max 250 PLN, and no more. Now, how do I imagine the foundations of this new energy doctrine for Poland? Assumption number one: if the economy is the foundation of society's prosperity, then energy and the power sector must serve the economy and must not be a hostage to expensive energy. Therefore, the goals of such a doctrine: lots of energy, lots of energy, and cheap. And how to achieve it? Simple. Maybe let's return to the classic principles of liberal economics — namely, a liberal approach to all energy sources, namely a competitive energy market. We open a tender for the supply of stable energy from various competitive sources — paraphrasing the classic, let a hundred energy flowers bloom. Various energy sources should compete on the market, different suppliers should compete on the market, and what matters is the supplier's reliability. Finally, the criteria. Three criteria: price competitiveness, freedom of choice. If customers buy from whoever offers them a given type of energy — for example, if someone wants RES, let them buy RES, but let them not force others to subsidize it for them. Someone wants stable energy from nuclear — let's give them the chance.
However, the conditions for this model to actually function and for low prices to return: I remind you, until 2019 in Poland we paid 180 PLN for energy. There must be the elimination of any subsidies and all forms of hidden subsidization of energy sources, because any such subsidization comes out of our pockets as taxpayers. The economy is increasingly indebted. But also the elimination of all parafiscal charges on energy — ETS, capacity fees, levies, and so on. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Thank you for that voice. It seems to me that no summary is needed here — it has already come through. Now I will ask Mr. President Kroplewski for his position, his remarks, his point of view.
Good day, everyone. Robert Kroplewski, Constellation company. We are the first geostationary operator of communications and data transfer in geostationary orbit. From that perspective I will try to say how we can try to focus our actions within Poland. I really like the earlier challenge of this panel. We have to think about operationalization. This is very important. So I think that after so many years — 30 years of discussion — strategies matter, because they are written and then unfortunately put away in a drawer, and here Mr. President Brzoska mentioned that later on what is lacking is the guts to actually implement it. So I would like to say it this way: what we need is a strong ring of coordination and execution of all our strategic assumptions, and to move to the phase of operationalization. This is very important.
What should be Poland's future and past is above all to bet on Polish intellectual property. And for that to happen, we must build an ecosystem, not an ego-system. We must realize the partnership between the private and public sectors to such a degree that the applicant will have a partner in the state that will be able to create the first order and thereby provide the possibility of scaling technologies that appear here in Poland — scaling in Poland, scaling outside Poland, because scaling intellectual property ultimately affects what? The strengthening of Polish GDP, in the end the development of the Polish economy, and if development, then in the end security. The development of enterprises, entrepreneurs, industry is also a very important contribution to the systemic resilience of the state.
I would also like to propose a way of thinking that the systemic resilience of the state is not the structure of the state, it is not only state institutions, but above all it is the social community, the economic community, and the resilience directly of individual citizens in particular, whose creativity and productive capacity should be strengthened in value chains — and that is what our economic ecosystem should really serve. And now a few operational examples I would like to draw attention to. We had the Sprawdzamy initiative. I really like the outcome. The outcome is remarkable, so once again, many congratulations on that. However, we would need to think about how to introduce a certain kind of value chain. And one operational proposal is this: to create regulatory sandboxes for dual-use technologies, so that we not only validate the technology, but validate the law itself in parallel with validating the technology — where that law creates barriers impossible to cross, impossible for certification approvals, and impossible to scale.
The Poliwersum foundation worked on such a project and the Ministry of Development supported it, and such a project will probably be announced on a pilot basis, so we will have for the first time a chance to consider to what extent technology can support the law and to what extent we can correct the law for the purpose of scaling technology, with respect for intellectual property, with support for mentoring, and with building dialogue with the end recipient. Sometimes the recipient is the military sector, sometimes the security sector, sometimes simply the commercial market. Another thread, this time from the health sector, but also related to space: we could say that we need to create federated data spaces — in order to respect intellectual property and confidentiality in distributed repositories, so that they do not leave those repositories, but artificial intelligence travels between those repositories, so that it can learn for our benefit and share its conclusions, various predictions, development scenarios for club members. So we need to set a common denominator here: let's create a data space open to club members internally, but closed from the outside, so that our competitors, geopolitical competitors, can have access to it only when they approve our availability standard — that is, when they share their own data as well.
What else can I say? In the world it is the case that in artificial intelligence there is a lot of space that it has not yet seen — knowledge it can perceive only if it has been publicly disclosed. Everything that is protected by secrets is valuable and can determine the advantage of building specialized models. That LLMs are in use today is of course excellent, but that does not mean industry still has the possibility to implement the artificial intelligence that supports it. I happen to be among those people who probably do not lack those guts, because 10 years ago I created the first artificial intelligence strategy for Poland and for the European Union. It's just that at some point the executive apparatus was missing, so that is what I encourage. But perhaps a summary of my approach: let's not think only about industry and the state, because our whole last treasure is the human being and the ability for creative teamwork, and enabling creators to truly build product advantage and scale that into business. In this sense we can build multi-layered systemic resilience of our community.
Thank you very much. I see that besides this energy thread we also have this thread of changes related to AI and preparing for it, both the state and society. And now I would like to ask Dr. Maciej Klem for his word, and I will say right away that I see it a bit like this — that we will gradually move this topic, this question further along the line of speakers, so that the next ones also have a chance to prepare.
Good day, everyone. Mr. Editor, we were asked to be brief and concrete. Today we are talking about ideas for Poland; in this panel we are to talk about how our cooperation should look with the administration, with the government side. So from my side, concretely, because I run two companies — one in the space sector, one in the defense sector, or so-called dual-use — three very concrete demands, three things that, based on our experience over the last few years, I think are very, very clearly visible, and I think there is room for improvement, room for development. The most important element from my point of view — and this may sound a bit strange — is investment in our administration, in many areas. Here I will again focus on my own area: defense and the space sector.
We are dealing with teams on the government side in ministries that have excellent people, very ambitious, who care very much that our industry, our country develops — but our teams are very badly underfunded. At international forums we have a situation where we literally have single individuals from the Polish government side in the Polish teams. The French, German or Italian teams have a dozen and several dozen people each.
In such a scheme, we have no chance of fighting for our own interests on an equal footing at the European level. What we are also missing here, because these teams are small and underfunded, is coordination and cooperation on the Polish side when preparing for any major events or large programs. The defense industry and the space industry are largely tied to European funds. We on the Polish side must do our homework properly. We must be prepared. It cannot be the case that when going to a specific event or foreign delegation, we are informed about it a week in advance, have to organize ourselves in three days and propose something brilliant. It simply will not happen. So a bit more investment, a bit more professionalism, a bit less Polish... ułańska fantazja, I'll call it. So that is the first postulate.
The second postulate is also what we see from time to time. We still have a situation where, as Polish companies in contact with our government side, we are sometimes treated, frankly speaking, worse than foreign companies. This occurs at the level of access and dialogue with the government side. It is also very clearly visible on the side of contract negotiations and even the terms on which contracts are concluded. Companies in the defense industry, Polish and foreign, can operate on completely different terms. Polish companies must meet very stringent defense standards. Foreign companies much more often have it much easier. It cannot be this way. We can feel like guests in our own country at certain forums. That is what we should fight for, and here we absolutely should also, on our industrial side, do our homework and be able to speak in a more coherent language. We must also come to an agreement among ourselves, and this is something we must work on on our business side.
My last postulate, something that has already partly come up from my predecessors. We should... we have a lot of great events. Of course, important things must be discussed, dialogue must be conducted, but in the end it must somehow materialize operationally. So I would say that we should, if necessary, force our administrative and government side to set clear goals and then have tools to hold them accountable for those goals. If I sign a contract with the Ministry of Defense or another ministry, the contract clearly states the conditions, what I must deliver, what deadlines I have, what penalties await me. The same should apply on the other side of our government administration. That is all from me.
