Since over the past 35 years we have not paid the necessary attention to “soft” values and their importance, we cannot act as the Swedes do. Not only because we cannot trust retailers, but even more because, in the current atmosphere of mistrust, it would be impossible to demonstrate that agreements are in fact meant to be kept.
We don’t live in as exciting a country as Alice’s Wonderland, where everything is different from everywhere else. Here too we have to pay more for goods that are taxed at a higher rate.
We must do what the Poles did last year. They reached an agreement, but also created, with the help of the Consumer Protection and Competition Authority, a control mechanism to monitor it. They too are said to have been successful.
As for the claim that in many cases such agreements have not held, I would reply: if so, then monitoring and sanctions must be continued until it becomes generally understood that contracts are meant to be fulfilled.
We don’t live in as exciting a country as Alice’s Wonderland, where everything is different from everywhere else. Here too we have to pay more for goods that are taxed at a higher rate. Unlike other taxes, VAT is paid by everyone, including the poorest consumers. For us as well, rapid price increases bring about a faster, although not always equivalent, rise in wages, pensions and benefits.
Although raising the VAT rate together with increasing benefits may help to balance the budget better in the short term, retail prices that are higher than average reduce the competitiveness of our producers and, through competitiveness, the pace of economic growth and our ability to develop on an equal footing with others.
