Regional BCC Chapters

Four years ago we decided to strengthen the position of entrepreneurs in their regions and integrate the milieu around local problems.

BCC regional chapters are supposed to exert a direct influence on the improvement of the situation of companies and in this way contribute to the economic development of Poland as a whole. We wanted to encourage BCC members from a given region of the country to do business among themselves, to look for trading partners on the other side of the street instead of at the far end of the country.

Capitalising on BCC's prestige, we are becoming genuine partners for local authorities in solving problems that are important for the region and for our firms.

We understand how important it is to choose the right elected officials who then can influence the fate of our enterprises, the members of parliament who determine the level of taxes we have to pay and the pace of reforms.

We have confirmed this by supporting election campaigns of those candidates in parliamentary and local government elections who guaranteed to represent the interests of business circles. This helped many supporters of economic liberties and market economy to be elected to authorities of all levels.

The tasks facing the members of regional chapters in the near future include stepping up pressure for the introduction of tax reforms, which have slowed down again, for the limitation of the scale of licensing, elimination of subsidies to loss-making state enterprises, acceleration of privatisation, etc. In order to pursue these goals, the chapters are establishing contacts with representatives of various milieus: lawyers, journalists, scientists, local business associations, and together with them we are setting up regional centres of the Dialogue Forum, which is a platform for communication between entrepreneurs and representatives of other professions and trades.

We are taking up such actions in order to facilitate the continuation of these reforms and changes, which can determine the success of our firms, the level of our earnings, the standard of living of our families. And we are taking them up because all the time there are threats to the values that are now helping us work better and earn more, and because we want to reckon less with various cliques and cronyism.

Shared problems can only be discussed if we speak a language that everybody understands, and if action is to be effective, it must be launched in an organised fashion. Really efficient action is only possible when a common language is spoken and the views are shared. Therefore the signing of the Declaration of Intentions and the Declaration of Elementary Principles by the future participants in the Dialogue Forum should be seen as a method of selecting people who think in a similar way as we do.

The administrative reform of Poland will result in the delegation of authority and funds to gmina level. Regional decision-makers will determine the level of some of our taxes or the access to labour and money. We must not remain indifferent to such choices.

And we must also remember all the time that the fate of our businesses depends on regulations that are formulated by people in parliament and in ministries, and we must not decline an opportunity to influence the selection of these people, if only because we must keep the interest of our firms in mind. And this translates into the necessity of a direct or indirect participation of business people in parliamentary election campaigns.

BCC is not and will never be a political party, but it must be remembered that over those seven years our activities, especially our lobbying and interventions on behalf of our members, have been political by nature. This is so because we are forced to interact with political institutions, infringe on the privileges of political groups, fight for bigger freedoms for out milieu, the way it is done all over the world. And that's politics whether you want it or not.

The Dialogue Forum is an improvement on this involvement; it also increases our civic subjectivity without the need of direct engagement in political activity. The participants in the Forum invited by us become additional promoters of what we are especially interested in, namely market economy and the development of free enterprise. They become our allies, similarly as we should be supporting their causes. Let us remember that the Dialogue Forum is an alliance of people, not institutions, however. Its signatories will decide what role it is going to play in the future: it could even be an important political role. First, however, we must take up the simplest matters and start talking to other milieus in our area about the most important issues.