`) } }); } else { $(‘.blur’).css({ ‘background’: ‘linear-gradient(95deg, #4e4e4e 25%, #000 45%, #bbb 75%, #FFFFFF 100%) 98%/200% 100%’, ‘text-transform’: ‘inherit’, ‘-webkit-background-clip’: ‘text’, ‘background-clip’: ‘text’, ‘-webkit-text-fill-color’: ‘transparent’ }) $(“.wpb_content_element”).append(`

Want to read more?

Click on the button below to access all premium content
articles by purchasing one of our educational packages

GET PREMIUM

`) } });

Poland on the rise, but for how long?

In the Polish film Moonlighting, director Jerzy Skowlimowski described a small group of three Polish construction workers who were hired to renovate a London flat in the early 1980s. This was back in the days of communism, long before Poland would join the European Union (EU).
For the owner of the flat, the cost of hiring the Poles was much less than hiring a similar group of English workers. And for the Poles, struggling with the dysfunctional centrally controlled communist economy back home, it was the chance to earn some welcome Western currency and gain access to some sought-after Western goods. In other words, everyone was a winner. But trouble was on its way.