G20 Needs Poland

Poland deserves to be part of G20, the Polish president said at a meeting with international diplomats on Tuesday. In fact, it’s fair to reverse that — G20 is incomplete without Poland and it’s in the group’s best interest to include it.

Lech Kaczynski backed up his assertion with statistics that say Poland is currently the world’s 18th-largest economy by nominal gross domestic product. It is probably the most optimistic count, with other rankings putting Poland somewhere between the 19th and the 21st place, and the International Monetary Fund putting it in the no. 21.

But the IMF figures are based on 2008. After 2009, when Poland was the only European Union country to have avoided a recession, and with its currency back on the strong side, it may well turn out that Poland sits firmly as the world’s number 18.

Read more:  http://blogs.wsj.com/new-europe/2010/02/03/g20-needs-poland/