POLAND: The independence of Polish foundations in danger?

In July 2006 the office of Polish Prime Minister prepared the project of Amendment of the Act on Foundations. The project triggered the huge wave of protests from the nonprofit organizations, particularly foundations. For the project clearly endangered the independence of Polish foundations increasing significantly the power of ministers in controlling foundations. For instance, according to the regulations of the project of the Act amendment, the ministries were to resolutions passed by the foundations. Taking into account the fact that a great number of important decisions (regarding salaries of employees, budgets, new initiatives) are made through passing resolutions and that the processes of waiting for any formal decision from public administrations tends to drag out, this could paralyze the functioning of the foundations. The more, that, as it is worth noting, even a small foundation passes around 100 resolutions a year and there are over 6 thousand foundations in Poland. Above all, however, such regulations put in jeopardy the independence of foundations, the great value in a civil society. What is more, the organizations protested also against the fact that the project, before passing its final version, was not consulted with the concerned environment (in this case the environment of nonprofit organizations), which, according to the present Polish law, should be the normal practice. The project was widely criticized by the Polish nonprofit organizations. In spite of the period of summer holiday, 666 organizations signed the petition to the prime minister, asking to revise the project. This was a successful step. The office of prime minister is preparing a new version of the project. But Polish nonprofits have now another opportunity to fight to defend their rights, or maybe privileges. The proposed amendment to the Act on Taxes wants to took away from businesses the right that let them deduct from taxes up to 10% of their profit if it was granted to nonprofits in the form of donations. The abolishment of this incentive for businesses to support nonprofit organizations would put the existence of many organizations that function thanks to the corporate support in jeopardy. Again, protest broke out among organizations. Petitions have been signed and nonprofit sector representatives (particularly from the organizations associating Polish donors) advocated the government to withdraw from the proposal to cut tax incentives for the businesses. Hopefully, these efforts will turn out to be successful and the government will keep tax incentives for businesses that would encourage them to support nonprofit organizations. But what might be the next idea to weaken the nonprofit sector in Poland? Clearly, even these two almost parallel proposals of current Polish administration seem to suggest that it does not appreciate the role of nonprofit organizations and try to turn around the current trend and de-decentralize the power and service delivery. Do not the politicians know that many organizations deliver services that should actually be delivered by government agencies? If organizations are not allowed to perform certain functions, those will fall on the government. This will certainly be much more costly for the government than it can save through the abolishment of deductibility of corporate donations.