Polish voice for a more restless Europe

Maciej Witucki will take the helm of BusinessEurope in July, an organization representing 20 million companies across the continent. He argues that Europe still has enormous strengths, but must make better use of its capital, industrial base and technological capabilities. He warns against stagnation, populism and the growing number of barriers within the single market. The alternative? Europe becoming little more than a beautiful open-air museum.

Grzegorz Nawacki, XYZ: How did it happen that a Pole became president of the largest and most influential business organization in Europe?

Maciej Witucki, President of BusinessEurope from July 1: I do not want to sound immodest, but this was no accident. It is the result of 25 years of investment by the Lewiatan Confederation in Brussels. It was Henryka Bochniarz who came up with the idea of opening an office there at a time when European Union membership was still a distant prospect for Poland.

The second reason is that Poland is simply having its moment. Our elevation to the G20 has put the country on everyone’s radar. For the past two years, Lewiatan has been hosting what I jokingly call “study tours” from across Europe, with visitors coming to see the quality of our infrastructure, the scale of our investment projects and something that has become surprisingly rare on the continent: trains that run and arrive on time.

Poland is fashionable today, and my election is proof that our soft power is finally delivering results. But it was also the product of hard work – a year-long campaign and visits to almost every European capital.

What exactly is BusinessEurope? It sounds like just another Brussels institution.

It is an organization representing more than 20 million companies through national business federations. Unlike Poland’s fragmented employer landscape – where seven employers’ organizations sit on the Social Dialogue Council – BusinessEurope is the sole employers’ representative recognized under the Maastricht Treaty.

The leadership of BusinessEurope holds regular one-on-one meetings with the President of the European Commission, and we are also part of EU delegations on official visits. The organization’s influence is therefore considerable.

What I like most, however, is a description I once saw in an article years ago: “BusinessEurope – the Death Star of corporate lobbying.” And I take that as a compliment. Our mission is straightforward: to fight for business-friendly legislation.

What is your goal in this new role? What would you consider a success?

I have been elected for a two-year term, with the possibility of serving an additional term. Assuming I am fortunate enough to remain in office for four years, success would mean changing the way Europe thinks.

If we fail to show citizens in France or Germany that economic growth comes from deregulation, they will turn to populists such as Marine Le Pen or Nigel Farage. We need to shake up Brussels and remove the bottlenecks holding back the single market.

Did you know that, because of local air-traffic-controller lobbying, 30% of European airspace is effectively a “blank spot” that we do not use? And there are countless examples like this, where the free market in the EU is constrained in order to protect a small interest group.

My goal is to ensure that “Old Europe” stops normalizing one crisis after another, regains its momentum and starts acting much faster than it has in recent years.

What does Europe need?

A freer and more efficient single market.

Although the single market has existed for 40 years, it remains choked by local barriers designed to protect narrow national interests. In practice, these function as hidden tariffs, ranging from 40% to as much as 100%. Europe is losing vast amounts of money as a result.

Instead of creating new barriers, the European Union must embrace deregulation that allows the economy to grow. It is the only effective response to the rise of populism.

Europe also needs to create the conditions for consolidation. Years ago, the merger between Alstom and Siemens was blocked, and today even voices in Brussels acknowledge that this was a mistake. Europe must foster the creation of “European champions” along the lines of Airbus, particularly in the defense, energy, telecommunications and digital sectors.

But can we really expect politicians to push through bold reforms at a time when populism pays off in politics?

Either we are bold, or we lose. I do not want to say that this is our last battle, but we are getting close to the point where the stakes could hardly be higher.

Will a Pole defend Polish interests or European ones?

My job is to defend the common interest, because Polish interests are European interests. If the European project were to fail, Poland would not survive as a lone island.

You mentioned the “partitioned Poland” nature of Polish business organizations. But can a common position even be reached in such a vast organization as BusinessEurope? After all, the interests of Germans, French and Poles can be in conflict. The same is true for different sectors – and ultimately for competing companies.

It is a constant negotiation, almost like a conclave: we knead consensus until a white smoke appears. Unfortunately, the side effect of this method is often the emergence of the “lowest common denominator.” If someone shouts “no pasarán,” everyone else tends to settle at a level that can be averaged out.

But business – aware of global challenges and risks – is becoming increasingly bold in articulating its expectations, and, importantly, far more federalist than politicians. Even the largest economies – France, Italy or Germany – know they cannot stand alone in competition with India or Indonesia.

The choice is simple: either we cooperate and consolidate, or we retreat behind national-sovereign walls and pretend we will survive. The latter simply will not work.

Yet there are issues that divide Europe. Take the Mercosur agreement: the automotive industry is in favor, the agricultural sector is against.

BusinessEurope is firmly in favor, as it is of any agreement that expands free trade. Mercosur is a good example. In Poland, I heard: “We are against it because Germany will be the main beneficiary.” My question is: and who will be the second beneficiary? Poland – as Germany’s key subcontractor.

Poland’s exports of beef amount to around EUR 2 billion, while exports of automotive parts reach EUR 48 billion annually. We cannot reject this agreement in the name of protecting 1.5% of Europe’s GDP. Especially since the remaining 98.5% of the economy would generate sufficient resources to finance any safeguards for the agricultural sector.

Simply due to a four-year delay in the Mercosur negotiations, Europe has already lost more than EUR 290 billion in potential gains from free trade. Meanwhile, the cost of the necessary protections for farmers was estimated at EUR 6 billion.

Business must support policymakers in communicating this type of data to European citizens, in order to strengthen our resilience against manipulation and fake news on social media that undermine our development. Europe must look outward and sell. That is the key to continued growth – and to sustaining our valuable, but costly, social model.

We therefore need a common strategy, or else we will be left with a museum role – where our children and grandchildren will end up working primarily in hospitality and tourism.

But in these global markets, we have to compete with China and the United States. There are voices arguing that we stand no chance in this rivalry.

We need to develop, as quickly as possible, a common European model for coexisting with China and define what we protect, and where we cooperate. China – but also the United States, India and Indonesia – will not wait for us.

So we must have a shared strategy, or else we will be left with a museum role, where our children and grandchildren will end up working primarily in hospitality and tourism.

Europe, however, still has assets in this competition. It is true that only one European appears among the world’s ten richest people, but that does not mean we lack capital. On the contrary, it is vast – and it could be used for much more than financing pensions.

Europe still has enormous human capital, millions of entrepreneurial citizens, and a large number of modern factories and a well-developed industrial base. This is the continent’s real strength.

Another advantage lies in the power of small and medium-sized enterprises, with revenues of around EUR 1 billion and strong growth dynamics.

Where does this pessimism about Europe’s position come from?

Because we lack business stars that are visible in the public sphere in the way Americans have. We also do not have AI chat platforms or semiconductor fabs. Industry is currently seen as less “sexy” than artificial intelligence.

But that does not mean we lack critical technologies on which we could build a strong negotiating position. If a certain German company were to stop sending its lasers to Taiwan, the machines used to produce chips would shut down – and in the United States, production of American F-35 fighter jets would come to a halt.

This is only one of thousands of examples – less spectacular than AI or SpaceX, but we possess technologies with which we can exert leverage in the global system. We just need to stop being afraid of consolidation.

Europe is not lost at this point. We still have arguments in the global game. 

I wouldn’t worry about Europe’s lack of AI chat platforms. The world’s richest man is not the inventor of the internet, but Jeff Bezos, who figured out how to make money from it.

What you are saying is music to my ears. Europe is very good at effectively using tools created by others. Take Microsoft Excel, for example. In Europe, we have used this tool to develop business in ways that even Bill Gates could not have imagined.

We can do the same with artificial intelligence.

It is true that Europe has enormous wealth, but it is not working effectively for the economy. In Poland alone, there are PLN 2 trillion sitting in bank accounts, along with substantial capital tied up in rental housing.

This is correct: capital in Europe is largely frozen, and it would be beneficial to channel it into the stock market and investment funds. The ease of raising capital is a major advantage for American companies.

In Poland, this issue is even more pronounced. Yet whenever I hear about developing the Warsaw Stock Exchange, I am reminded of how “distorted” it remains by politics. The dominance of state-owned companies means it is not fully an independent market.

For years, investors have observed that the value of their shares – and multi-billion zloty swings in valuations – do not depend on company performance, but on a politician’s tweet or a casual comment in the media. In such conditions, it is hardly surprising that people are reluctant to risk their retirement savings.

Are you calling for privatization?

That is an unfashionable word. What we need is to de-monopolize the Polish economy, because excessive state presence in business destroys trust – and without trust, a capital market cannot exist.

We have plenty of money, strong technologies, and a huge market, but we need to restore confidence that success is determined by efficiency, not political connections.

If we manage to unblock these channels, Polish and European capital could finance growth on a scale we have not even begun to imagine.

You often cite Airbus as a model worth following. Why?

Because it is a European project that performs better than its American competitor. I would like to see a similar “Airbus obsession” in other sectors.

Instead of buying nuclear energy technology from the French, we should pursue it together. Instead of producing a dozen different types of military equipment, we should develop one European tank and one aircraft.

Today, each country produces its own systems and then competes with other European manufacturers for orders. The EU should centralize defense procurement, and business will respond to these needs – if necessary through rapid consolidation.

If someone from industry were sitting here with us, they would immediately say that the biggest problem is high energy prices driven by climate policy.

Poland received PLN 150 billion from ETS revenues, and only 6% was spent on the energy transition. We consumed that money instead of using it, for example, to build two nuclear power plants.

Now even European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen says that nuclear energy must be a stabilizing pillar of our energy mix. We are not Sweden or Norway – we cannot pump water up into the Tatra Mountains to create a pumped-storage power plant.

However, electrification of the economy is the only path to genuine European energy security, as we learned from the Nord Stream experience and more recent events in the Strait of Hormuz.

You sound optimistic, even though there are plenty of challenges.

That is simply my nature. But pessimism is a major problem for Europe.

In Poland, we are living in a “golden age bubble” and do not feel it. In Western Europe, however, millions of frustrated Europeans live with a strong sense of depression and a fear of stagnation. They observe the deterioration of infrastructure and worsening living conditions.

This is an extremely dangerous trend, because if citizens in France, Germany or Italy do not see economic growth and improvements in quality of life, they will start believing “magicians” such as Marine Le Pen or Nigel Farage. These figures, in turn, promise unrealistic solutions – such as money printing or dismantling Brussels.

Europeans must feel more benefits from the EU than just the ability to travel without a passport or lower roaming charges. Europe must move forward boldly with deregulation and joint projects to demonstrate the tangible added value of belonging to the Union.

Why do you want this new role? Given your recent activities, I would have expected you to be more in the mood for traveling the world in a camper van.

Because it is a huge challenge. We are really on the edge now.

Either it turns out that Mother Europe has caught her breath and is no longer in a state of cardiac arrest, or I will be watching populists meeting other populists from around the world at summits and taking over governments in Europe.

The next four years are crucial, and I do not want to stand on the sidelines.

Key Takeaways

1. Maciej Witucki’s appointment as head of BusinessEurope signals that Poland has gained a new standing in Europe. Witucki frames his nomination not as a coincidence, but as the result of many years of work by the Lewiatan Confederation in Brussels and Poland’s growing importance as a dynamic, investment-driven economy increasingly seen as a model of success. In his view, this is proof that Polish soft power is beginning to work in a tangible way.
2. Europe needs fewer barriers, more courage, and faster deregulation. Witucki’s core message is that the single market still does not function as it should, constrained by local interests, hidden barriers, and overly cautious policymaking. Without deregulation, consolidation, and greater economic effectiveness, Europe risks losing the competition with the United States, China, India, and other rising powers.
3. The key to preserving Europe’s social model lies in stronger business, capital, and industry. Witucki argues that Europe still holds significant advantages: capital, technology, industrial capacity, and entrepreneurial firms. The problem, however, is that these resources are underutilized. He therefore points to the need to build European champions, better mobilize private capital, and deepen cooperation in strategic sectors such as energy, defense, telecommunications, and digital technologies.