According to the Financial Times on Thursday, “Poland will remain among the EU’ s top performers because of actions “undertaken by successive governments and the clear commitment to financial discipline”.  That said, rising unemployment and declining credit will hamper consumer demand, whose resilience hitherto has help to allow Poland’s GDP growth to easily outshine the EU average in 2009.  The bigger question is whether Poland can make it to Euro entry–falling tax revenues are accelerated by plummeting credit growth, a spiral which may require public debt to ultimately expand beyond that which Brussels deems kosher.

In the meantime, Standard Chartered, a bank, recommends buying the zloty and selling the euro.  Poland’s currency has fallen 28% since last July’s highs–the world’s worst performing emerging market currency–despite being the only country in the region to report expansion in that time.  Complicating such a trade, however, would be possible contagion from Latvia’s impending devaluation of the lat.