POLAND
The Union of Large Families “Three Plus” was officially launched in Poland in recent days. Its main aim is to promote a policy for large families and campaign against their discrimination. The chairperson of the new association, Joanna Krupska, inaugurating the activities of “Three Plus”, said that one of the paradoxes of the situation of families with several children in Poland today consists in the fact that the authorities, in spite of the grave demographic crisis, fail to implement any family policy. The members of the new association have underlined the need for legislation geared to the needs of large families, including the urgent need to adopt tax breaks in relation to number of children. Some of the founding members of “Three Plus” pointed out that the way of treating large families in Poland is even in breach of the Constitution and the principle of the State’s duty to protect the family. They recalled that in Germany the denunciation of a similar situation before the Constitutional Court resulted in the introduction of favourable family policies by the German government in the late 19990s. It was also pointed out that, in the event of a failure to introduce a policy of tax concessions for large families, the number of pensioners would grow to double the size of the workforce in twenty years time. This would mean that it would be necessary to promote the immigration into Poland of several million foreign workers (mainly from Asia) with consequent grave social imbalances. Meanwhile, the 4th World Congress for the Family, devoted to “The family. A springtime for Europe and the world”, was held in Warsaw from 11 to 13 May.
