Eurozone and US crisis threaten zloty

“Zloty on a speculation swing,” headlines Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, warning that due to the weakening Polish currency, as well as a strong Swiss franc creeping toward parity with the euro, “a million Poles face hard times” and a “nervous week”. Even though Poland has traversed the global economic crisis unscathed, it is unable to resist the negative consequences of the eurozone and US economic meltdown, the Warsaw daily complains. According to Dziennik, dithering on the part of EU leaders to reach an agreement on saving Greece, along with US solvency issues, have been the main reasons behind the zloty’s plunging fortunes. Dziennik further blames the government’s reluctance to implement budget cuts and overhaul the health and pension systems. A recent report by Citigroup warning that the Polish zloty, the Hungarian forint, as well as South Africa’s rand and Brazil’s real are the currencies most vulnerable to credit crisis add further fuel to the fire. As a result, experts fear the zloty could become a target of a “speculative attack” and may not regain its value until the Greek crisis is solved.