Today’s news round up in Poland

Start your day with a summary of today’s top stories from Poland’s leading news sites.

rp.pl – According to Rzeczpospolita daily and economists interviewed by the newspaper, the highest inflation in Poland will be in February and may reach even 19 percent. Prices of consumer goods and services (Consumer Price Index, CPI) increased by 17.2 percent year on year in January 2023, the Central Statistical Office (GUS) reported on Wednesday. Most surveyed economists expected higher CPI due to higher VAT rates on energy and heat. But surprisingly the increase was smaller than forecasted. Rzeczpospolita wrote that one of the reasons could be lower prices of coal as the demand in Poland and Europe was smaller thanks to the rather warm winter. "Starting in March, inflation should begin to decrease but would not be below 10 percent by the year-end," Piotr Bielski, economist from Santander Bank told the daily.

TVPInfo.pl – Thursday is Fat Thursday in Poland. This is the last Thursday prior to Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. As such, it is one of the most important holidays, and it mainly revolves around eating as many doughnuts as possible, all in the name of good luck. According to Culture.pl website, statistically, every Pole eats two and a half doughnuts on that day, which constitutes a whopping 100 million for the entire nation. The state-owned TV news channel reminded that Polish doughnut has 350 calories, less than 6 grams of protein, over 50 grams of carbohydrates and 13 grams of fat. To burn these calories a 40-minutes’ walk is needed.

Wyborcza.pl – Lodz (central Poland) is the most congested city in Poland, according to the latest ranking by the TomTom company which provides navigation and traffic management solutions. The daily wrote that on average drivers in Lodz spent 77 hours in traffic, 7 hours more than a year ago. The data also suggests that the average time it took to travel 10 km increased by over one minute. In the general ranking Lodz is 33rd in the world but within cities of 800,000 inhabitants is the most congested in the world.

RMF24.pl – This weekend Poland faces hurricanes and very strong winds up to 125 km/h, the spokesperson of Institute of Meteorology and Water Management - National Research Institute (IMGW), Grzegorz Walijewski warned. The strongest winds will be in the northern part of Poland with storms up to force 12 on the Beaufort scale on the Baltic sea. In central Poland the wind could be up to 90 km/h. Windy weather is supposed to start on Friday afternoon and could last till Sunday evening.