Poland’s chief central banker, Adam Glapiński, has announced that the National Bank of Poland (NBP) will issue a collectors’ note and coin dedicated to the “defence of the Polish eastern border”.
The mementoes will be issued in an “expedited” and “extraordinary” release.
Poland has in recent months been facing a surge in irregular migration on its eastern border with Belarus, to which the government has responded by deploying 15,000 Polish troops as well as planning a €350 million border wall to be constructed by next year.
To mark these events, the NBP, which has exclusive rights to issue legal tender in Poland, is now creating a new note and coin, whose face value and design have not yet been announced. It will be issued in an “expedited and extraordinary procedure”.
“The issue of collector items is an opportunity both to commemorate important historical anniversaries and people and to develop interests in Polish culture, science and tradition,” said the bank in a statement.
The release was met with criticism on social media. “Release a coin to mark the event of 7% inflation,” said opposition MEP and former health minister Bartosz Arłukowicz, referring to Poland’s inflation soaring to 6.8% in October, the highest in two decades.
Poland’s central bank also recently released a new 20-zloty banknote featuring the late president Lech Kaczyński – who died in the Smolensk plane crash – alongside his words “Being a Pole has value” (“Warto być Polakiem”).
The new banknote was released last week, with a recent ceremony attended by Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and his deputy Jacek Sasin, the minister of state assets. Large queues formed as it went on sale.
After a limited edition banknote featuring the late President Lech Kaczyński went on sale, large queues formed of people hoping to buy one.
The 20 zloty note costs 100 zloty to officially purchase, but is reportedly being sold for far more online https://t.co/9DHg6Gvbxd
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) November 9, 2021
Main image credit: Irek Dorozanski/DWOT/Flickr (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.
