In the Olympic shadow monster is coming

It is coming invisibly, in quiet, in the shadow of Olympic games. But it comes decisively. It is not communism as one can guess. It is economical crisis. We in Central Europe with our strong curriencies and conscious politicians still think that we are an island of stability at the sea of turbulencies. But in Baltics they already know what is it overheated economy after credit crunch.
Poland, Slovakia, Czechia live through times of unprecedent prosperity. But now there is BIG warning: Germany, decisive market for all of us, is contracting - almost about one percent in the second quarter, as preliminary estimations say, for instance in today's Financial Times.
We live through big fiesta, until now. There is a question if our economies are prepared for any kind of slowing down, hard landing is more a question for our friends in Latvia and Estonia. But what is clear is that time for reforms is over. In Slovakia, they keep what was done under Mr. Dzurinda's governments, nothing else.
Czechia has been swalowed by political infighting within weak coalition government. Reforms, light ones, were done only in health care. Now we approach regional elections and then there will be EU presidency. It is not time for reforms even if economy would be booming.
Poland has got lost in inaction of promising liberal government. No major reform law was put under parliament scrutiny during first eight months of Mr. Tusk government. Prime minister and his Civic platform party are extremely popular mainly because of extreme unpopularity of strongest opposition party, Law and justice of Kaczynskis brothers.
EU money is pouring in, banks are wary to lend to poor borrowers, credit crunch is not the issue here. But with many car makers and low salaries we became a workshop of Europe. With strong currencies even the advantage of cheap labour has disappeared. And our politicians are able only to talk about knowledge based economy, not to push through any proposals and laws, not to reform overburdened public budgets.
I am afraid that Centraleuropean fiesta is coming to an end. But (almost) nobody dares. Shopping in Germany got now so cheap!