Most stores shut in Poland as Sunday trade ban takes effect
WARSAW, Poland — A new Polish law banning almost all trade on Sundays has taken effect, with large supermarkets and most other retailers closed for the first time since liberal shopping laws were introduced in the 1990s after communism’s collapse.
The change is stirring up a range of emotions in a country where many feel workers are exploited under the liberal regulations of the past years and want workers to have a day of rest. But many Poles experience consumer freedom as one of the most tangible benefits of the free market era and resent the new limit.
In Hungary, another ex-communist country, a ban on Sunday trade imposed in 2015 was so unpopular that authorities repealed it the next year. But elsewhere in Europe, including Germany and Austria, people have long been accustomed to the day of commercial rest and appreciate the push it gives them to escape the compulsion to shop for quality time with family and friends.
The law was introduced by a leading trade union, Solidarity, which has argued that employees should have the chance to rest and spend time with their families. It found the support of the conservative and pro-Catholic ruling party, Law and Justice, whose lawmakers passed the legislation. The influential Catholic church, to which more than 90 per cent of Poles belong, has also welcomed the change.