Breaking the Chains of Bureaucracy: Rafał Brzoska’s Fight for a Freer Europe

Let My People Go!

Hark the post horn! Poland’s top business tycoon, philanthropist, and founder and CEO of InPost, has a package of ideas to deliver to the Berlaymont Palace.

Speaking to Visegrád24 in his offices in the west of Warsaw, Rafał Brzoska exudes the type of urbane, strong, refinement of Poland’s civilised, but new, elite. It is becoming clear that the optimism of his self-made generation is now tainted by reflections upon the nation’s future and the constriction of opportunities which they themselves once enjoyed. Today, Rafał is leading the charge to tackle a proliferation of managerial bureaucracy which, he says, is threatening Europe’s economic place in the world.

“There’s a famous saying,” he told us. “The US innovates, China replicates, and the European Union regulates.”

Rafał founded InPost in 2006 as a parcel locker network aimed at simplifying public deliveries in Poland. The company rapidly expanded its services and went public on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange in 2020, becoming one of the largest companies in Poland and leading the market in e-commerce logistics solutions. In 2021, the now multinational drop-shipping service became the largest parcel locker operator in Europe.

Like most of Poland’s post-Communist success stories, InPost, was able to grow in an environment of relative economic freedom.

Poles have inevitably compared Rafał to Elon Musk - which seems to amuse, rather than flatter him. However, there is a curious trans-Atlantic synergy between the two visionary entrepreneurs. Beyond support of education, health, and social welfare, Rafał’s philanthropic activities are beginning to turn in the direction of statecraft.

Poland's economic boom has been a personal journey as well as a financial one. The emergence of a society from the whisperings and persecutions of a dark, Communist regime to the bright skylines and vibrant western culture that Poland enjoys today have left their mark on the first wave of free market entrepreneurs.

“Poland was completely destroyed in Second World War. Then we had 45 years of a command economy run by Russia. And in 1989 we started the real entrepreneurship from scratch. Our GDP per capita was less than 7000 US, dollar per person. Now it's 47,000 per person. It means that in two years time horizon, most probably will overpass Japan. This is the sense of Poland. This is the nation. This is the energy. This is the entrepreneurship. This is the huge energy needed to catch up with the others successfully.”

“The reason that there is more and more regulation in Poland today, I think, is that Europe is following the path that we as Poles do remember very well. This comes from the communism times, where everything was by an order, everything was planned. Or if it was not planned. It was supposed to be planned and regulated. We know that this kind of economy is leading to nowhere, and that's why we are so convinced that Poland has a very strong mandate to tell European Union that we need to change the way of working. We need to change the way we want our beautiful countries to be developed.”

Investment in People

One of Brzoska’s most striking philanthropy projects involves sending Polish children to elite foreign schools, returning a vast, intangible, value to society. So no wonder he frets about the first casualty of overregulation: talent.

"We are losing our best brain power. The brain power, specifically in AI space, is now moving away from Europe, moving away from Poland. We need to change that," Rafał explains. “I think the politicians, they should look to the entrepreneurs for how to change their way of working. And I hope we will become a kind of inspiration for many politicians across Europe, what to change, how to deregulate Europe, but also to push Europe forward in terms of innovation.”

Inevitably, powerful businessmen are accused of oligarchical practices when they turn to politics, but our conversation with him left a sure impression that this tycoon remains very much a grass-roots man.

"Most of my focus will go into regular people; people who are not big entrepreneurs, because these are the best energy creators for the big businesses.”

SprawdzaMy

With this in mind, Rafał founded SprawdzaMy.com - an online platform which allows users to verify and assess the credibility of businesses and service providers in Poland by offering real-time reviews and ratings. The platform is hoped to foster not just transparency in the market, but also sets its sights on regulators.

“Here at SprawdzaMy.com, we are sometimes compared to the American DOGE program, because first of all, this is an organic growth coming from the society, coming from the expertise different organisations... We are calling together all the ideas, we are giving advices and giving guidances how to implement them into a common benefit, and I strongly believe that we are checking and this will lead us to deliverables.”

Rafał is buoyed by the initial response.

"The good thing that happened in recent days is that many of the Polish politicians, irrespective of the parties they represent, started thinking and saying out loud that we need to change something; that we need to deregulate. we need to maybe create a special pathway how to proliferate that idea, also to European Union, to European Commission, maybe.”

"Deregulation is critical, because our competition, specifically from us and from Asia, doesn't have these strict rules that we, as Poles and as Europeans, must align with if we want to run the business, and that's, you know, simply unfair.”

Alexander Shaw

Journalist