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The 8th of February was the day Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz completed his first hundred days as Prime Minister of Poland. His foreign policy appeared to be a pleasant surprise for Poland's partners in the European Union…
All European diplomats with whom the author of these lines spoke, now tell of a pleasant surprise that they felt upon seeing the course that the new Polish Prime
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| Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz |
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Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz has taken in foreign policies. According to them, the first impression that the European diplomatic circles had of him last autumn, as well as of the rightist-conservative government he headed, was an extremely negative one. Diplomats’ pessimistic mood at that time reached the European press as well. The German Berliner Zeitung, for instance, did not mince words, calling Marcinkiewicz's government "a crowd of populists, nationalists, and Catholic fundamentalists, having a tendency to isolationism, and not capable of evaluating their actual financial possibilities". Such an evaluation, however, did have sufficient grounds. It is enough to recall the scandalous statements of the new Minister of Finance, Teresa Lubinska, concerning the intention to slow down the growth of foreign supermarkets' networks, and that accessing the euro zone is not at all Poland's priority.
Today, after only a hundred days with Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz as head of the government, European diplomatic circles, and the mass media as well, show a much more positive attitude toward him. It is now more than a month since Ms Lubinska left her former office. Her place at the head of finance was taken by Professor Zyta Gilowska, well-known throughout Europe as an adherent of liberal economic reforms. No less successful from the point of view of image improvement was the appointment of Stefan Meller as Minister of Foreign Affairs. He is a professional historian, a diplomat with more than a decade of experience, and Poland's former Ambassador to France and Russia. By virtue of the appointments of these people, and of Marcinkiewicz himself, the Europeans are convinced that the new team that has come to power in Poland is not at all an opponent of euro-integration. In the lexicon of this team there even exists a special word meaning the support of the euro-integration idea - "proeuropejskosc". This team is more obstinate than its forerunners from the leftist SLD. Nonetheless, this obstinacy, being based on a healthy pragmatism, does not go beyond the legitimate behavior of responsible politicians. Therefore it is neither frightening, nor prompting further rejection. The European press that attacked the Polish Government just three months ago, now often quotes Marcinkiewicz as saying: "We have to find our place in the EU!"
The most significant events of the European scale, which determined the present relationship of Brussels with the Poles, were the passing of the EU budget for 2007-2013 in December, 2005, and also prolongation of the action of the existing EU contract on the Value Added Tax – VAT - in international trade, which took place in January, 2006. Negotiations over the budget, which took place in the headquarters of the European Community, became a platform for the rapprochement of Warsaw with Berlin and Paris. Marcinkiewicz and Angela Merkel have established good working
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| Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz and Angela Merkel |
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relations, and the chancellor of Germany expressed her readiness to donate 100 million euros, intended for federal areas, for the benefit of the five poorest provinces of its eastern neighbour, which are also the most underdeveloped regions economically in the EU. In parallel, debates over the Eurobudget were marked by close Polish-French cooperation, and called to convince Great Britain to increase funds for new EU members. Actually, it was the first time a joint statement was issued by Warsaw and Paris since 2003, when they sharply disagreed concerning United States actions in Iraq. Discussion of the EU budget has come to an end with an idyllic picture: Marcinkiewicz embracing Jacques Chirac and calling Angela Merkel "The Guardian Angel". Debate on the VAT also ended on a cheerful note. After successful negotiations with the Poland’s Minister of Finance, Zyta Gilowska, her Austrian colleague Karl-Heinz Grasser exclaimed, "It is a victory of Europe!" Thus, the Poland of Marcinkiewicz and the Kaczynski Brothers has again shown its "proeuropejskosc".
As for relations with Great Britain, they have not suffered as a result of Warsaw's objection to London's position during negotiations on the Eurobudget.
As the debates ended, Marcinkiewicz hastened to assure the English that from the point of view of the Polish leadership, the union
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Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz with Toni Blair |
with London is a historical choice of strategic importance and it is considered by Warsaw as an integral part of its close partnership relations with the USA within the framework of the NATO. In addition, the Polish Prime Minister emphasized that the strategic importance of Great Britain for his country is also in its readiness to receive thousands of Polish workers.
Finally, concerning the behaviour of the present Polish government in the European arena, it is necessary to mention its last initiative in the sphere of the EU's energy security. Marcinkiewicz sounded this initiative for the first time a month ago, during his two-day visit to the capitals of the member-countries of the so-called Visegrad Group (or V-4), Prague, Budapest and Bratislava. The idea is for diversification of the energy streams to the EU countries, first of all, with the delivery of Scandinavian natural gas.
A bit later the idea of diversification of the energy streams to Europe was proposed at the international economic forum in Davos, Switzerland and, it is supposed, will become the basis of a joint Polish-Hungarian-Czech-Slovak initiative at the next EU summit in March. Without taking into account the reactions of the other members of the EU to this idea, they should recognize the fact that by putting it forward in the name of the European Union's security, the Polish leadership positions itself as an active member of the Union, having nothing in common with the nationalism and an isolationism of which it was accused just three months ago.
Read about the Marcinkiewicz government's foreign policy toward American and post-Soviet projections in following article
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