The Second Part
Mister Prime Minister and His Men
It is impossible to understand the motives of the recent Polish Prime Minister without getting to know his personnel policy. And for that it is important to know who is Mr. Marek Belka himself. Born January 9, 1952 in the city of Lodz, Pole by nationality, he graduated from the Socio-Economic Department of Lodz Univercity in 1972. Later he studied economics in several western institutions, Columbia University, University of Chicago, and the London School of Economics. For a certain period of time he was a student of the "Guru" of neo-liberal economic theory, Milton Fridman.
Belka`s talents became handy after the fall of the communist regime in Poland.
During 1990-96 he was simultaneously the economic adviser of the Polish Ministry of Finance, the World Bank and American investment giant JP Morgan & Co. During this period he also received a professor's degree in economics from the University of Lodz (1994). Subsequently, for 6 years (1997-2003), he acted in turn as first deputy Minister of Finance, Minister of Finance and the economic adviser to the President of Poland.
In 2003 Belka took a turn being in charge of economic policy of the just created interim coalition administration of Iraq. There were several reasons for this appointment falling to him. First of all, he had wide experience in the field of the transformation of a totalitarian state economy like that in Poland until the end of the 80s, into a market economy. Additionally, the American administration desired simultaneously to encourage Poland as an ally of the anti-Iraqi coalition, and wanted to see in this post such a well-known representative of Western Poland as the professor of economics, Marek Belka.
This citation from his interview for the German radio station "Deutsche Welle" is widely known: "We take our international responsibilities very seriously and will not withdraw our troops from Iraq..."
During his stay in Iraq, Belka`s relations with the American and British leaders, and also with business elite of their countries, became much stronger. Particularly, he worked very closely there with Daniel Zelikow, managing director of JP Morgan Chase (the merged JP Morgan & Co and Chase Manhattan Corporation) under whose the direction the new Trade Bank of Iraq was created. The Iraqi mission of Belka ended in May 2004, when he was recalled to Warsaw to head the Polish government.
He was and continues to be considered in the West more as a high-level professional economist - technocrat, rather than a politician. Belka`s program to improve the Polish economy, which he presented as Prime Minister, is seen as an embodiment of neo-liberal economic ideas, very far removed from social democratic ideas filled with a romantic spirit of social justice.
All the Prime Minister`s Men…
From his first days in power Marek Belka began to surround himself with liberally orientated people, who were not representative of the ruling SLD party. He started by assigning Miroslaw Gronicki to be Minister of Finance and Marek Balicki to be Minister of Health.
Just as Belka, Gronicki is a doctor of economics, who in the beginning of the 90s received his education at the University of Pennsylvania and consequently worked as an adviser to the World Bank, several other international organizations, and also to the governments of Poland, Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzia. Balicki, –a doctor by profession, was an active figure in the anti-Communist organization "Solidarnosc " in the 80s.
Apparently, by definition, the policies of both Balicki and Gronicki are incompatible with the ideology of the ruling "Alliance of the Democratic Left", and its representatives showed rough discontent with the Gronicki and Balicki assignments. Nevertheless, Belka was steadfast in his decision, and both ministers are still in their posts.
However, the most scandalous personnel decision of Marek Belka was the dismissal of Zbigniew Siemiatkowski from the post of the Head of the Polish Foreign Intelligence Agency (Agencja Wywiadu - AW). Siemiatkowski, a professional politician and a representative of SLD, was replaced with professional diplomat Andrzej Ananicz at the end of August 2004. Ananicz is an expert philologist and orientalist, he has a Master's degree in Turkish Studies and a Doctorate (Ph.D.) in Iranian Studies. He graduated from Indiana University in Bloomington. Before his assignment to the post of Head of the Polish Intelligence, he worked for more than a decade in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Poland (Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych). From 2001 until 2004 Ananicz was the ambassador of Poland to Turkey. Concurrently with the replacement of the AW head, personnel purge started in the Internal Security Agency of Poland (Agencja Bezpieczenstwa Wewnetrznego - ABW). Many older officers who had served since the Communist period, many of whom were active members of the ruling SLD party, lost their jobs. (See the article on personnel rearrangements in the Polish special services).
And the last personnel decision of Prime Minster Belka worth remembering was the assignment in January 2005 of Adam Daniel Rotfeld to the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs. A Jew by nationality, he survived the Holocaust as a child. Rotfeld is a career diplomat, one of the few veterans of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs from the Communist period. From the moment of his assignment to the ministerial post, Rotfeld served as a sort of "façade", a visiting card of the Belka government, mainly due to his extensive contacts with the American administration and the American Jewish community. In European diplomatic circles Rotfeld is known for his rigid anti-Russian position. His active assistance to Viktor Yushchenko`s victory in the presidential elections in the Ukraine became his "debut" as Foreign Minister.
The Belka Team’s Radiant Prospects
It is possible to assume with full confidence, that Belka`s team, or at least, most of its members, will find themselves in the next Polish government, after the parliamentary elections of autumn 2005. They are all highly trained professionals, sharing liberal economic values and pro-American orientation. By the way, it is possible that Belka could become the head of the new ruling cabinet.
In the beginning of May 2005 he had already declared officially his joining the new centrist Democratic party (Partia Demokratyczna - PD) as one of its leaders. PD was formed in March 2005 with the active participation of vice-Premier Jerzy Hausner.
On a background of the permanent crisis of both left and right political camps, PD, headed by Marek Belka has a good chance to achieve significant electoral success.
Part One
Part Three
Part Four
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