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    Polish prime minister attends League of Arab States – European Union summit in Egypt

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    redakcja
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    Polish prime minister attends League of Arab States - European Union summit in Egypt

    Less than two weeks after the Warsaw conference on peace and security in the Middle East, jointly hosted by Poland and the United States, the Polish Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, on Sunday attended an EU-Arab League summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

    At the two-day event, hosted by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, and co-chaired by European Council President Donald Tusk, EU and Arab League leaders gathered to discuss trade relations, investment, security, migration and the situation in Syria and Yemen. Polish public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency quoted Morawiecki as saying that the leaders gathered in Sharm el-Sheikh were to discuss counteracting terrorism and migration. “We talk about how the humanitarian aid provided by the European Union and Poland could be distributed, so that it could help [in areas affected by war] to avoid big migration waves,” Morawiecki added.

     

    According to IAR, during the first day of the summit, Morawiecki also took the opportunity to meet British Prime Minister Theresa May, European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker, and the Czech and Slovak prime ministers for bilateral talks. 

     

    As one might have expected, the outcome of the summit was the typically bland joint declaration, with leaders agreeing to deepen Arab-European ties to enhance the stability, prosperity, and well-being of the two regions. Stronger regional cooperation is seen as key to addressing common challenges such as migration. They also agreed to boost cooperation towards security, conflict resolution and socio-economic development throughout the region. The leaders committed themselves to working more closely together to address the root causes of terrorism and to continue joint efforts to combat foreign terrorist fighters. They also reaffirmed the need to strengthen economic cooperation between the two regions to spur investment and sustainable growth.

     

    And when it comes to security, for Poland at least, the government’s sights remain set on securing a bigger US military presence in Poland, something that the defence minister Mariusz Błaszczak said on Monday he has no doubt will happen. “We are not talking [with the United States] about whether the presence of the American army will be increased, only about how,” Błaszczak said.

     

    Specifically asked whether he had any doubts about whether the number of US troops in Poland would be increased, Błaszczak replied: “I have no such doubts. We are on the right track to achieve this success”. Błaszczak was speaking after the daily newspaper Rzeczpospolitahad reported on Monday that the US was considering establishing a permanent command headquarters in the city of Poznań, in western Poland, to be headed by a two- or three-star general. The paper wrote that the US was also considering permanently stationing air force units in Łask, in central Poland, and in Mirosławiec, in north-west Poland, and special forces in the southern city of Kraków.

     

    US troops are already present in Poland on a rotating basis as part of the four rotating batallions which NATO decided at the Warsaw summit in July 2016 to deploy to Poland and the Baltic states in response to fears of Russian aggression following Moscow’s annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine in 2014. In addition, the Polish section of a US missile defence shield over Europe is being built by the US at Redzikowo in the north of Poland. However, a more permanent US presence has long been a goal of the government as way of enhancing security. Given that many NATO members fail to meet the target of committing two per cent of GDP to defence expenditure, and the unpreparedness of some NATO members’ armed forces, the Polish government is right to be cautious and seek its own arrangements with the US. 

    Governing party presents new electoral pledges to continue family friendly policies.

    By
    redakcja
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    Governing party presents new electoral pledges to continue family friendly policies.

    “Men should pledge themselves to nothing; for reflection makes a liar of their resolution.” The words of Sophocles, which most politicians, nay most voters, would do well to remember. Poland’s ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS) is not shying away from making pledges confident, no doubt, that its record of implementing the pledges it made before the last elections will encourage voters to keep it in power.

    At a party congress held on Saturday in Warsaw under the slogan “A New Programme Arena”, PiS presented five major proposals in advance of this spring’s elections to the European parliament and the national elections this autumn.  The first major pledge is to extend the 500+ programme, a monthly payment of PLN 500 (EUR 115), to include the first child and not just the second and subsequent children as at present.    

     

    The second pledge is to help young people who begin their working lives by exempting them from personal income tax (PIT) until they reach the age of 26. At the other end of the spectrum, every pensioner will receive an extra annual payment equal to the minimum monthly pension, currently PLN 1,100 (EUR 254) or “a 13thpension” as party leader Jarosław Kaczyński put it. Deductible expenses for PIT will also be raised.

     

    The prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, emphasised the role of the family and encouraging young people to remain in Poland or to return from abroad. He said that the government aimed to raise the standard of living to in Poland to European levels. “We’re heading in this direction and we know how to do it”, he said.  He added that the total cost of the party’s new pledges is estimated at PLN 30-40 billion.

     

    Speaking on Monday, in Herby, President Duda expressed support for the programme. He said that he was very content to see progress in family policy in Poland, which progress was due to the present government which was “meeting its obligations”, something which in his opinion, “gives cause for great pride, and, most of all, satisfaction”. 

     

    Duda also said that all parts of Poland were equally important. and that growth should embrace smaller communities such as Herby. In his view sustainable development was the best model for Poland, as it ensured growth opportunities for all regions of the country. This is why he said his main focus was on smaller towns and municipalities.

     

    So, a continuation of the family friendly reforms which the government has said are necessary to spread Poland’s prosperity more widely, or a cynical attempt to bribe the electorate, particularly its own voter base, in an election year?        

     

    According to Rafal Benecki chief economist of ING in Poland, the spending pledges are higher than expected, and while they pose a limited risk to the 2019 budget, the picture for 2020 is less certain after two years of positive fiscal surprises. The EU threshold of the budget deficit not exceeding 3 per cent of GDP is not under threat.

     

    According to him, the bank does not like that fact that three quarters of the programme is directed at social measures which are politically effective in supporting PiS in the polls but provide only a transitory boost for GDP without solving any structural issues. It would prefer to see that three quarters spent on health care or education or simply to stop the tax system from tightening (more tightening will come when the economy slows to keep the deficit under control). The bank is concerned that the earlier tightening had a negative impact on private investment, which grew by just 3.5% year-on-year in 2018, below GDP growth. As a result, Poland is losing its competitiveness in the region in terms of investment’s share of GDP, which undermines long-term growth potential.

     

    The fiscal effect is projected to boost GDP by some 0.6% in 2019 and 0.8% in 2020. Thus, economic growth in Poland is shielded against a potential global slowdown. The bank sees moderate upside risk to its 3.6% year on year GDP forecast for 2019, and 2020 at 2.8 per cent year on year. However, the uncertain global picture is the main risk. 

     

    Of necessity, economists and politicians speak to difference audiences. Cynicism aside, the government’s proposals of themselves, particularly in relation to PIT which does start to bite at a much lower level than in the UK, for example, seem not unreasonable. It remains to be seen whether promised further pledges affect this relatively benign picture.

    Fat Thursday! Because why wait until Tuesday?

    By
    redakcja
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    Fat Thursday! Because why wait until Tuesday?
    Pixabay.com

    The last week before Lent is a festive and joyful time in many, at least traditionally, Catholic countries. Some dance in the streets, others organize parties, but we in Poland make it simple: we eat pączki, lots of them, and we do it on Thursday.

    Although some traces of this tradition can be tracked in ancient, pagan times, proper Fat Thursday has been celebrated in Poland and Catholic parts of Germany since 17th Century in cities and 19th Century in the country. It does not come as a surprise that the idea behind the holiday is get one’s belly prepared for the coming season of fat and sugar deprivation in the form of a 40 day Lent before Easter.

    The unquestionable hero of the day is PĄCZEK – a fist-sized doughnut, without a hole. Since traditionally it was the last chance to eat meat before Easter, doughnuts used to be much heavier and filled with lard, bacon or other kind of meat. But times have changed and the doughnut evolved, becoming much sweeter. Today, a frosted, rose petal jam filled ball of imminent atherosclerosis is considered a classic. However, it is not illegal to change the taste of the jam or substitute frosting with powdered sugar or glazing.

    There are also other pretenders in the sweet race, namely angel wings that we call FAWORKI. These are thin twisted ribbons, fried in the same way as doughnuts, with powdered sugar on them. They are still going strong, even though they might be losing popularity in the recent years.

    The way to celebrate Fat Thursday is as straightforward as it gets. You buy or fry your own doughnuts, share them with family, friends and co-workers, and then you eat. And you eat a couple more. And the last one. And then the ‘it’s-really-the-final-one’, and that is it. Doughnut consumption on that day is estimated to 100 000 000 countrywide. This means over 3 doughnuts per person, including babies. Let the numbers speak for themselves and be the best invitation for you to join us in celebrating this carefree feast.

    The Great Polish Painter – Olga Boznańska

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    redakcja
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    The Great Polish Painter - Olga Boznańska

    Some people may associate her with impressionism, yet her art was actually much closer to pure modernism or postimpressionism. One simply cannot fathom the depth of Polish art without mentioning the great artist Olga Boznańska.

    She began her study of painting with Antoni Adam Piotrowski, then under Kazimierz Pochwalski, and later at Adrian Baraniecki’s painting courses. In 1886 she left to study in Munich and attended private art schools there.
     
    She primarily created portraits, and received numerous prizes and awards for them. For her portrait of painter Paweł Nauen, for example, she was awarded a gold medal by Archduke Karl Ludwik of Vienna, and in London for her portrait Miss Mary Breme – a distinction. In 1896, the jury of the Société des Beaux-Arts in Paris accepted one of her paintings for an exhibition.
     
    After these successes, Olga Boznańska received a proposal to take the chair of painting at the women’s faculty of the Kraków School of Fine Arts, which she rejected.  By around 1900, the great artist had created her own style that is cherished today. 

    The second best known Pole in Japan

    By
    S
    -
    The second best known Pole in Japan

    Of course they know and love Chopin. Yet there is a Polish name that strikes a chord better than Copernicus or Skłodowska-Curie, especially in a part of Japan that suffered one of the greatest horrors on Earth. That name is Zenon Żebrowski; but it all started with a saint worthy of his own article – Maximilian Kolbe.

    When Kolbe was getting ready to build a monastery in Teresin near Warsaw in 1927, he needed responsible people he could trust with a number of tasks. His right hand man was a novice, Władysław Żebrowski, who took on the name of Zenon upon making his vows entering the friary. Żebrowski’s life bore striking resemblance to the life of St. Francis of Assissi himself – he was also born to a rather wealthy family, had a father focused on making money, but a mother caring more for his spiritual well-being. He had not been particularly spiritual himself, until one day he listened to a homily at a mass that made him rethink his ways and, eventually, enter a friary.

     

    Zenon was quickly recognized as a zealous friar, good organizer and administrator, with a certain facility for interpersonal relations with people of all states and trades. He helped with publishing “Knight of the Immaculate”, a monthly magazine established by Maximilian Kolbe, and supervised the construction site of what later became the largest Franciscan monastery of that time – Niepokalanów (“Town of the Immaculate”). But Kolbe’s spirit was restless, he felt the call to go on a mission to the Far East, so he took Zenon and a few others, and on the 26th of February 1930 they left Poland.

     

    After a short episode in Shanghai, they arrive in Nagasaki on 24th April, where Zenon made his perpetual vows a year later. Several months of acclimatization were enough to start publishing “Knight of the Immaculate” in Japanese under the name of “Seibō no kishi” and look for a parcel to set up the Japanese version of the town of the Immaculate. Kolbe had two options: an attractive square close to the city centre, in a district where many Japanese Catholics lived, and a larger spot, on a mountain slope, away from Nagasaki, and surrounded by gentiles. When visiting the former spot, St. Maximilian enigmatically said that it would soon be destroyed by a ball of fire so they could not build there. After a lot of prayer, he decided on the latter spot. When the atomic bomb was falling on Nagasaki on 9th August 1945, evaporating the Catholic district together with a major part of the city, Maximilian Kolbe had already given his life in Auschwitz.

     

    Yet, the mountain slope had protected the spot where the monastery had eventually been built, and brother Zeno, as the Japanese called Żebrowski, was left to witness the horror. He was so moved by the suffering that he rushed to bring help, disregarding the threats of exposing himself to radiation. He helped to organize food, shelter and blankets but also did things of a much larger scope. He set up a number of orphanages, one of which was even visited by the Japanese emperor Hirohito, but he did not limit himself to Nagasaki. In 1951, he was taking care of over 6000 poor and homeless in Tokyo, then helped in Hiroshima. He travelled so much and was becoming more and more recognizable across the country that in 1953 he even received a free ticket to travel anywhere he wanted from the Japanese railway company.

     

    The Japanese held him in great esteem. Many volunteers followed his lead, even though the very concept of volunteer work was alien to their culture. In 1969, he was even given the Order of the Sacred Treasure, a major Japanese decoration awarded by the emperor himself. There were many photography exhibitions focused on brother Zeno’s work, where he was often invited. At one of them, he even met the current emperor Akihito when he was a boy. Finally, in 1979, Zenon Żebrowski had a monument built in his honour, while he was still alive.

     

    Even though he was asked to return to Poland permanently when he was visiting his homeland on his way to the beatification of St. Maximilian, he refused to leave Japan and eventually died there on 24th April 1982, exactly 52 years after setting his foot on the Kyūshū island. Thousands attended his funeral. A few books, a movie and even an anime for children (“Zeno kagiri naki ai ni” – “Zenon – boundless love” – 1998) were produced to help keep Zenon in the memory of future generations of many countries. It still remains vivid in the hearts of the Japanese.

    Differences between living in Sweden and living in Poland

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    redakcja
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    Differences between living in Sweden and living in Poland

    Adam Starzyński tells Jon Carter about the differences between life in Sweden and life in Poland.

    US Ambassador to Poland tells Katz to apologise for his remarks.

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    redakcja
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    US Ambassador to Poland tells Katz to apologise for his remarks.
    Shutterstock

    The United States ambassador to Poland, Georgette Mosbacher, said on Wednesday that the Israeli Foreign Minister, Israel Katz, should apologise for his words about Poles. Katz had said: “Poles collaborated with the Nazis, and as [Israel’s former prime minister] Yitzhak Shamir, whose father was murdered by Poles, said, they suckle anti-Semitism with their mother’s milk.”

    These words coming soon after the spat over comments reportedly made by the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during last week’s Middle East peace and security conference in Warsaw had apparently been resolved, caused Poland’s withdrawal from, and the subsequent cancellation of, the Visegrad Group meeting which had been scheduled to take place in Jerusalem.  Poland’s PAP news agency quoted Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz was quoted as saying that “there is a widespread view that the Israeli side is to blame for the crisis.”

     

    On Monday, Poland’s prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki had criticised Katz for “reprehensible, unacceptable and simply racist words.” He said that Poles, alongside Jews and Roma, had suffered the most during World War II, adding that Poles had saved a huge number of Jews after Nazi Germany instigated the Holocaust. Indeed, the efforts of thousands of Poles who risked their lives by helping Jews during World War II have been recognised by Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial.

     

    For its part the US State Department, echoing the US ambassador’s Tuesday statement that there was no place in Polish-Israeli relations for offensive comments, called for dialogue between the two key US allies. As reported by Polish Radio’s IAR news agency, the State Department said that both Israel and Poland are important friends and allies of the United States. Which is all very well, but the statement stopped short of  calling for the apology which Poland deserves from Katz.

     

    A more robust line was however taken by Poland’s Chief Rabbi, Michael Schudrich, who issued a statement, published on the telewizjarepublika.pl website, saying Shamir’s words as quoted by Katz were unjust when they were first said in 1989 and “are even more unjust today, 30 years later, when so much has been done on both sides for a mutual understanding of our very difficult, but shared, history.”

     

    The final paragraph of his statement is worth repeating in full: “We also remember that during the occupation of Poland, Poland never established a collaborationist regime with the 3rdReich. It is a fact that Poles constitute the largest group among the Righteous among Nations. Accusing all Poles of antisemitism offends the Righteous; it also offends all those who today want to see in them the true representation of Polish society. And it also offends us, Polish Jews, who are a part of that society.”

     

    It is a sad fact that as anti-Semitism appears to be increasing across Europe, notably in countries such as France with large Moslem populations, Israeli politicians should yet again choose unjustly to castigate Poland, a country which is urging caution in relation to large scale Moslem immigration, for its alleged but unfounded collaboration with the Nazi occupiers, while seemingly choosing to remain silent about those countries where collaborationist regimes willingly assisted the Nazis in their campaign of extermination.

    The President of Lithuania, Dalia Grybauskaite, on her last state visit to Poland

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    redakcja
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    The President of Lithuania

    The heads of state of Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine, three nations that once made up the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth have meet with the soldiers of the LITPOLUKRBRIG. The multinational brigade, headquartered in the Polish city of Lublin, consists of units from the armies of Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine.

    The meeting in Lublin took place during a two-day state visit by the Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite in Poland.Her visit comes at a historically significant moment as this year marks the 550th anniversary of the Union of Lublin which established the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Commonwealth lasted until the Third Partition of Poland in 1795, with Poland and Lithuania not becoming independent states again until 1918.

    As Dalia Grybauskaite ends her second presidential term, the visit to Warsaw can be treated as a farewell to her role as head of state of Lithuania. The presidential election in Lithuania will take place on May 12th and Grybauskaite will not be able to run after having served two terms in office.

    Before travelling to meet with the soldiers in Lublin, Grybauskite spoke about the country’s relations with Poland during a joint press conference with Polish President Andrzej Duda. She told the press that she is very pleased by the tightening cooperation with Poland and that good Lithuanian-Polish relations are crucial for strengthening regional security.

    Apart from military cooperation, she also praised the implementation of joint economic projects and economic cooperation, including a number of important bilateral and European infrastructure projects regarding highways, railway, gas pipelines and power grid.

    The Polish President concurred that Polish-Lithuanian cooperation in the recent years has been great.He also stressed that Polish figher pilots are now guarding Lithuanian skies under the Baltic air policing framework and that the framework if proof of the common allied security guarantees between the two countries facilitated by NATO. He did however also bring up an issue that has been a bone of contention in Polish-Lithuanian relations in recent years. President Duda stressed that he hopes that Lithuania will adopt the necessary legislation to make it possible for the Polish minority living in Lithuania (making up around 6% of the country’s total population) to use the original, Polish, version of spelling of their own names for as certain street names in areas with a large Polish population. 

    The issue, together with dispute over the use of Polish language in some schools, has had a negative impact on the relations between the two countries in the decades following the fall of the Soviet Union.

    Poland Daily Travel visits the Raffles (Europejski) Hotel in Warsaw

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    redakcja
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    Poland Daily Travel takes you to one of the oldest hotels in Poland – the Raffles Hotel in Warsaw.

    Polish Vodka Tasting With Poland Daily Culture

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    redakcja
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    Join us at the Polish Vodka Museum for a tasting.

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