PM Vladimir Putin is insincere in his claimed will to develop closer ties with Poland, says an expert quoted by Rzeczpospolita.
Press reviewed b Krystyna Kolosowska
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says he wants accord with Poland, reads a headline in Rzeczpospolita. This and other leading dailies give frontpage attention to the meeting in Davos between Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. The latter is quoted as declaring readiness to develop closer relations with Poland. The snag is that, a few hours earlier, a military court in Moscow rejected another Polish complaint concerning the Katyn massacre of Polish officers by the Soviet NKVD in 1940. There can be no talk of a coincidence here, a specialist in Soviet affairs tells Rzeczpospolita. Russian courts are not independent. This is the Kremlin’s decision. Despite official declarations, Putin does not care about improving relations with Poland, says Professor Jan Wieczorkiewicz.
Courtesy or a signal of warming up on the Warsaw-Moscow line? – asks Dziennik. Donald Tusk invited Vladimir Putin to Poland. But the one-hour-long meeting did not produce decisions on the key issues of Russian gas supplies and the deployment of missiles in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, bordering on Poland.
Gazeta Wyborcza comments on the ruling of the Russian military court, which said that there are no legal grounds to conduct a probe into the Katyn massacre. A statute of limitation applies to it, because in 1940, when the NKVD killed over 22,000 Poles, a 1926 criminal code applied in Russia. In line with it, crimes were subject to a statute of limitation of ten years. Gazeta Wyborcza says that the quoting of Bolshevik legal norms by a contemporary court in Moscow sounds ominous. This institution is ready to perform any logical exercise to protect Bolshevik killers, not even from being brought to justice, as they are already dead, but also from truth.
Dziennik reports that the biggest opposition party, the Law and Justice has a detailed plan on how to regain popularity and power in three years. Its congress, starting on Saturday, is to embark the beginning of this road. The party is determined to revamp its image, improving strained relations with experts, academic circles and NGOs. Around 2010, it plans to present future ministers in its government, which will not include only deputies but experts, too.
The tobacco industry’s nightmare has come true, writes Puls Biznesu. The sale of cigarettes dropped in Poland by ten percent last year. Such a sharp fall has not been registered in many years. Smokers have been reaching for roll-your-own cigarettes as well as smuggled products as EU authorities are stepping up their anti-smoking campaign, raising prices to a level hardly acceptable to Polish consumers. The results may be contrary to what is expected, the National Tobacco Industry Association warns.
The tabloids here are busy spying on former prime minister and politician with Christian roots Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz and his new partner, a beautiful, young blonde he met while working in London. Fakt says gossip is flourishing among Poles living in Britain and in the mass media here that fifty-year-old Marcinkiewicz is soon divorcing his wife.