Prime Minister Donald Tusk flew to Brussels Saturday night to take part in today’s emergency summit of European Union leaders on a joint plan to fight the economic crisis.
The summit was called by the current Czech presidency after President Nicolas Sarkozy pledged financial aid to his country’s car industry if the plants stayed in France. Central and eastern European countries see this as a creeping protectionism developing within the 27 nation bloc.
On Sunday morning, before the informal summit of all EU members begins, PM Tusk is meeting with the head of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, and the head of the European Investment Bank, Phillippe Maystadt to discuss entering the ERM-2 and, eventually adopting the signel currency, possibly in 2012 or 2013.
Poland will be backing a Hungarian proposal to shorten the time that a nation must stay within the ERM-2 mechanism. Currently the EU demands that a currency must stay within a 15 percent band to the euro for at least two years.
Solidarity, not protectionism
President Lech Kaczynski gave up his original plan to also attend the summit last Wednesday, when it was decided that each EU state will be represented by one person only. This was seen as a significant climb down by Kaczynski over whether the government or head of state has power over foreign policy, a feature of the difficult cohabitation between the two politicians since Civic Platform won the general election in late 2007.
In fact, President Kaczynski has been making placatory remarks as to his relationship with PM Tusk. “I will on the Prime Minister, because I wish Poland the very best success,” Kaczynski stated in a newly-adopted stance of solidarity amongst the country’s leadership.
According to President Kaczynski, the protectionist policies that France and other EU members have been accused of adopting are “natural” and understandable at a time of looming recession, but the union “must actively fight the financial crisis together, not separately.”
Meanwhile, currencies in the central and eastern European region continued to strengthen, somewhat, on Friday after the World bank and other lenders said they had prepared a package which will provide quick financing to protect small and medium sized firms. (pg/mmj)