Greedy banks misinform clients and how to marry into Schengen…  

Presented by Slawek Szefs   

All papers report on the Wednesday visit of president Lech Kaczynski in Afghanistan. The head of state and armed forces superior arrived there to personally convey Easter greetings to the Polish troops stationed in Ghazni province as part of the NATO mission. An immediate result of the visit has been the president’s pledge to increase the size of the contingent and make sure that a sufficient number of soldiers remaining in Poland would be in constant combat readiness to aid their colleagues in Afghanistan should such need suddenly arise.

DZIENNIK looks ahead to 5 and 6 May scheduled trip of Poland’s foreign minister to Moscow. Radoslaw Sikorski’s mission will be to prepare the ground for a visit by Russian PM Vladimir Putin to Poland in connection with 70th anniversary commemorations of the outbreak of World War II. The Kremlin is expecting Sikorski to refrain from hitherto efforts to bring Ukraine and Belarus closer to the European Union within the framework of the Eastern Partnership project. It actually conditions the further course of relations with Poland on such stand. It’s going to be a tough assignment for the foreign minister in finding some kind of compromise, writes the daily.

‘Those disgraceful bankers’ headlines GAZETA WYBORCZA pointing an accusative finger at the Millenium bank. Its former managers have informed journalists about ill practices of Millenium employees who tried to earn extra bonuses for their client sales records. For starters, they opened accounts in their own names, then extending the list to include all possible family members and friends. They used every available method to cajole regular clients into availing themselves to new bank products, regardless of the offer’s use and profitability for the given customer. When this greedy scheme had been discovered 650 of Millenium’s 4,000 regular employees, as well as their supervisors, were deprived of monthly and annual bonuses. But what needs to be underscored is the fact that such an approach had been enforced on the personnel at client service level through an insatiable quest for better and better product sales results… by the bosses themselves.   

RZECZPOSPLOITA devotes frontpage attention to some 9,000 foreigners annually who apply for permanent resident status in Poland after marrying Polish citizens. There are pointers that every fourth such marriage has been arranged only to attain this goal. However, the Public Registration Office, even if suspecting that might be the case, cannot refuse the couple the right to matrimony. Sources reveal the practice is often materially oriented, with Poles (both men and women) accepting considerable sums for the ‘favor’ extended. What follows, naturally, is a speedy divorce. The trend is especially widespread among arrivals from post-Soviet countries for whom acquiring Polish citizenship means unrestricted travel opportunities in the entire Schengen zone.

The tabloid FAKT looks critically at a group of employees, which it describes as enjoying leisure on every third statistical day of the entire year. Teachers, of course, it explains with disapproval. This state of affairs has negative bearing not only on the educational process of school children, but on the situation of their parents as well. Moms and dads simply don’t know what to do with their kids on numerous occasions when schools are closed but they have a regular working day. A case in point is Easter. The first official holiday falls on Sunday, while schools called it quits already on Thursday. Teachers have 117 days off annually, informs the scrupulous Fakt.