The Prime Minister’s decision to relocate next month’s celebrations of the 20th anniversary of the country’s first post-war, partly-free elections from Gdansk to Krakow is the subject of comment in all the dailies. According to GAZETA WYBORCZA, thanks to Mr Tusk’s decision ’a spectacle of abuse and slander destroying the tradition of Solidarity’ has been avoided. The move to switch  the venue of the celebrations to Krakow was prompted by security fears that the festivities attended by European leaders would be disrupted by Solidarity protests. GAZETA WYBORCZA admits, however, that a VIP get-together in Krakow will have nothing to do with celebrating the elections which paved the way for the collapse of communism. The SUPER EXPRESS tabloid also stresses that Krakow brings to mind the one thousand years of Polish history and the richness of Polish culture but not the end of communism.

The daily POLSKA comments, in a pessimistic tone, that there is not a single anniversary, apart from those of national defeats, around which Poles are able to unite these days. Poles themselves are to blame that the collapse of the Berlin Wall will be a symbol of a new, post-communist Europe, rather than the Gdansk Shipyard where Solidarity’s revolution had started. POLSKA describes the domestic conflict around next month’s celebrations as a Polish-Polish war which deepens internal divisions.

DZIENNIK writes about the Prime Minister’s weakness, saying that his talk about ‘guaranteeing security to foreign leaders’ is an evident excuse. He simply does not want to be booed at a big, national celebration. RZECZPOSPOLITA is also critical of what it calls the prime minister’s politically-motivated decision, taken by a man who is aware that he will soon have to face large-scale anti-government demonstrations.

The Eastern Partnership Initiative, launched at the EU summit in Prague, is described in another RZECZPOSPOLITA editorial as Poland’s success.  According to the daily, the initiative may prove particularly beneficial for Belarus in its move towards Europe. GAZETA WYBORCZA  stresses, however, that the European Union is not interested in what’s going on beyond its eastern borders as  much as it was last year, after the war in Georgia. Suffice it to say that German Chancellor Angela Merkel was only leader of the EU’s big countries who was present in Prague. DZIENNIK, too, draws the attention to the long list of absentees and claims that cracks have appeared on the project long before it was launched.