GAZETA WYBORCZA takes the government to task for its failure to introduce the vitally-needed finance reforms.
Can Poland allow to have a fast-growing debt? What to do to convince young couples to have more children? There are some of the questions posed in the GAZETA WYBORCZA editorial.
Poland spends too much and the structure of public spending is wrong, because no future-oriented investments are made. Prime Minister Tusk’s response is: what counts is ‘here and now’ . He thinks people are afraid of reforms but at the same time his government is talking about tax hikes and cuts in social benefits, including tax concessions for children. According to GAZETA WYBORCZA such a strategy leads to nowhere.
Poland is a country of over 38 million people. EU forecasts for 15 or 20 years from now speak of a nation of 33 million, with a GDP annual growth of 0.3 percent and the ninth place in the world in the number of old-age pensioners. This is a vision for Poland if the government continues to do nothing.
In the years 1997-2001 Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek implemented four major reforms – of old-age pensions, health care system, administration and education. Today he is President of the European Parliament. He gained the highest support among Polish politicians in the elections to the European Parliament. Will Prime Minister Tusk be able to count for the same kind of support in a few years’?, the paper wonders.
On the current visit to Poland by David Irving, the controversial British historian known as ‘Holocaust denier’, RZECZPOSPOLITA has two comments: for and against. A historian and political scientist Waldemar Paruch says that a country which champions the freedom of speech and expression, must not prohibit the promotion of any views, no matter how absurd and stupid. Polish historians, he claims, should point out time and again that Irving’s theories have nothing to do with scientific research. If he voices opinions violating Polish law, however, he should face judicial proceedings.
Anna Tatar of the Nigdy więcej/Never More Association told RZECZPOSPOLITA that a man who claims that ‘Jews were not murdered in Auschwitz and that Hitler was their greatest friend’ should not be allowed to visit Holocaust remembrance sites.
A frontpage story in POLSKA THE TIMES is about accusations by a suspected al-Qaeda terrorist, now in the Guantanamo prison, that he was tortured in a secret CIA prison in Poland. The daily interviews Mikolaj Pietrzak, a Polish lawyer who was asked by the Open Society Justice Initiative to represent Abd at Radim al Nashiri, charged with supervising a terrorist attack on a American ship ten years ago. Pietrzak told the paper that to act on behalf someone accused of the most serious crimes is for him a great professional challenge.
And in RZECZPOSPOLITA, an MP of the ruling Civic Platform says ‘the terrorists are testing the judiciary system in the democratic countries and the CIA is portrayed as the Gestapo of the postwar era, which is absurd.
And finally, the SUPER EXPRESS tabloid with a story ‘Who’s afraid of Kwasniewski’s diaries?’. Former President Aleksander Kwasniewski is putting the finishing touches to his diaries. The daily claims some of the leftist politicians are in panic. ‘If he decides to reveal the more juicy details of his ten-year presidency, his book is likely to cause a turmoil on Poland’s political scene’, one of them is quoted as saying. (mk)