Minister Sikorski; photo - PAP

The opposition Law and Justice party is demanding that Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski apologise for an article he wrote 15 years ago, where he argues: “Poland would have been easier to reform if its exhausted industrial regions like Silesia could have been abandoned.”

Referring to Sikorski’s role in drawing up the ruling Civic Platform’s manifesto for the general election in the autumn, Law and Justice MP Adam Hofman said Monday: “If this man is preparing the Civic Platform programme for the elections, then what he says, his views, are the views of Civic Platform.”

In the article published in the Foreign Affairs magazine back in 1996, Sikorski is wondering why post-Solidarity politicians had been les successful than opposition activists in power in the Czech Republic. Sikorski puts it down to Poland's weak position economically.

Czechoslovak communists were more ruthless than there Polish equivalents, writes Sikorski, but they ran the economy better.

He then writes: “Moreover, the former Czechoslovakia discarded its lesser half, the poorer Slovakia, which has languished while the Czech Republic has progressed. Poland would have been easier to reform if its exhausted industrial regions like Silesia could have been abandoned.”

Sikorski has said that the questions he was asking in the article (see here, pdf) were “rhetorical” and a figure of speech.

The row comes after leader of the Law and Justice  party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski came under fire at the weekend after appearing to insinuate that Silesians were more German than Polish.

“I used a rhetorical figure of speech when comparing the economic transformation of Poland and the Czech Republic. This has nothing to do with Law and Justice implying that Silesians are disloyal to our country,” Minister Sikorski said. (pg)