Economist

POLISH media are notoriously wary of confronting the powerful Catholic Church. Until recently, at least. On May 23rd TVN24, a news channel, ran a half-hour programme about child abuse by priests. It was the second in just a few weeks.The show featured three case studies in which only one victim showed his face—and he was speaking from Canada. The reports illustrated the hostility and disbelief victims face in Poland when they tell their stories. They highlighted the Church’s stubborn refusal to take any responsibility as an institution and, worse, the individual priests’ apparent sense of impunity.One of the three items also featured my own experience whilst trying to investigate a case for France 24 television. We had spoken to a man who told us he had been abused in the late 1970s by someone who was now rector of a parish in Szczecin. We travelled to the parish and found the cleric in question (who cannot be named for legal reasons) leading mass. Afterwards, I asked him whether he had any comment to make on the allegations, and got an astonishing reaction. Accusing us of filming illegally, the priest led both me and the cameraman into the rectory… and locked us in.After a few minutes we tried to escape, and were violently blocked by the cleric. Fortunately, in the scuffle that ensued he dropped his keys and we were able to get out. Our detention had lasted less than ten ...

FOREIGN POLICY magazine’s new list of the 500 most influential people in the world includes Donald Tusk and Radosław Sikorski. The Polish prime minister and foreign minister are the only Central Europeans to make the cut. Internationally, they have earned Poland a reputation as a rock of economic stability in a troubled Europe, and a diplomatic heavyweight.Poles do not see things quite the same way. Though still in comparatively better economic shape than much of the European Union, Poland is suffering a slowdown and unemployment is high. The government is accused of inaction. In recent months Mr Tusk’s personal popularity has been falling steadily until, in April, it almost hit a par (at 34%) with that of Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of the conservative opposition Law and Justice party. This happened despite the latter’s apparent obsession with conspiracy theories surrounding the plane crash that killed his brother, Lech Kaczyński, who was the president in 2010.Among those hoping to take advantage of Mr Tusk’s weakening is Jarosław Gowin, sacked from his position as justice minister on April 29th. A leading conservative within the governing Civic Platform party, Mr Gowin’s departure had been on the cards for months, as his relationship with Mr Tusk grew ever more fractious. His most public conflict with the party leadership came in January, when he declared a bill ...

UK Only Article:  standard article Issue:  Freedom fighter Fly Title:  Turning-points in history Rubric:  Why 1979 was about so much more than Margaret Thatcher’s election victory Main image:  20130413_BKP001_0.jpg Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth of the 21st Century. By Christian Caryl. Basic; 400 pages; $28.99 and £18.99. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk HISTORIANS have a professional fondness for “turning-points”: years that act as hinges of history rather than numbers in a sequence. Some of these hinges turn out to be anything but: 1917 proved to be a bloody dead end and 1848 proved to be, in A.J.P. Taylor’s phrase, “a turning-point in history when history failed to turn”. But others, such as 1789 (when France’s ancien régime collapsed) and 1517 (when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the door), resound down the ages. Later this month Christian Caryl, a veteran foreign correspondent now based in Washington, will publish a timely new book, “Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth of the 21st ...

UK Only Article:  standard article Issue:  The death of a country Fly Title:  Eastern Europe after 1989 Rubric:  A rich account of eastern Europe's ongoing fascination The Taste of Ashes: The Afterlife of Totalitarianism in Eastern Europe. By Marci Shore. Crown; 370 pages; $27. William Heinemann; £20. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk EASTERN Europe, writes Marci Shore, is “Europe, only more so”. It was the site of the continent’s worst events and of the most uplifting moments of modern times: the peaceful revolutions that toppled communism. As a young scholar in the 1990s, Ms Shore, who now teaches at Yale, was mesmerised by the way each chapter of the past had its roots in an earlier era. The dissidents of the 1980s were in large part formed by the failed reform-communism experiments of the 1950s. Those in turn were a reaction to Stalinism. Communism itself was a reaction against fascism and the Depression of the 1930s. Her kaleidoscopic book of reminiscences and encounters gives an authentic feel to the difficulties that outsiders often have in making sense of ...

AS Britain and France move towards legalising gay marriage, Poland is in a spin over far less radical legislation: civil unions. At the end of last month parliament threw out three bills proposing civil partnerships that would be open to same-sex couples. The result surprised supporters of the legislation. After all, one of the proposals was put forward by Artur Dunin, an MP for the ruling Civic Platform party.Yet 46 Civic Platform MPs rebelled, which was enough to defeat the motion. The party refuses to impose a whip on issues relating to social "worldviews" (światopoglądy), because it is itself founded on a deeply uneasy marriage of liberals and conservatives. Mr Dunin has promised to tweak his bill and put it forward again, yet his conservative colleagues, led by Jarosław Gowin, the justice minister, are adamant that the whole idea is unconstitutional.The divisions within the party reflect real divisions within its electorate, and within Polish society as a whole. Reaction to the vote was lively and swift, and the debate shows little sign of dying down. The decidedly uncivil remarks made by Krystyna Pawłowicz, an MP for the conservative opposition Law and Justice party (PiS), have been one focus of attention. Gay couples, she asserted, are not based "on any kind of life project but, at best, on the barren exploitation of the other person, treated as a commodity”. Ms ...

UK Only Article:  standard article Issue:  The next supermodel Fly Title:  Unconventional gas in Europe Rubric:  Extracting Europe’s shale gas and oil will be a slow and difficult business SHALE gas and oil are propelling America to energy self-sufficiency and giving its economy a handy boost. Europe’s shale-gas deposits are said almost to match those across the Atlantic (see map). Will the old continent soon enjoy the same benefits? The mismatch between the hope and reality for European shale gas was neatly summarised by a deal sealed on January 24th that will allow Shell to probe Ukraine for unconventional gas. Ukrainian politicians talked of a $10 billion investment. Shell took a more cautious line. The firm certainly hopes to find plenty of gas in eastern Ukraine. But it will first do some seismic testing and sink 15 test wells. If the results are disappointing it could, like ExxonMobil in Poland, walk away. It is too early to tell whether Europe’s shale beds will really prove as bountiful as America’s. Only a handful of test wells have been sunk. Exxon may have ...

UK Only Article:  standard article Issue:  The next supermodel Rubric:  Cardinal Jozef Glemp, primate of Poland during the Solidarity years, died on January 23rd, aged 83 Main image:  20130202_OBP001_0.jpg HE WAS small. That was the first thing people noticed about him, even before the jug ears, the simian upper lip and the habit he had, a disconcerting one, of closing his eyes when he spoke. His churchman’s cappa and lace surplice foreshortened him still more. A modest little man, apparently, at home with papers and books, well suited to the job he held for 12 years of being secretary and private chaplain to an archbishop. By contrast the man he served, Stefan Wyszynski, was a giant, a national hero, obstinate against Communist rule as the country’s primate after 1948. He made a son of Jozef Glemp, and tipped this unassuming man as his successor. Those were colossal shoes to fill. Coming into the role at last in 1981, young for it at 51, “the little primate”, as he called himself, knew his limitations. The ruling principle of his turbulent years as the leader of ...

IS Slovakia punching above its weight? The country earned moral credit for the missionary zeal that it applied to promoting human rights and democracy abroad under several centre-right cabinets, packed with ex-dissidents, veterans of the struggle against Vladimír Mečiar and well-known reformers such as Mikuláš Dzurinda. It was especially critical of its eastern neighbours, such as Alyaksandr Lukashenka, the president of Belarus.When a centre-left government took over last year, some observers expected Slovakia to scale down its big ambitions. The first stint in power of Robert Fico (pictured above), the prime minister, did not inspire confidence. It featured endless spats with Hungary, a lashing-out against Georgians following the 2008 war with Russia, and hobnobbing with Kremlin officials at the time of the 2009 Russian-Ukrainian gas dispute.Mr Fico was criticised as a cynical pragmatist who hung a picture of Che Guevara on his office wall, toasted the anniversary of Fidel Castro’s revolution with mojitos at the Cuban embassy days after a Slovak activist was expelled from Cuba and held cosy chats with Muammar Qaddafi and Hu Jintao. To those who claim that he has since “learned his lesson”, critics point out that as opposition leader, Mr Fico gave a speech at the 2011 congress of Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party.Miroslav Lajčák, the foreign minister, a former EU ...

Note from the editor of Eastern Approaches: we have amended this article, which was first published on December 19th, to correct some inaccuracies in the original version. TWO of the best films on the Holocaust, “Schindler’s List” by Steven Spielberg and “The Pianist” by Roman Polanski, both feature exceptional Germans performing noble actions during the second world war. In a similar vein, “In Darkness”, directed by Agnieszka Holland, and Poland’s nominee for the 2012 Oscars, tells the story of a Polish Catholic sewer-maintenance worker who first out of greed, and then out of a newfound sense of duty, saves a group of Jews in the sewage of Lviv. Both films are based on historical facts--with some Hollywood icing. A new Polish film, Pokłosie (Consequences), released a few weeks ago, is different. There is no hero, however unlikely, battling the forces of Nazi evil. And the plot is only vaguely based on the historical facts of a pogrom that took place in Jedwabne in north eastern Poland in July 1941, when several hundred Jews were burnt in a barn by their Polish neighbours. The film’s director, Władysław Pasikowski, calls it a thriller, though this does not seem to be the right category for the film. Perhaps its working title, “Kaddish”, the Jewish prayer read by mourners at funerals, would have been a more apposite choice for the title and description of its narrative. The ...

WHILE it gets less attention than India or China, Poland has been one of the world’s great development success stories of the past two decades. This is due in no small part to the policies it pursued after the end of Communist rule. One of the architects of those policies, Leszek Balcerowicz, was the subject of a long interview in this weekend’s Wall Street Journal. The article is worth reading, although Mr Balcerowicz’s narrative of Poland’s success and its applicability to the beleaguered nations of the euro area leaves something to be desired.If you want to understand why Poland had a good crisis, you need to understand three things. First, you need to know that Poland’s currency, the zloty, was never pegged to the euro. This was immensely helpful both on the upside and on the downside. From 2004-2008, credit sloshed into the new member states of the European Union from Western European banks. The biggest victims were those that borrowed in currencies they could not print: euros, Swiss francs, and Swedish kronor. Worst hit were the Baltics, which had rigidly pegged their currencies to the euro since the early 2000s. Private credit doubled in those countries and all three endured punishing recessions afterwards.Private credit growth was much slower in Poland, although it was still pretty rapid. Some of this was because of Poland’s history with corporate nonperforming ...

ELŻBIETA BIEŃKOWSKA, Poland's minister for regional development, manages the biggest allocation of European Union funding sent to any single member state. Poland was awarded nearly €68 billion ($89 billion) of structural and cohesion funds (SCF) in the EU's 2007-2013 budget. When Polish 'match funding' is included, the spending package rises to a whopping €112 billion. If the current negotiations in Brussels can be concluded this winter that amount may even be increased for 2014-2020.It is partly thanks to these funds that Poland's economy has been a relative star performer in Europe. The economy is also helped by convergence with neighbouring Germany, a large internal market, risk-averse banks, and the free-floating złoty. "Our negotiators are now flying to Brussels with six years of proof that this money works," says Mrs Bieńkowska. "We don't accept that it is simply aid for Europe's poor. It is Europe's most important driver of growth."In Mrs Bieńkowska’s view demand throughout the EU is boosted by Poland's EU-funded projects. They often require importing machinery from western Europe; German, British and French firms can be direct recipients of the funds, if they apply for EU-backed tenders in Poland. Not everyone buys her view. At the EU summit last month, net contributors wanted to cut the SCF in the name of austerity.Mrs Bieńkowska was born in 1964, into a family ...

THE leaders of the EU have been coming and going all day for their “confessionals” with the monk-like president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy (pictured in the middle). They have been telling him what they can and cannot concede in their latest contest over the EU’s trillion-euro budget for the next seven years. After a long delay, the presidents and prime ministers finally sat down for their first full session close to midnight. Mr Van Rompuy told them: "Maybe this meeting will be long and complicated. Fortunately this issue only comes up every seven years!" At about 1% of the EU’s GDP, the union’s budget is minor compared with total public spending (about 50% of GDP). But the budget debate brings out the worst in leaders, turning the negotiation into the nastiest of zero-sum (Reuters has a useful guide here here). This haggling session is particularly charged because it takes place against the background of the crisis of the euro zone, and the prospect that Britain might detach itself from the EU. In the tug of war, Britain stands at the most austere end of the rope, while the European Parliament is at the most profligate. Both have threatened to veto a budget that does not meet their demands. The European Commission has proposed a budget that, at €1.09 trillion for 2014-2020, is about 5.5% bigger than the one for the previous seven-year period ending ...

UK Only Article:  standard article Fly Title:  The world in figures: Countries GDP growth: 2.1%GDP per head: $13,490 (PPP: $21,970)Inflation: 2.9%Budget balance (% GDP): -1.7Population: 38.1m The centre-right Civic Platform and the agrarian Polish Peasants’ Party, its junior partner, are at odds over fiscal policy, but there is little threat to the ruling coalition. As economic growth fades and foreign markets wilt, the government will concentrate on shoring up support from creditors. It will be at pains to demonstrating careful budget management—the more so since a $29.5bn IMF credit line lapses early in the year. To watch: Deferred pensions. A phased increase in retirement ages and the elimination of special privileges for certain professions will come into force in 2013 as part of a radical pension reform. Published:  20121121 Source:  The World In

A QUIET stroll through the golden-leaved parks of central Warsaw on Sunday became an assault course involving a long convoy of armoured vans, baton-wielding riot squads, surveillance drones, helicopters, military police, and a scary man in a suit with a curly wire coming out his ear.November 11th is Independence Day in Poland. It is meant to celebrate the birth of the modern Polish nation. In recent years the occasion has been a chance for small groups of demonstrators with extremist views to try their luck against the law-enforcement arm of the Polish state.After a day of relatively peaceful marches, the riots in the evening resulted in 22 police injuries and 176 arrests. Most of the trouble was around representatives of Poland's tiny far-right organisations, the Narodowe Odrodzenie Polski [National Revival of Poland] and the Młodzież Wszechpolska [All Poland Youth], who attacked the police with flares, bottles, and bricks. An unconfirmed report spoke of petrol bombs*. Protestors were dispersed with truncheons, tear gas and verbal warnings that rubber bullets were about to be used.Of the several  marches that took place, one included Polish anti-fascist demonstrators with banners that crossed out swastikas and the "white power" symbol. Another with 10,000 attendees was led by president Bronisław Komorowski, a political centrist, who called on ...

THE editor-in-chief of Poland's leading conservative newspaper, Rzeczpospolita, has left his job after publishing an inaccurate report that explosives were found in the remains of the plane that crashed and killed Polish president Lech Kaczyński and 95 other VIPs in Smolensk, Russia in 2010. This stoked the fire of claims that the accident was an assassination. The reporter of the story and two other employees have also left the paper.The scandal has rocked Poland for a week. Rzeczpospolita's initial front-page story said that investigators recently found TNT and nitroglycerin around the wreck, on 30 seats and on the wings of the Russian-built Tu-154 aircraft. An official report from Russia had blamed the Polish pilot for choosing to land in thick fog, while another from Poland also found fault in Russian ground control.Polish opposition leader Jarosław Kaczyński, the identical twin of the late president, has long suggested that the government is not telling the truth about his brother's death. He also accuses Donald Tusk, the prime minister, of pandering to Russian president Vladimir Putin, who personally oversaw the Russian investigation into the incident—an investigation that was profoundly flawed. Mr Tusk has strongly denied the charges against him, and says they are politically motivated.On the day the Rzeczpospolita story was published, Mr ...

VISIT any supermarket in any rich country and you will find the same things: shelves groaning with readymade pizzas, elaborately dressed chicken dinners, all-in-one vegetarian meals, noodles, curries, pies, pasta, sushi and more—all ready to eat with no more than a few minutes in the microwave or oven. The nutritional value of such meals may be questionable but the convenience is undeniable and the price often unbelievable. For your correspondent, a reluctant and largely incompetent cook, they are a godsend.That low, low price—around £3 ($5) for a product that contains many disparate elements, from the tin, plastic or Tetrapak packaging to the vegetables, meat, oil and condiments that go into it—is what happens when the free market meets free trade. Ingredients come from countries where it is cheapest to manufacture and ship them. They are processed and packaged in a central plant in another nation. By the time the meal reaches the neon-lit aisles of your local supermarket, it has travelled thousands of miles and dozens of people have been involved in its production. But where does this food actually come from? And who are these people labouring away across the world so that students and the poor and the lazy can eat a cheap, hassle-free dinner? It is these questions that Katja Gauriloff, a Finnish film-maker, sets out to answer in “Canned Dreams”, a documentary ...

UK Only Article:  standard article Issue:  The man who must change China Fly Title:  Polish politics Rubric:  The growing unpopularity of the Polish prime minister Location:  WARSAW POLAND’S centrist government is being battered on all sides. Growth is slowing, unemployment remains high, and a combination of austerity and scandal is stoking public discontent. Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the opposition Law and Justice party, has gained a new lease of life. A rally this autumn drew a large crowd, and several opinion polls put his party in the lead. Shortly after Donald Tusk’s Civic Platform won the 2011 election, he started some brave, unpopular reforms, and the fiscal tightening that his economically liberal supporters had long hoped for. Particularly controversial was a decision in May to raise the retirement age. Some economists were pleased, but, as the pain of austerity bit, the government began sliding in the polls. Scandals began erupting: a cronyism affair involving Civic Platform’s junior ...

DONALD TUSK is one of the longest-serving prime ministers in Europe. His fans praise his steady, emollient style and the solid economic growth Poland has enjoyed under his stewardship. Foes blast sleaze, complacency and stagnation. Each year Mr Tusk gives an "exposé" to the Sejm, outlining his government's priorities for the coming year. This year, by his own admission, he offered "no fireworks". The priority was economic growth. The main specific was to extend maternity leave from six months to a year. He also asked for vote of confidence, to dispel speculation about the longevity of his coalition government. Shale gas, roads, railways, deregulation and police reform also featured, although with few specifics. Those with a detailed interest in Polish politics can read the whole speech here.   Address of Prime Minister Donald Tusk delivered at the Sejmon 12 October 2012 Mr President, Ms Speaker, Mr Speaker, Honourable Deputies. This information from the Government, which some call the second exposé, is, I believe, essential after the initial year of our work, after the first year of the second term of the Government formed by the coalition between the Civic Platform and the Polish Peasants’ Party. Why do we need this second exposé? Because 2013, which will be a difficult year not only for Poland, a year with far more questions than certainties ...

THE PHILIPPINES makes peace with rebels, Russians elect regional governors, the Cuban missile crisis is remembered 50 years later and Poland hosts the Rubik's cube championships

ANTI-GOVERNMENT protests at the weekend saw an estimated 50,000 demonstrators in the streets of Warsaw, under the slogan "Wake up, Poland". Most were supporters of Law and Justice, the biggest opposition party, which is eurosceptic and conservative on social issues such as abortion and gay rights, but veers towards socialism on economic policy. Today, Law and Justice kept up the pressure by saying it would attempt to unseat Donald Tusk, the prime minister, in a vote of no confidence, proposing Piotr Gliński, a sociology professor, as his successor in a technocratic government. Given the government's majority, this seems to be more of an exercise in political theatre than a realistic objective. Law and Justice party chief Jarosław Kaczyński had appeared to be losing his mettle. Eschewing economic debate while Poland averted the global financial crisis, he instead obsessed with the death of his twin brother, the last president, in the Smolensk air crash. Mr Kaczyński has suggested it was not an accident, but surveys show only about a quarter of Poles ever subscribed to the assassination theory. Now that the country's traditionally good growth is slowing, Mr Kaczyński is attempting more constructive tactics, albeit with plenty of drama. Reaching out to struggling small businesses and state employees threatened with lay-offs, he promises to ...

UK Only Article:  standard article Issue:  Heading out of the storm Fly Title:  Poland at war Rubric:  Poland’s wartime suffering was extraordinary. It has been greatly neglected by the rest of the world Main image:  20120929_BKP001_0.jpg The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War. By Halik Kochanski. Allen Lane; 734 pages; £30. To be published in America in November by Harvard University Press; $35. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk THE biggest gap in most histories of the second world war is what happened to Poland. By the war’s end it had lost not only a fifth of its population but also its freedom—despite having fought from the first day to the last against the Germans. Many histories deal with the greatest crime of the war years: the annihilation of Europe’s Jews. That chiefly took place in occupied Poland, and the largest number of its victims were citizens of the pre-war republic. But these are books about the Holocaust, not about Poland. Books about Poland abound too. ...

Does size matter?Our interactive map splits India by state (and union territory) to provide a clear impression of the breadth of the country’s internal differences, the immensity of the population, and the sheer inequality of the distribution of wealthCaught in the middleHalik Kochanski, author of a new book about Poland’s experience of the second world war, discusses the country’s traumatic entrapment between Nazi and Soviet oppression, and why it has remained hidden from mainstream historiographyThe sins of the fatherPark Geun-hye is doing well in the race for South Korea’s presidency. But she carries heavy baggage thanks to a father who was both a terrible autocrat and—arguably— the economy’s saviour. Now Ms Park wants to apologise for his legacy’s rougher partsFrom our blogsFinance: Risk-seekingKweku Adoboli, a trader at UBS, managed to lose the Swiss bank $2.3 billion. At his trial on charges of fraud and false accounting, questions have been asked about why his big bets remained undetected for so longTechnology: Better never than lateKickstarter tries to discourage its use as a micro-investment platform by going back to its crowdfunding roots—even though its commissions may suffer as a resultUnited States: Jerks’ rights When Barack Obama went before the UN General Assembly this week he addressed multiple audiences, but probably not violent Muslim protestersMost ...

HALIK KOCHANSKI, author of a new book about Poland and the Poles in the second world war, discusses how and why their story has remained hidden in mainstream historiography

A YEAR after his headline-grabbing speech in Berlin, in which he called for German leadership of Europe, Poland's foreign minister Radosław (Radek) Sikorski has launched another bold initiative. In a speech (pdf) near Oxford, he has blasted British Euroscepticism; a condensed version ($) was published in the Times a few days later. The intervention follows the publication of a report jointly written with the foreign ministers of Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain, which demanded "more Europe" as a response to the crisis. Recommendations included European oversight over the national budgets, bank-supervisory powers for the European Central Bank, a European Monetary Fund for bail-outs and more powers for the European Parliament. (It was also published in the New York Times as an op-ed)Mr Sikorski comes from a background of hawkish British Atlanticism. As a refugee from Communist Poland, he was a notable figure in Oxford in the early 1980s, belonging to the Bullingdon Club of hard-drinking aristocrats (other members included Boris Johnson, George Osborne and David Cameron). Most people from that milieu are more or less euro-sceptic. But many fear that Britain's position on the sidelines of Europe is becoming unsustainable. Ian Traynor wrote in the Guardian ...

A rallying callPakistan’s cricket star Imran Khan has transformed himself into a political force. Last year he staged some of the biggest rallies seen in Pakistan for years, cementing his place as a front-runner in the imminent election. He spoke to us about politics at home and abroadDriven from drinkWireless aids can warn teenage motorists (and their parents at home) about driving transgressions. But it is a short step from passive technology to more autonomous systems that can take control behind the wheel. Should we rely on technology to stop drivers breaking the law?Explaining the violenceNearly six weeks after the Maruti-Suzuki car factory near Delhi was attacked by over 1,000 workers and a senior manager was killed, the Japanese carmaker says it has not been able to establish the reason for the fighting. Yet it has no plans to move production out of IndiaChina: Belated bloom in BeijingA delegation from Egypt’s new government gives China’s leadership a second chance to warm to the Arab springBritain: The Lion and the UnicornThe August bank holiday heralds the belated arrival of the silly seasonAsia: Don’t mention the coupBangladesh’s ruling party plans to entrust the army with monitoring the country’s next election in 2013Business: First is bestIs this the first article you read today? If so, there’s a good chance you will enjoy itUnited States: How big a bump?Past ...