Nations in Transit - Poland (2005)

Capital: Warsaw
Population: 38,200,000
Status: Free
PPP: $4,570
Private Sector as % of GNI: na
Life Expectancy: 75
Religious Groups: Roman Catholic (95 percent), other [including Eastern Orthodox and Protestant] (5 percent)
Ethnic Groups: Polish (96.7 percent), German (0.4 percent), other [including Byelorussian and Ukrainian](2.9 percent)

NIT Ratings	1997	1998	1999	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005
National Governance	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	2.50
Electoral Process	1.50	1.25	1.25	1.25	1.25	1.50	1.50	1.75
Civil Society	1.25	1.25	1.25	1.25	1.25	1.25	1.25	1.25
Independent Media	1.50	1.50	1.50	1.50	1.50	1.75	1.75	1.50
Local Governance	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	2.00
Judicial Framework and Independence	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	2.00
Corruption	N/A	N/A	2.25	2.25	2.25	2.50	2.50	3.00
Democracy Rating	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	2.00

Executive Summary

Poland is a success story among the post-Communist democracies. After 15 years of transition and the implementation of difficult reforms, Polish leaders' efforts finally paid off in May 2004, when Poland joined the European Union (EU). Already Poles have started to feel and see the positive effects of membership, such as enjoying full access to the European common market and benefiting from the transfer of EU structural funds. They also look forward to the free movement of people, goods, and services that membership will eventually offer. At the same time, EU membership means that Poland's progress will now be judged by Western standards. In this regard, Poland still has a variety of challenges that it must address in order to bolster continued democratic development. Foremost among these are weak governance and widespread corruption.

Nevertheless, 2004 marked a breakthrough in bringing corruption to light. After an inquiry into the "Rywingate" media corruption scandal, the Parliament adopted a report that accused Prime Minister Leszek Miller, President Aleksander Kwasniewski, and other high-ranking government officials of breaking the law. Soon thereafter, a new parliamentary commission began to investigate "Orlengate" an energy sector corruption scandal apparently involving the same decision makers, the intelligence services, and a prominent Russian spy. The investigations were strongly criticized by the post-Communist and left-leaning post-Solidarity establishment, who viewed them as an attempt to destroy the state. However, their efforts to block the investigations failed. The majority of the public and the media sided with the investigators and found their work necessary to heal Poland's system of governance. Rywingate, along with Iraq, the economy, and other factors, contributed to Leszek Miller's decision to resign in May. He was succeeded by Marek Belka, Miller's former finance minister.

National Democratic Governance. Poland was required to fulfill high standards of national democratic governance to achieve EU membership. Today, the country is a stable parliamentary democracy whose Constitution provides for an effective system of checks and balances. The prime minister holds the most powerful office. Although the president's role is more ceremonial, President Kwasniewski has been active in foreign policy since he was first elected in 1995. Poland has an underdeveloped cadre of professional nonpartisan civil servants, a problem compounded by the government's frequent reluctance to appoint civil servants on merit. The state still retains shares in about 1,800 companies and fully controls about a third of them but is unable to adequately control the security and intelligence agencies. These are poorly overseen and have been drawn into current political disputes pitting the ruling Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) against the opposition and internal party factions. Poland's new rating for national democratic governance is set at 2.50. Although government institutions already meet high democratic standards, the state continues to be overburdened and inefficient in some areas, and some powerful agencies lack sufficient democratic accountability.

Electoral Process. Poland's parliamentary system is based on the principle of proportional representation. The most recent parliamentary elections were held in 2001. In 2004, for the first time in history, Poles took part in elections to the European Parliament, but the turnout was only 20.9 percent. The ruling SLD achieved only the fifth-best result, while the opposition parties together gained about 80 percent support. Some observers viewed the vote as largely a referendum on the government's domestic performance. Since then prime minister Leszek Miller and President Kwasniewski had both pledged to hold early parliamentary elections in the spring of 2004, voters were confused when balloting did not occur. Throughout the year, the opposition Civic Platform led the opinion polls with 20-30 percent support, and a new political party entered the scene when the Social Democratic Party was founded. Owing to the low turnout in the European elections and the confusion over the scheduling of national elections, Poland's rating for electoral process worsens from 1.50 to 1.75.

Civil Society. Poland has a vibrant civil society, with a wide range of interest groups participating actively and freely in the political and social life of the country. Labor unions, church-affiliated groups, public policy institutes, and numerous other organizations are influential and enjoy easy access to the media and legislators. In 2004, Polish nongovernmental organizations were able for the first time to profit from a law allowing taxpayers to donate 1 percent of their income tax payments to support organizations that work for the public benefit. Although some observers consider the scheme too complicated and say it makes it difficult for taxpayers to donate money, others see success in the US$8 million that was collected for the 2003 tax year. Polish civil society also worked hard in 2004 to support a democratic election process in neighboring Ukraine, and thousands of Poles took to the streets late in the year to demonstrate against Ukraine's obvious election fraud. The civil society sector in Poland is stable, and its rating remains at 1.25.

Independent Media. Poland's media environment is generally free. The investigation of the Rywingate scandal, where leading figures from the SLD allegedly attempted to extort money from the publisher of one of Poland's largest daily newspapers, encouraged some journalists to speak more openly of instances when they were intimidated for publishing stories that were unfavorable to those in power. It also led to changes within Polish State Television, the country's largest broadcasting service, when its president, whom the Parliament determined to be guilty of conspiring in the affair, lost his job. A court ruling favored journalists in one of the year's most controversial libel cases, Kwiatkowski and Jakubowska v. Majcherek. The rating for independent media improves from 1.75 to 1.50 owing to the successful investigation of the Rywingate scandal and the subsequent increase in media independence from powerful state actors.

Local Democratic Governance. Post-1989 reinstitution of local self-government helped to increase public investment in waterworks, sewage systems, and the building of roads and other infrastructure. Equipping the units of self-government with new competencies did not go hand in hand with providing sufficient funds, however. Since the government frequently miscalculates the cost of new legislation, local authorities are often forced to make budget cuts to fulfill their most vital responsibilities. Nevertheless, most self-governments are coping well with this challenge, and local populations are taking greater interest in local affairs. In 2004, Poland began implementing the Integrated Operational Program for Regional Development a plan for using EU structural funds in each of the 16 provinces. Poland's new rating for local democratic governance is set at 2.00. While the necessary institutions are in place, the public does not yet hold them in high esteem.

Judicial Framework and Independence. Although there is no widespread official abuse of the criminal code, the legal system is Poland's weakest branch of government. Despite some progress in reducing excessive court delays, for example, the number of court cases lasting for more than five years is still estimated at 6,300. Of these, about a quarter are in Warsaw alone. Under pressure from the enormous number of cases filed at the European Court of Human Rights, Poland introduced a new law that makes it easier for citizens to complain about excessive delays of court proceedings. About 30,000 people who had been sentenced to prison remain outside the penitentiary facilities because there is insufficient space for them. Poles rank the judiciary as the second most corrupt sector of Polish public life. Poland's rating for judicial framework and independence worsens from 1.50 to 2.00. Despite frequent calls for reform in recent years, the changes in Poland's judiciary appear to be largely cosmetic, and corruption within the judiciary is viewed as widespread. Excessive court delays persist. Efforts to bring Communist-era officials to justice have been slow. Prison conditions remain poor.

Corruption. In 2004, corruption remained Poland's most serious problem. Although new scandals are regularly brought to light often involving high-level government officials the scale of the problem is still large and punishment lax. Corruption is perceived at all levels of society, including in the health care system, in higher education, and in the news media. Opinion polls show that the public has a lot of tolerance for corruption. Nevertheless, in 2004, for the first time since regaining its independence, Poland took major steps toward exposing the mechanisms of corruption when the Parliament completed an in-depth investigation of the Rywingate bribery scandal and released a full and transparent report implicating several senior government officials. This and other successes in unveiling public fraud in 2004 could pave the way for bringing to justice individuals engaged in the highest levels of corruption. Although the democratic process helped to reveal many corruption scandals, Poland's rating for corruption worsens from 2.50 to 3.00 owing to the sheer number of corruption cases, their scale, and the lack of law enforcement thus far.

Outlook for 2005. Ongoing revelations of high-level corruption in Poland could lead to the removal from positions of power of numerous members of the Polish elite. At the end of the year, Poles will elect a new Parliament and a new president, and possibly vote on the European Constitution. The opposition parties are likely to prevail and form a new coalition government while the ruling SLD will fight for survival. President Kwasniewski's second and final term will end in 2005, and as of year's end a clear front-runner to replace him had not emerged. Kwasniewski will likely be concerned with trying to secure his legacy as a respected Western leader. In the preelection atmosphere, the government is unlikely to push forward any plans to further liberalize Poland's economy.

National Governance (Score: 2.50)

Poland's government institutions had to fulfill high standards of national democratic governance to meet the requirements for full European Union (EU) membership. Poland is a parliamentary democracy whose Constitution provides for an effective system of checks and balances. The government needs to be confirmed by the majority of the members of the Sejm (the lower house of Parliament); the president has the power to veto legislation, and the presidential veto can be overridden only by a two-thirds majority of the Sejm; the Parliament can conduct its own investigations of government activity, and it has the power to impeach the president; the Constitutional Tribunal can declare bills or parts of bill unconstitutional, and its decisions are final.

The most powerful political office in Poland is that of the prime minister, who can be recalled only by means of a parliamentary constructive no-confidence vote. According to the Constitution, the president plays a more ceremonial role. However, President Aleksander Kwasniewski, a minister in the last Communist-era government, has played an active role in foreign policy, and some observers have criticized this as exceeding the authority granted him under the Constitution.

Poland's government institutions have the resources and capacity to fulfill their constitutional obligations. The same is true for political parties. Poland's citizens have direct access to legislators mainly through parliamentarians' regional offices, and indirect access through the media. Journalists can move freely in the Parliament's facilities and have almost unlimited access to the legislators there.

All legislation is published. However, the government refuses to publish some international treaties that were signed by the former Communist regime with the Soviet republics of Belarus, Ukraine, and Lithuania, fearing that the state would be forced to pay compensation to thousands of Polish citizens who lost property in Poland's prewar eastern territories. The Sejm's legislative proceedings are broadcast on public television and posted on the Parliament's Web site.

Poles have access to government information through the Bulletin of Public Information, which is also posted on governmental Web sites. Poland's administrative code obliges all government institutions to answer citizens' letters, complaints, and petitions. However, many officials struggle with the latest technology. A study conducted by the Polish nongovernmental organization (NGO) Civic Internet found that in 2004, only 28.3 percent of members of Parliament (MPs) replied to their voters' Internet inquiries, a six-point decrease compared with the previous year.

High-ranking government officials, including all MPs, must publicly declare the value of their private assets (houses, cars, shares, and so forth). These declarations are more detailed than those filed by the members of the European Parliament, and they are easily accessible to the public via the Internet. Officials must also declare whether they worked as agents for the Communist secret police and intelligence services. Those who admit such activities are not punished. Those who are found guilty of lying about their past by the lustration court are banned from performing public service for 10 years.

All government institutions are audited by the Supreme Chamber of Control. The chamber audits the legality, economic prudence, efficacy, and diligence of organs of the government administration, the central bank, and other state and local organizational units. The chamber's president is appointed by the Sejm with the approval of the Senate (the Parliament's upper house) for a six-year term. In practice, the chamber's leadership is mostly of a different political background from that of the government a factor that contributes largely to effective audits but can also lead to claims of political bias and motivation.

Poland has been struggling to create a high-quality, depoliticized, and protected civil service similar to those in Western democracies. By law, civil servants are supposed to be hired through a competitive selection process. However, Marek Belka's government (led by the Democratic Left Alliance) has followed in the footsteps of its predecessor and refused to appoint competitively selected civil servants to the posts of general directors in key government offices such as the Chancellery of the Prime Minister, the Ministry of the Interior, and the Office of the Committee for European Integration. The government also found a way to bypass the requirements of the law by appointing "acting" department directors and deputy directors.

The economy is generally free, although the state still had shares in about 1,800 companies in 2004 and fully controlled about one third of them. The fact that the government owns shares in a large number of companies has caused problems throughout the 15 years of Poland's transition. Politicians are tempted to control these firms and replace their management with people who are loyal to them. The most high-profile recent scandal, known as "Orlengate," came to the fore in 2004.

The affair began in 2002 when security agents arrested Andrzej Modrzejewski, CEO of the largest refiner and distributor of oil in Poland, PKN Orlen. The state still controls 27 percent of Orlen shares. The spectacular arrest was broadcast on the evening news and took place a day before a meeting of the company's supervisory board. The prosecutor charged Modrzejewski with disclosing confidential information concerning a company from an investment fund he had previously headed. Modrzejewski was released several hours before the board meeting, but the arrest provoked the board to fire him.

In April 2004, former treasury minister Wieslaw Kaczmarek publicly declared that Modrzejewski's arrest was politically motivated. He described a meeting among high officials of the government of the time Prime Minister Leszek Miller, Justice Minister Barbara Piwnik, head of the civil foreign intelligence service Zbigniew Siemiatkowski, and himself where the decision was made to arrest Modrzejewski. Modrzejewski's arrest was supposed to lead to his dismissal as CEO and thus prevent him from signing a large contract to supply Orlen with oil from J & S, an intermediary firm dealing with imports of Russian oil to Poland. After Kaczmarek's statements, the Parliament established an investigative commission. The prosecutor's office in Katowice also began to investigate the matter. These actions led to the unearthing of further secret deals concerning Orlen that allegedly involved businessman Jan Kulczyk, Poland's richest man; Vladimir Alganov, a former KGB spy; and President Kwasniewski. The investigations were still under way at the end of 2004.

In May 2004, the Sejm adopted its final report on another scandal: known as Rywingate. It concluded that on July 22,2002, Lew Rywin, a film producer, had approached Adam Michnik, editor of the newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, and allegedly tried to extract a bribe from Michnik in return for securing passage of a series of new media regulations preferred by the newspaper's media holding company. According to the report, Rywin had acted on behalf of a group of leading figures from the SLD: Prime Minister Miller, members of his staff, and managers of media regulatory bodies and state-owned television. The report recommended that Miller be tried by the state tribunal the court that judges the highest officials for violations of the Constitution or Polish law. Additionally, it concluded that since Kwasniewski knew of the bribery incident but did not inform law enforcement agencies about it, he should also be tried by the tribunal. Miller and Kwasniewski are unlikely to face trial as long as the SLD retains its parliamentary majority.

The intelligence services were often mentioned in connection with the year's major scandals. After 1989, the civil intelligence services were screened and many agents who had worked under the Communist regime were let go. The services were also partly reformed. However, the military intelligence service remained basically untouched, even throughout the process of Poland's integration into NATO.

Electoral Process (Score: 1.75)

Poland has a multiparty parliamentary system. Elections to the lower house of the Parliament, the Sejm, are based on the principle of proportional representation. The electoral system includes two thresholds 5 percent for individual parties and 8 percent for coalitions of parties for representation in the 460-member Sejm. The thresholds do not apply to national minorities. Thus members of the German minority have been able to hold on to two seats in the Parliament even though they received only 0.36 percent of the vote in the last elections. The 100 members of the upper chamber, the Senate, are elected on a "first past the post" principle. There are no legal barriers to independent and foreign election monitoring, but there is no need for it; elections are free and fair. The thresholds were introduced after Poland experimented with an unlimited proportional system. That system brought about an influx of new political parties. At one time, there were more than 20 of them in the Parliament and 7 in the coalition government. The current rules, introduced in 1993, limited the number of parties present in the Parliament and stabilized the electoral system.

Since 1989, no ruling Polish party has been reelected. Preceding elections, Polish politicians often unite around a new leader. After being elected to the Parliament, however, parties typically split up and regroup, giving rise to new formations. The births of Civic Platform (PO), Law and Justice (PiS), and the League of Polish Families (LPR) centrist, center-right, and right-wing parties, respectively, that formed the strongest opposition forces in 2004 illustrate this trend. All three parties were established shortly before the last parliamentary elections in 2001. Many of these parties' leading politicians stem from Solidarity Electoral Action and the Freedom Union, which formed the ruling coalition from 1997 to 2000 but failed to win reelection in 2001. Both of those parties had roots in the Solidarity movement of the 1980s.

The last parliamentary elections were held in September 2001. Voter turnout was 46.2 percent, and the process was considered free and fair. The post-Communist Democratic Left Alliance (SLD), along with its electoral alliance partner, the Union of Labor (UP), captured 41 percent of the popular vote. This translated into 216 of 460 seats in the Sejm. Although this result gave the alliance a clear victory, it fell short of securing an absolute majority, leading the two parties to form a coalition with the Peasants Party (PSL). That coalition broke apart in March 2003, and the SLD and UP headed minority governments throughout the rest of 2003 and 2004. The populist Self-Defense Party has rarely opposed the government on most important votes, and the same can be said of the PSL.

There are no serious barriers to political party organization. Parties that receive more than 3 percent of the vote in national elections qualify for public funding. The most important new political entity founded in 2004 was the Social Democratic Party (SdPL). It was formed when politicians close to Speaker of Parliament Marek Borowski concluded that the SLD could not be reformed and decided to save as much support for the Left as possible. Borowski was joined in his efforts by a few prominent members of the UP, such as Tomasz Nalecz. The SdPL was registered just in time for the elections to the European Parliament, which were held on June 13. Their results were as follows:

Civic Platform – 24.1%
League of Polish Families – 15.9%
Law and Justice – 12.7%
Self-Defense – 10.8%
Democratic Left Alliance Union of Labor – 9.4%
Freedom Union – 7.3%
Peasants Party – 6.3%
Social Democratic Party – 5.3%

Turnout for the European elections was only 20.9 percent, significantly lower than that in many older EU member states. There were several reasons for this development. First, Poles realized that the European Parliament has relatively little power. Second, Poland's official entry into the EU on May 1 did not dramatically alter people's lives for the better. In fact, many people quickly noticed sharp increases in food prices, and their enthusiasm for EU institutions waned. Third, entry into the EU was preceded by a long, relentless, pro-European campaign, and the people grew tired of it.

The victory of the opposition parties came as no surprise. The results reflected Poles' dissatisfaction with the government's failure to tackle domestic issues such as slow economic growth, high unemployment, and numerous cases of corruption among high government officials and members of the SLD establishment. Voters also punished the government for perceived weakness in the negotiations over the draft European constitutional treaty. But even though it put up a fight, Poland ultimately agreed to give up the Nice voting system in the European Council of Ministers an arrangement that gave Poland almost as many votes as the more populous Germany, France, Great Britain, and Italy. It also lost its battle to insert a provision on Europe's Christian heritage into the Constitution's preamble, which was an important omission for many of Poland's Roman Catholics.

The European elections took place after a change of prime ministers. Leszek Miller resigned on May 2, the day after Poland entered the EU. Miller had made his decision at a ministerial meeting in Brussels in April when he learned of the split in the SLD. But the major cause of Miller's downfall was the media corruption affair known as "Rywingate."

After Miller's resignation, Kwasniewski failed to keep the promise he and the prime minister had made in 2003 to hold early parliamentary elections. Instead, he named Marek Belka as the new prime minister. Belka, a former deputy prime minister and minister of finance in Miller's government, first failed to receive a confidence vote because he was unable to win the SdPL's support. But when the president appointed him again, Sejm Speaker Borowski decided to back Belka for a few minor concessions. Among them were the quick drafting of a new health bill, a promise to "depoliticize" the cabinet, and another promise to call a new confidence vote in October. Borowski hoped that time would allow the SdPL to grow in strength and gain more support before the next elections.

Belka kept these promises. During his first months in office, he invited into his cabinet some former government officials from Solidarity-led administrations. Andrzej Ananicz was nominated to head the civil external intelligence service, Jerzy Miller was nominated to head the National Health Fund, and Anna Radziwill was appointed deputy minister of education. Belka thus began to realize the "historic compromise" the plan to join forces of the post-Solidarity Left and the post-Communist SLD an idea long advocated by Kwasniewski and the influential Gazeta Wyborcza.

The establishment of the new leftist government did little to stop the SLD's plunge in opinion polls and did not give the SdPL the popularity boost it expected. The PO remained the most popular opposition force, with 20-30 percent support. In September, the PO began a nationwide campaign to downsize the state, making it less corrupt and more effective. The PO proposed to eliminate the Senate, halve the number of deputies in the Sejm, end proportional representation, and eliminate parliamentarians' immunity. Since the implementation of those changes would require amending Poland's Constitution, the PO began collecting the required half-million signatures for holding a referendum. By the end of the year, PO activists had gathered over 700,000 signatures. The campaign to amend the Constitution solidified support for the PO, and it was expected that this party would win the next elections in 2005 and form a new coalition government with the PiS.

Civil Society (Score: 1.25)

Poland has a wide range of interest groups that participate actively and freely in the political process. Labor- and church-affiliated groups are influential, as they affect the political process on the local, regional, and national levels. Public policy institutes also play a significant role in the political arena. Other institutes are sponsored by the private sector, political parties, interest groups, and national and local governments. Many current and former government officials and policy makers have had affiliations with NGOs or the media and have brought to their government positions their understanding of the need for the state to protect the rights of the independent civic sector. The state hinders NGO registration and activity only in the case of extremist and intolerant groups. Article 13 of the Polish Constitution prohibits the propagation of Nazi, Fascist, and Communist ideology.

Poland's NGOs were active in a variety of initiatives in 2004. For example, a group of NGOs led a campaign to convince prominent politicians, journalists, and businessmen that the weakness of the Polish state and its vulnerability to corruption stem largely from its proportional electoral system, which makes parliamentarians more responsible to their parties and varied political networks than to the voters. Among the signatories of the May Appeal of the Concerned for the Fate of the Motherland, which called for the establishment of single-mandate electoral districts, were former foreign minister Wladyslaw Bartoszewski; Maciej Lukasiewicz, editor of the major daily Rzeczpospolita; and Jan Nowak-Jezioranski, former director of the Polish section of Radio Free Europe. In July, the movement organized a march on Warsaw. The organizers held rallies in 30 cities and towns along the way. Despite these actions there was no evidence of policy impact by year's end.

Polish civil society also worked hard in 2004 to support a democratic election process in neighboring Ukraine, and thousands of Poles took to the streets late in the year to demonstrate against the obvious fraud in Ukraine's presidential election. Polish NGOs also sent 3,000 observers to Ukraine for the final round of voting. This support for Ukrainian democracy demonstrated both the vibrancy of Polish civil society and the country's commitment and sense of responsibility to promote further democratic expansion in Europe.

The government is generally receptive to policy advocacy from civil society groups. NGO representatives are invited to testify to parliamentary committees and in some cases to serve as expert advisers. The media also appreciates NGOs and charities. Two charities that traditionally receive a lot of attention are Polish Humanitarian Action, which collects food and other life necessities for victims of natural disasters and armed conflicts, and the Great Holiday Help Orchestra fund-raising drive for sick and handicapped children. The private 24-hour news channel TVN24 serves as one of the best forums for NGO experts. As in many developed countries, NGO representatives in Poland are frequently op-ed writers in the most influential newspapers.

Poland has a vibrant and politically diverse trade union movement. The two largest unions are the All-Poland Alliance of Trade Unions (OPZZ), with about 1.5 million members, and Solidarity (0.9 million members). OPZZ was established by the Communist authorities in 1984. It replaced the previous Communist workers' unions and was also supposed to replace Solidarity the world's largest workers' union (with 10 million members at that time) and the only independent union in the Soviet bloc. Solidarity was banned in 1981 under martial law and had to operate underground. Many of its leaders were imprisoned and later sought refuge in the West. Solidarity was legalized again in 1989. Its decision to support Poland's economic shock therapy was crucial to the country's transition from planned to free-market economy.

In 2004, for the first time, Polish NGOs profited from the Law on Public Benefit Activities and Volunteering, which sets out rules governing cooperation between NGOs and municipalities. The law makes it easier for the NGOs to carry out "public assignments" and be paid for these services. They can also receive tax exemptions and be partly financed by taxpayers. The law stipulates that individuals can donate 1 percent of their income tax payments to an NGO or charity. In 2004, Poles used that option to donate US$8 million to such organizations. Three quarters of that amount was contributed by Poland's richest 0.01 percent of the population.

However, some observers believe the procedure to donate money to NGOs is too complicated and so discourages taxpayers from taking advantage of this option, because taxpayers must first donate money to an NGO before they can claim the deduction. Some in the nonprofit sector advocate a system where taxpayers can decide to donate as they prepare their tax returns. The state revenue service would then transfer the appropriate tax donation funds to individual NGOs.

Poland's accession to the EU opened new opportunities and presented new challenges for the civil society sector. On the one hand, Polish NGOs gained better access to EU funds meant to promote civil society. On the other hand, many international donors now view Poland as a normal Western country and prefer to direct their money elsewhere. Generally speaking, this situation is favorable to those NGOs that have a proven record. These organizations can count on increasing support from Polish businesses and individual donors. For some international donors, Polish NGOs continue to be attractive because they have good knowledge of the former Soviet Union and can be very helpful in democratizing that region, as they were during Ukraine's Orange Revolution.

Independent Media (Score: 1.50)

The media in Poland are generally free and independent, and freedom of the press is guaranteed by the Constitution. Poland has several organizations of journalists and editors, including the Polish Journalists Association, the Journalists of the Republic of Poland, and the Association of Local Press Publishers. The Press Freedom Monitoring Center, an independent NGO, tracks cases of possible violations of the rights of journalists.

However, Poland has laws that limit freedom of speech and of the press. The penal code provides for 6 months' to 10 years' imprisonment for anyone who publicly "insults, ridicules, or derides" the Polish nation, the state, or its principal organs. The law also sets penalties of up to 3 years in jail for libeling the president, 2 years where the victim is a member of the Parliament or the government, and 1 year for other public officials. Libel lawsuits brought against journalists are common, but fines rather than prison sentences are typically imposed. One of the most controversial libel cases in 2004 was brought by Aleksandra Jakubowska, then the prime minister's chief adviser, and Robert Kwiatkowski, then president of Polish State Television, against Janusz Majcherek, a columnist for the daily Rzeczpospolita, who had accused the two of conspiring to prompt Lew Rywin's bribery proposal. In September, a court ruled that Majcherek had the right to express his opinion, and Jakubowska and Kwiatkowski lost their case.

The centrist Rzeczpospolita is considered Poland's most important nontabloid newspaper. The Norwegian Orkla group owns the majority of the newspaper's shares, with a minority remaining in state hands. Rzeczpospolita sells about 180,000 copies daily. The tabloid Fakt, owned by the German media group Axel Springer, has the largest circulation (about 550,000), followed by the center-left Gazeta Wyborcza, with a circulation of about 430,000. Gazeta Wyborcza is owned by Poland's Agora. Other national dailies with relatively large circulation are Super Express (tabloid), Zycie (center-right), Przeglad Sportowy (sports), Nasz Dziennik (right, Catholic), and Trybuna (left).

The most important weeklies are Wprost (center-right), Newsweek Polska (center), Polityka (center-left), Przeglad (left), each selling 100,000 to 200,000 copies, and Tygodnik Powszechny (liberal, Catholic) with a circulation of 38,000. Another weekly that is influential on the left is Nie, edited by Jerzy Urban, a former spokesman for Communist leader General Wojciech Jaruzelski. Nie often runs sensationalist stories attacking the Catholic Church. There are also two English-language newspapers (the Warsaw Business Journal and the Warsaw Voice) and several dozen regional dailies, many of which are owned by German media companies such as Polskapresse-Passau and the Heinrich Bauer Group. Press distribution is dominated by two firms: the state-owned Ruch and the privately owned Kolporter.

The broadcasting market is much more restricted than the operations of the print media. Broadcasting is overseen by the nine-member National Broadcasting Council. The council's members are appointed separately by the Sejm, the Senate, and the president. The council exerts a high degree of control over broadcasting through its power of granting television and radio broadcast licenses, its oversight of the public electronic media, and its prerogatives with regard to private broadcasting (for example, it can punish private broadcasters for airing obscene content before 11:00 p.m.).

The largest broadcast media outlet is state owned. TVP is a conglomerate consisting of the 2 nationwide public television channels TVP1 and TVP2,12 regional channels, and a satellite channel (TV Polonia) for the Polish community abroad. Under former head Robert Kwiatkowski, TVP was accused of being dominated by the Left, for example, of giving more airtime in news broadcasts to SLD leaders than to other parties and politicians. Kwiatkowski was linked to the Rywingate scandal and resigned his position. He was replaced in January 2004 by media expert Jan Dworak.

Poland's third most popular television station after TVP1 and TVP2 is the private Polsat. Another private station, TVN, has grown significantly in recent years and has successfully launched a 24-hour news channel. Several million households in Poland subscribe to some form of cable or satellite TV. There are 4 main nationwide radio broadcasters: public radio with 3 nationwide stations, Radio Zet (private), RMF-FM (private), and Radio Maryja (private, Catholic). There are also approximately 200 regional radio stations. Private stations' funding comes from advertisements. Public radio and television receive additional support through subscriber fees.

Poland's main press agencies are the Polish Press Agency, the Catholic Information Agency, and the Radio Information Agency. They are the primary source of information for private news and events. The main Internet news sites are Onet (www.onet.pl), Interia (www.interia.pl), and Wirtualna Polska (www.wp.pl).

Local Governance (Score: 2.00)

Initiated in 1990 by the Solidarity-dominated Senate, the legislation that restored local self-government has proved to be one of Poland's most successful reforms. A second successful large-scale administrative reform was introduced in 1998 by the government of Jerzy Buzek. The Polish Constitution devotes an entire chapter to local self-government, and many other laws pertain to it. These regulations have decentralized political power and created three levels of government administration below the national level: 16 regions (voivodships), 314 counties (poviats) and 65 cities with poviat status, and nearly 2,500 communities (gminas).

The responsibilities of local authorities include education, social welfare, roads, public transportation, water and sewage systems, culture, and public order and security. Most responsibilities lie with the municipalities. The activities of all local self-governments are audited by the Supreme Chamber of Control just like those of the national government, as well as by the regional accounting chambers.

The Constitution grants all Polish citizens the right to elect local representatives. Since May 1,2004, the citizens of other member states of the EU who live in Poland are also eligible to vote in local elections. The provincial marshals (presidents of voivodships) are elected by regional assemblies. Mayors of cities, towns, and other municipalities are elected in direct elections. Heads of poviats are elected indirectly by county councils (whose members are elected directly).

Local elections take place every four years. The last were in fall 2002, and their results were largely favorable to the opposition parties, whose mayoral candidates gained power in the majority of Polish cities (for example Warsaw, Lodz, and Bydgoszcz).

Candidates in local elections are often members of national political parties. However, independent candidates supported by citizens' committees have a much greater chance of winning local rather than national elections. There have also been some regional coalitions that would be unlikely on the national level (for example, involving the SLD and the Self-Defense Party). Local governments are generally free to design and adopt laws of their own, although some restrictions apply. Cities with populations over 300,000 have to submit draft charters to the prime minister. And voivods the central government's highest representatives in the provinces can declare local acts of law null and void if they consider them to be in breach of national law (local governments can take those decisions to court). These control mechanisms have worked well.

Local governments have very limited powers to levy taxes. Only municipalities are allowed to do so, and they collect farm taxes, property taxes, forest taxes, dog taxes, and transportation taxes. The amount of taxes is capped, and municipalities cannot choose to stop collecting any of these taxes (Warsaw, for example, has lowered its dog tax to a symbolic 1 zloty but could not do away with it altogether). The self-governments' major source of income comes from nationally collected taxes; on the average, 75 percent comes from personal and corporate income taxes. Richer local authorities such as the city of Warsaw return some funds to the national government for redistribution to poorer self-governments.

In theory, the central government consults local self-governments on all vital legislation. The cabinet is not supposed to adopt any draft legislation affecting the finances of self-government that does not contain information on how much its implementation would cost local governments. The draft legislation must also have been reviewed by the 24-member Common Commission of the Government and the Territorial Self-Government a body that is supposed to act as the major forum for consultations between the national government and representatives of the local self-governments.

In practice, the government frequently miscalculates the cost of new legislation, and the local governments are then left to deal with tasks they cannot afford. Sometimes the government tries to bypass the Common Commission. In 2004, for example, it first adopted a bill on municipal land-use planning and only then presented it to the Common Commission. The commission refused to review the bill because it did not contain information on how much it would cost local governments (according to the estimates of some local governments, that cost could be as high as twice their annual budgets). Government officials often tend to treat the Common Commission as nothing more than an NGO. They view the process of working together with the commission as "social consultation" and not a formal administrative procedure required by law.

Local self-governments are obliged to consult citizens directly on some decisions, such as development plans. They also must allow ecological organizations to be involved in the process of granting building licenses. Local authorities also use other means to attempt to raise the level of citizens' participation in local affairs: Warsaw mayor Lech Kaczynski, for instance, conducted a special survey on whether businesses should be open on Sundays. However, the level of citizens' engagement remains low. In the last local elections, turnout ranged from 44.1 percent in municipal council elections to 49.5 percent in elections to county councils.

The awareness of the importance of local affairs might rise thanks to the prospect of receiving large amounts of money from EU structural funds. These funds will allow Poland to develop its infrastructure. Issues like the planning and construction of new roads, power plants, and sewage disposal facilities tend to arouse people's interest. In 2004, Poland began implementing the Integrated Operational Program for Regional Development – a plan for using EU structural funds in each of the 16 provinces. In 2007, the program will be decentralized, and each province will be able to devise and manage its own version.

Judicial Framework and Independence (Score: 2.00)

Poland's Constitution provides protections for fundamental individual freedoms, and they are generally respected. The Constitutional Tribunal determines the conformity of statutes and international agreements to the Constitution and considers complaints concerning constitutional infringements. The executive and legislative branches of the government comply when the tribunal strikes down certain acts of law as unconstitutional.

Polish courts are independent and impartial. Judges in Poland cannot belong to political parties or trade unions and are not allowed to perform public functions that would call their independence into question. Following nomination by the National Judicial Council, judges are formally appointed by the president, and they cannot be dismissed or removed arbitrarily. Individuals can be appointed judges at the age of 29 (though some achieve the status of junior judge at age 27) and need not have previously served as lawyers or prosecutors. In effect, many lack experience. The creation of the Center for the Education of Judges and Prosecutors in Krakow, which the government hopes to open in 2006, will help to train young judges.

Although there is no widespread official abuse of the criminal code, it is fair to say that the judiciary remains Poland's weakest branch of government. Court proceedings on the average take 6 months. In the Warsaw area, however, that period is 18 months. The record, an average 29 months, is held by the district court for central Warsaw. Although there has been some modest success in reducing excessive court delays, the number of cases lasting more than 5 years is still estimated at 6,300, with Warsaw the site of 1,200 of them. Such inefficiency has forced Poles increasingly to complain to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Over the last 10 years, Poles filed almost 25,000 applications there and won 93 cases against the Polish state. In 2004, Poland introduced a new law to make it easier for citizens to complain about excessive judicial delays and be compensated for them up to about US$3,000.

Poland has also been slow in bringing to justice its former Communist rulers. The case against former interior minister General Czeslaw Kiszczak, charged with authorizing the use of force against striking coal miners in 1981, as a result of which nine miners were killed, has not been resolved since it was opened in 1994. The lustration proceedings to verify whether SLD chairman Jozef Oleksy lied about his association with the Communist intelligence services will enter their ninth year in 2005. Oleksy has twice been found guilty of lying about those ties, but the appeals procedures allow him to continue to hold public office. Nevertheless, 2004 brought some hope for punishing the leaders of the old regime as prosecutors from the Institute of National Remembrance began to investigate the 1981 imposition of martial law an act that was illegal even under the law in force at the time.

Unfortunately, nothing was done in 2004 to improve the situation of the prison system. Since 2000, the number of prisoners has climbed 46 percent to 82,000, as the courts began sentencing more people to longer sentences. Many jails do not provide prisoners with the standard three square meters of space. Another 30,000 people who have been sentenced to prison remain outside of penitentiary institutions because there is no space for them.

Such problems remain unsolved owing to insufficient political will and widespread corruption among the judiciary's own senior leaders. For example, Prime Minister Miller's justice minister, Barbara Piwnik, was implicated in the scandal over the Orlen oil company. Marek Belka's first justice minister, Marek Sadowski, has for nine years avoided standing trial for causing a car accident, and his successor, Andrzej Kalwas, granted him immunity after Sadowski left office. There have been allegations that Grzegorz Kurczuk, another former justice minister under Miller, threatened and intimidated a newspaper editor. In this context, it is unsurprising that according to a 2004 study by the Stefan Batory Foundation, Poles rank the judiciary as the second most corrupt sector of Polish public life.

Corruption (Score: 3.00)

In 2004, hardly a month passed without the revelation of a new scandal involving government officials, and Poles became convinced that their country's problem with corruption was worsening. That attitude was reflected in Transparency International's annual Corruption Perceptions Index. In 2004, on a scale of 10 (no corruption) to 0 (greatest corruption), Poland received a mark of 3.5 worse than the previous year and the worst in the entire EU.

Official corruption in Poland can be divided into two categories: misuse of power and direct bribery. In 2004, the case of Robert Kwasniak offered a good example of the first type. In his capacity as deputy minister of finance, Kwasniak oversaw the Polish customs service, while his wife, who was a partner in a law firm, litigated against it. When companies had customs problems, Kwasniak allegedly passed the information to his wife, whose law firm then contacted those companies and offered "help" to overcome the difficulties. Kwasniak resigned two months after the allegations emerged. In a typical bribery scandal, SLD parliamentarian Andrzej Peczak was charged with accepting a Mercedes-Benz car in 2004 from arrested businessman Marek Dochnal. Peczak allegedly helped Dochnal obtain confidential information on privatizations of enterprises in the energy sector. The Parliament lifted Peczak's immunity, and he was arrested in November.

The problem of corruption is not present just in the government. Poland's entire health care system is notoriously corruption-friendly. Doctors are allowed to work in public hospitals and rent the same hospital facilities for their own private practices at different hours. As a result, patients who turn up at public hospitals may be told they can receive free treatment many months later or be seen that day by the same doctor for a fee.

The education system is marred by a lack of fairness. In 2004, journalists revealed that the University of Gdansk had accepted children of prominent local lawyers, prosecutors, and judges even though they did worse on the university's entrance exams than other applicants. Students who did not have prominent parents had to pay university staff a US$1,000 bribe to be admitted. The university refused to identify students who were wrongfully admitted on the grounds of protecting personal data. No one from the university administration was fired.

Although press investigations into corruption scandals are often much more efficient than those of state agencies, Polish journalism is not free of corruption, either. According to the latest International Index of Bribery for News Coverage released by the Institute for Public Relations and the International Public Relations Association, Poland's journalists are more likely to be corrupted than their colleagues in other parts of the EU. Polish journalists fared better only compared with the press in non-EU member states such as Argentina, Mexico, Taiwan, and Ukraine.

Fighting corruption in Poland is extremely difficult because the population has accepted it. Opinion polls show that only 15 percent of the population would notify the police if they witnessed an act of bribery. Bribery was widespread under Communism, and some argue that the lack of a ban on former Communists holding public office allowed those practices to be injected into the new democratic system. Although Prime Minister Belka promised to publish a list of high-ranking officials charged with corruption, by the end of 2004 he had not delivered on that pledge.

The struggle with corruption remains the domain of the media, a few dedicated NGOs such as the Stefan Batory Foundation, and a handful of individuals such as Julia Pitera, chairwoman of Poland's Transparency International and a Warsaw City Council member. Their work has had some success at the local government level, as in Opole, the first city in Poland to introduce transparent Internet bidding for public contracts. However, to achieve more dramatic reductions in corruption nationwide, Poland must undertake more coordinated and large-scale efforts involving both government and civil society.

Author

Bartosz Jalowiecki is program coordinator of the New Atlantic Initiative at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.