Secret tapes record Polish Foreign Minister as describing "Polish-US alliance as “worthless”"

[Magda Hassan]

Sikorski: Government under attack from organized crime

23.06.2014 12:30

Poland's foreign minister says his government is under attack from an organized crime group after published tapes record him dismissing Polish-US alliance as "worthless"
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski awaits the start of the Foreign Affairs council meeting of EU Ministers at the EU Headquarters in Luxembourg, 23 June: photo - EPA/NICOLAS BOUVY

"The government has been attacked by an organised crime group. I hope the members of this group will be identified," Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski said in Luxembourg, where he is attending a meeting of EU foreign ministers, as opposition politicians call for his resignation.
The Wprost magazine has published a tape of a conversation he had with former finance minister Jacek Rostowski at the Amber Rooms restaurant in either January or February this year, where Sikorski is heard saying that the "US-Polish alliance is worthless".
Jacek Rostowski told the RMF FM radio station that "I do not comment on illegally recorded private conversations".
While the US ambassador to Poland, Stephen Mull tweeted on Sunday that he also does "not comment on private conversations, Polish-US relations are great," others have reacted by calling for Sikorski's resignation in what is the worst political scandal to hit the Civic Platform government since it first came to power in 2007.
Leader of the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) opposition party, Leszek Miller said on Sunday: "If the foreign minister does not like the alliance with the US then let him submit his resignation".
Former foreign and prime minister of Poland, Wlodzimierz Ciemoszewicz has said that Minister Sikorski's dismissal should be immediate and he should be replaced by former foreign minister Adam Rotfeld, a noted transatlantic expert.
'Shoemaker without shoes'
"With Poland's geopolitical situation and its history, to underestimate the alliance with the United States is very unwise," Tomasz Nalecz, an advisor to president Bronislaw Komorowski told the TVN24 news broadcaster.
On Sikorski's use of the racist term "murzyńskość" when describing what he saw as Poles' "shallow pride and low self-esteem" in the recording published by Wprost magazine, Nalecz said that after making numerous statements against xenophobia in the past, the foreign minister was now like a "shoemaker without any shoes".
"He should look in the mirror and ask himself: how, as a foreign minister in a civilized, respected country in the world, he could make such a blunder".
As prosecutors investigate who has been making recordings of private conversations of Poland's top politicians and business people a crime punishable by up to two years in prison - opposition MPs were meeting to discuss a no confidence motion in the ruling Civic Platform.
Last Monday, Wprost published tapes of a conversation between Poland's top central banker Marek Belka and interior minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz, where the two officials appeared to be discussing measures whereby the National Bank could help the ruling party ahead of next year's general election.
So far there have been no resignations following the so-called 'tape affair", though a commentator for Bloomberg wrote at the weekend that Belka was "Europe's worst central banker" (pg)
http://www.thenews.pl/1/10/Artykul/17445...ized-crime

[Magda Hassan]

Tusk Faces Polish Opposition Ire as Wprost Gives More Tapes

By David McQuaid and Piotr Skolimowski Jun 23, 2014 5:46 AM ET





Photographer: Jock Fistick/Bloomberg Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

The Polish magazine that sent the government and zloty reeling by publishing secret recordings of key public figures is set to create further difficulties for Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
Wprost today released a partial transcript of a conversation purportedly between Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski and former Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski, in which the former allegedly said Poland's alliance with the U.S. is "worthless" because it fosters "a false sense of security" and breeds conflict with Germany and Russia. The discussion took place in late January or early February, Agnieszka Burzynska, a reporter for the magazine, said on TVN24.
Longer transcripts of four conversations will be published in tomorrow's edition of the magazine, with edited versions of the recordings to follow, according to Burzynska. The government will respond once everything has been released, spokeswoman Malgorzata Kidawa-Blonska said today by phone. Opposition parties called for a faster action.
"Prime Minister Tusk needs to speak to parliament," Leszek Miller, head of the Democratic Left Alliance, said today in Warsaw, at a briefing broadcast on TVN24. "We expect he will propose a confidence vote to put an end to speculation that he's lost the power to govern."

Other Recordings

Wprost lifted Sikorski's comments "out of the earlier context of the conversation," which referred to what U.S.- Polish relations would have looked like had the opposition Law and Justice party remained in power, Foreign Ministry spokesman Marcin Wojciechowski wrote today in a text message.
Two recordings are of Tusk's aide Pawel Gras talking with Jacek Krawiec, chief executive officer of the nation's biggest oil refiner, PKN Orlen SA, and with billionaire Jan Kulczyk, Wprost reporter Michal Majewski wrote on his Twitter account.
Other officials on the tapes are Treasury Minister Wlodzimierz Karpinski and his deputy, Zdzislaw Gawlik, according to text on the image of the June 23 cover page that Wprost published on its Twitter account yesterday.
Poland's political scene has been in uproar since Wprost on June 14 released recordings in which central bank Governor Marek Belka discussed with Interior Minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz steps to boost the economy and help the government win elections next year. Poland's biggest opposition party yesterday called for Tusk to step down.

Snap Elections

While Belka has said the tape was "manipulated," the release raised the possibility of early elections and undermined the central bank's credibility.
"Early elections are definitely needed, but they need to be carried out by a technical government that can give some guarantee of honesty," Jaroslaw Kaczynski, head of the opposition Law & Justice Party, said yesterday in the northwestern port city of Szczecin.
The junior party in the ruling coalition piled pressure on Tusk, who on June 19 said the country may be forced to hold elections.
A vote will be needed if more recordings emerge and other government members "are discredited," Janusz Piechocinski, head of the Polish Peasants Party, which governs with Tusk's Civic Platform, said in a June 20 interview with Gazeta Wyborcza. Piechocinski will meet with Tusk and President Bronislaw Komorowski tomorrow to discuss the crisis, PAP newswire reported today.

Unpleasant, Costly'

Public prosecutors, who are independent from the government, ordered a raid on Wprost by the Internal Security Agency in search of evidence. Televised pictures of agents trying to pry a lapt
op loose from Latkowski led to accusations the government was trying to intimidate the media. Tusk told reporters on June 19 that the incident was "unpleasant" and "costly to me."

The incursion into an editorial office should never have taken place and was a "disgrace," Deputy Justice Minister Michal Krolikowski said June 20 at a news conference in Warsaw. Prosecutor General Andrzej Seremet said he'd be ready to step down if that would calm the situation.

Jacek Kondracki, the lawyer representing Wprost, handed over a computer memory stick with all recordings possessed by the magazine yesterday to prosecutors in Warsaw.
The zloty declined 0.5 percent to a 4.1689 per euro on June 20, the weakest level this month, extending losses to 1.2 percent over five days in its biggest weekly decline since January.
If Poland needs to hold an early ballot, it may take place in a "few" weeks or months, Tusk said on June 19. His coalition controls 234 votes in the 460-seat lower house of parliament, 32 of which belong to the Piechocinski's party. A two-thirds majority, or 307 votes, is required for lawmakers to dissolve the legislature, making Civic Platform's support necessary to pass any such measure.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-21...tapes.html

[Magda Hassan]

SikorskiGate, Part I

June 22, 2014
A huge story has broken in Poland with the leak of an alleged taped conversation between Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski and a fellow politician. Sikorski, who is married to the American journalist Anne Applebaum, is a staunch supporter of NATO and good relations with the United States; his name has been bandied about as a future NATO Secretary General. This conversation is therefore nothing short of explosive.
Here is the part of the quite earthy taped conversation, which has been read on Polish TV, that is of interest to foreigners (there is lots of edgy inside-baseball commentary on Polish politics as well). Sikorski is said to be talking with Jacek Rostkowski, the former finance minister:
Sikorski: You know that the Polish-American alliance is worth nothing. It is therefore harmful, because it gives Poland a false sense of security.
Rostowski: Why?
Sikorski: Complete bullshit. We will get into conflicts with the Germans, with Russia, and we will think that everything is great because we have given the Americans a blowjob. Losers, complete losers.
Later in the conversation, Sikorski bemoans Polish attitudes, stating, "We have very shallow pride and low self-regard. A kind of negro-ness*." (*The word used is murzyńskość, which is very derogatory.)
Sikorski has denied the allegations, while Wprost, the newsmagazine that broke the story, claims it will provide the actual taped conversation in a day or two, which may resolve this explosive matter.
Watch this space ….