PRESS REVIEW – abortion battle

Last night, in a move shocking to the more liberal section of the cnetre-right Christian-democratic party, voted against a legislative proposal brought forward by the socially-liberal Palikot's Movement (RP), which would have liberalized the country's laws regarding abortions.

The bill aimed to grant pregnant women the power to be able to decide to terminate their pregnancies in the first trimester without restrictions was rejected by 365 MPs, compared to just 60 in support and seven abstaining from the vote. MPs also voted to consider making it illegal to terminate pregnancies because of known fetal impairment.
The vote was preceded by a campaign by Catholic media and the Church, notes the daily, which included emails and calls to parliamentarians asking them “not to murder children”. adding that speaking after the vote president Bronislaw Komorowski slammed the proposed tightening of abortion laws. Dominated by conservative MPs the parliament will now instead move ahead with a bill initiated by the conservative Solidarna Polska (SP) which would further restrict abortion with new legislation. The daily predicts the country will now face another ideological war over the laws which are already among the strictest on the continent, next to Ireland and Malta.

“You’re not lobbying - you’re not deciding” is the front-page headline from DZIENIK GAZETA PRAWNA which laments that eight years after Poland has joined the European Union Polish lobbyists are considered the least effective in Europe. Polish MEPs are incapable of promoting their own interests both on the national level and as far as private businesses are concerned. The country lacks not only the money and personnel but also coherent strategy to do so. Also, there is only one Polish think-tank operating in Brussels while only 60 lobbyists represent Polish business interests out of the five thousand officially registered there. To prove the point the daily gives several examples of the EU battles Poland has already lost. Among them: the Northern Pipeline whose construction Poland failed to first delay and eventually block; sugar quotes which Poland failed to negotiate to its advantage; and the battle over the definition of vodka during which alcohol producers from the bloc’s southern flank successfully convinced the European Commission that it can be produced not only from grain or potatoes but also from grapes and bananas.

Things may look sour on the European front but they seem to be looking better on the other side of the pond. “Poland is promoting itself on Wall Street” is the headline from the business pages of RZECZPOSPOLITA reporting on the first ever US-Poland Business Week currently underway at NYSE with the participation of representatives of both governments and private sector and devoted to deepening economic cooperation. The event is a follow-up to the Economic Conference which took place during the visit of president Barack Obama to Warsaw in 2009. “Poland is America’s 15th largest trading partner in Europe which is not acceptable. It should be in the top five” says Beata Stelmach, Polish deputy FM in the daily explaining the aim of the event. The 1st US-Poland Business Week is accompanied by a debate on the crisis in the eurozone co-organized by NYU Stern School of Business and a conference of the role of women in business and economic transformation co-chaired by Vital Voices Global Partnership, an American NGO founded by Hilary Clinton and Madeleine Albright, among others.
The same daily reports that the number of Polish millionaires will double in five years’ time. According to the third edition of the Global Wealth Report by Credit Suisse, the number will grow 105 percent to 78,000. The Polish scenario is part of a broader global trend, writes Rzeczpospolita, as the number of millionaires around the world is expected to have jumped 62 percent to 46 million people by 2017. The largest increases in the number of newly rich are expected in Brazil and Russia with developing countries catching up hence Poland’s fourth place in the ranking. The authors of the report are also convinced that within the next few years the value of the assets of inhabitants of the eurozone will equal those of the richest Americans.

Press review was by Danusia Isler