Now the second and final day of Poland’s EU accession referendum is underway. Radio reports indicate that participation through Saturday ran rather short of the 25% one would hope for, at least on an accountant’s straight-line basis, to assure that final participation reaches at least 50% and therefore validity for the whole exercise. But after all, this is not some financial exercise . . . (more…)

Here in Wroclaw, it’s a bright and sunny first day of voting in the Polish EU accession referendum. More guerrilla anti-EU material has popped up, in a last-minute attempt to change people’s minds – this time, it was in the form of posters showing the famous EU twelve-yellow-stars-on-a-dark-blue-field emblem – with a swastika in the middle, and the caption up above “Rozbior Polski” – the partition of Poland. That should strike a chord with historically-oriented Polish voters: in the famous 18th-century partitions of Poland, Poland’s neighboring states (then Prussia, Russia, and the Austrian Empire) agreed among themselves to simply reach out and grab the pieces of Polish territory that they wanted, and Poland was too weak at the time to do anything to defend herself. There were three of these land-grabs, and by the end of the third there was no more Polish land to seize any more, as it all had been taken – and Poland was not to re-emerge as an independent nation for more than a century, namely in 1918 directly after the First World War. (more…)

The referendum on Poland’s accession to the European Union is very close now – it starts tomorrow, Saturday, and carries on through Sunday. As in most of the candidate states which have already held the referendum – particularly in Hungary and Slovakia – and as will most likely be the case in the one remaining significant state to do so after Poland, namely the Czech Republic next weekend, the crucial issue is not so much the referendum’s result, but rather the rate of voter turn-out. (more…)

As of today, EuroSavant is visiting Poland for a few days, specifically Wroclaw (before 1945 known as Breslau) in the southwestern corner of the country. I’ve scoped out the Internet cafés available there in the center of town; infrastructure-wise, I think there will be what it takes for me to continue submitting my posts at the usual frequency. And, as an added bonus, I’ll be able to indulge in a little primary-source blog reporting (as opposed to my usual secondary-source approach – or is it tertiary?), since the Polish EU accession referendum takes place this upcoming weekend, and I’ll still be there. I promise I’ll take careful and copious notes; I’m travelling there with my legal pad, pen (plus a few spares), and my fedora with the “Press” card tucked in the band – but this is Poland, so I’ll have to get a quick translation made there to “Prasa.”

EuroSavant is taking a few days off to head to sunny Barcelona, Spain. I expect to resume posting this upcoming Thursday, 15 May 2003, by around 12:00 noon UTC (that’s 8:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 7:00 AM Central Daylight Time, etc.). So all e-mail correspondents need to reckon with possible delays in my response.

I’m taking along with me as food for serious thought an article from the on-line edition of the Hamburg weekly Die Zeit, Wir haben’s gerate nötig (“It’s just what we need”), by Richard Herzinger, which I would recommend to all of you who can read German and are interested in Germany’s current place in the post-War in Iraq world. (more…)

Once again Iraq is causing divisions within NATO. This time it’s between the Poles and the Germans. In one respect, this is nothing new: Chancellor Schröder’s SPD-Green administration had always made it clear that it would not support a war in Iraq, in any way, even if it were given official United Nations approval – e.g. if the so-called “Second Resolution” had passed the Security Council. On the other hand, Poland was one of the few nations (the others including only Australia and Albania) to actually send troops to contribute to the military effort of the War in Iraq. In fact, Polish commandos did some rather good work in securing Iraqi oil platforms offshore in the Persian Gulf once hostilities got under way.

But the war phase is now over, and the occupation phase has begun. (more…)