Deputies invited to attend sitting of EU Parliament, Lepper prepares speech

For the first time, the European Parliament invited 50 Polish members of parliament and senators to participate in a European Parliament debate. However, the Polish Family League (LPR) turned down the invitation, claiming they were elected to the Sejm and not to the EU Parliament. "We hope that the plans to join the EU will come to naught. Therefore we will not go," said LPR's Marek Kotlinowski. Contrary to the LPR, the leader of Self Defense, Andrzej Lepper, intends to verbally inaugurate the activity of his party in the EU. He has already decided to give a speech at the session, although he is not one of the four Polish deputies entitled to address the House. "We will manage," said Lepper. "We have shown that people listen to us when we want them to listen," said Waclaw Klukowski. He refused to say whether Lepper will order a blockade of the podium in Strasbourg as he did recently in the Sejm. The Polish deputies will be joined by Parliamentary representatives from Hungary and the Czech Republic. (Rzeczpospolita, p. A3) A.Z.