Heading west
By : Juliet D. Golden
Amid a carnival-like atmosphere, citizens of the small southwestern town of Swidnica hit the ballot box last week and voted overwhelmingly in favor of Poland joining the European Union (EU).
In the first mock referendum held in the country over entrance to the Western trade bloc, 73% of voters in the Lower Silesian industrial town ticked "yes" when asked whether Poland should become an EU member.
While the results are not binding and do not bring the country any closer to making it into the exclusive club, the referendum could be a sign of how Poles might react at the ballot box when they participate in the real vote on EU entry in two years' time, assuming the 2003 entry date holds.
Up to now, a political and economic merger with Europe has been the realm of talking heads on television, ministers in Warsaw and negotiators in Brussels, with ordinary citizens watching from the sidelines.
"It's good that the city decided to hold this preliminary referendum," said Aleksandra Krasowska, coordinator of the European Club at grade school No. 1 in Swidnica. The club of 20 elementary school students gathers information about the EU. "I think the results will show what the people are thinking," she said.
Until the vote, the only glimpse of what average Poles thought about the EU was through public opinion polls, which weren't positive. While four years ago just 7% of the citizenry questioned voiced opposition to joining the EU, according to most recent surveys carried out by Centrum Badania Opinii Spolecznej (CBOS), one out of four Poles is against joining the trade bloc. And while the number of undecided on the issue has remained stable at 16-19%, the number of those in favor of joining the EU has dropped from 80% to 59%.
"The country's future in the EU is not perceived in any clear-cut way as far as Polish society is concerned," said Jozef Oleksy, former premier and member of the opposition Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) party. "There is no honest, well-informed dialogue about what it will cost and what the benefits are for Polish society."
All the more reason why Swidnica's statement should warm the hearts of Euro-enthusiasts like Oleksy, who see EU accession as the key priority. Swidnica shows that even in an agriculture basin, where unemployment is 21.5%, far above the April national average of 13.7%, the answer to the question of whether Poland should join the EU can be a resounding "yes."
But while Swidnica indicates that when push comes to shove in the real referendum Poles might just endorse entry into the EU, the key issue is whether enough supporters will show up to make the vote valid. While folks in Swidnica turned up in the tens of thousands on election day to listen to the marching bands or sing along with legendary star Maryla Rodowicz, when the final results were broadcast live on prime time national TV that evening, only 18% of 49,394 registered citizens voted. This was a far cry from the 50% required under EU law to make a real referendum valid. The low figure has some policy makers sounding alarm bells.
"Turnout in the real referendum will be poor, maybe not as low as (18%), but it won't be what we expect," said Andrzej Wojciechowski, director of the law harmonization department at the Office of the Committee for European Integration.
According to Wojciechowski, another decade of democracy will have to pass before civic involvement rises and average citizens perceive that their vote counts. "This is an enormous problem in small towns where people have lost faith that they can influence anything at all," Wojciechowski said. "Poles still haven't learned to take issues into their own hands."
Teaching democracy
It was the urge to get locals interested in national politics that led Zbigniew Zastawny to propose the referendum to local authorities in Swidnica's town hall late last autumn.
For Zastawny, a former shop owner who now serves as president of the local waste treatment plant, the referendum wasn't about sending a message to Warsaw and Brussels, it was a vehicle to get people on the grassroots level focused on the issues.
"I thought (we could) use the referendum as a slogan to inform people what to expect," Zastawny said.
Despite earning immediate approval from the local city council, throughout the spring Zastawny's plans became mired in a melange of national and local politics that almost prevented the event from happening.
First, the city of Swidnica had to pull out as main organizer of the referendum following a ruling by the Lower Silesian Voivod Witold Krochmal, who said that a referendum on a national issue was in conflict with the existing law regulating local governments. If Swidnica moved forward, the organizer would have to be a citizens' committee.
Once a citizens' committee was created, local political infighting reared its head and imperiled the event once again. Due to a conflict over one of six candidates nominated by Solidarity Election Action (AWS) to serve on the committee, AWS in April pulled out of the referendum.
Swidnica's town hall is governed by an SLD-Freedom Union (UW) coalition, which together commands a 20-seat majority on the local city council. AWS holds 14 seats in the local governing body.
Despite the hiccups along the way, Swidnica not only rallied political and media support nationally, it also gained backing from local and regional businesses, which helped cover the event's zl. 200,000 price tag. According to Adam Markiewicz, mayor of Swidnica, only zl. 30,000 came directly from city coffers.
Organizers also got a boost from national broadcaster Telewizja Polska (TVP), which showed post-referendum celebrations live on prime time TV.
Apart from the pomp, in the month prior to the actual vote Swidnica citizens had a chance to hash out EU-related issues with a host of national political and business leaders. During some 40 town hall and high school meetings in and around the city, citizens questioned pro-EU figures such as former Prime Ministers Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Jozef Oleksy, and Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, as well as sceptics such as Janusz Korwin-Mikke, the presidential candidate from the ultra-liberal Unia Polityki Realnej (UPR), and AWS parliamentarians Witold Tomczak and Jan Lopuszanski.
While only an estimated 10% of Swidnica's 66,000-strong population participated directly in the town hall meetings, Zastawny said that those meetings marked the beginning of social dialogue and the civics education process he was looking for. "For me the biggest success came when I heard someone say 'finally someone started talking to us seriously,' " he said.
Small town blues
Judging from the ultimate outcome, maybe the dialogue bore results. Not only in the city, but also in the voting stations in two villages that participated in the referendum, the choice for EU entry was clear. Among high school students aged 16-18 who cast their ballots on the Friday prior to the referendum, 62% voted for entry out of the 67% who turned up. Even in the countryside, a traditional bastion of anti-EU sentiment, 62% voted in favor of joining the EU. However, only 14% of those registered voters decided to show.
The question also remains just how illustrative the Swidnica snapshot is of small-town Poland.
According to Cimoszewicz, a former prime minister, Swidnica is not so typical. "I don't think it's entirely representative," he said.
Since the town is situated 130 kilometers from the German border, Europe is not as foreign a concept to many Swidnica citizens as it is to others in small towns scattered in the middle or far eastern parts of the country. "At times, we practically feel like we are part of Europe," said Waldemar Pytel, a priest at the historic Church of Peace. The protestant church pulls in 10,000 visitors from all over the world on an annual basis.
Beyond tourism, Swidnica has also managed to attract a small but impressive handful of foreign investors led by the U.S. Greenbrier Companies, which holds a more than 60% stake in Wagony Swidnica, a local freight car producer.
However, proximity to the West and foreign investment does not mean automatic prosperity or Euro-enthusiasm. City authorities are wrangling with many of the same problems other small towns across Poland face. Unemployment in the city reached 20% this year, up eight percentage points from two years ago. In addition, two out of four major job providers in the town are considering laying off upward of 1,000 workers, Markiewicz said.
And because Swidnica was part of Germany before World War II, there is lingering anti-European sentiment and fear that the border along the Oder-Neisse line is less than permanent.
"I associate joining the West with the ongoing uncertainty of our position here," said Irena Martyniak, a 61-year-old accountant who voted "no" on June 11. "If you look into history things haven't been signed and the issue is not yet solved."
Preaching unification
While the event may have gladdened the pro-EU contingent, the low voter turnout is also an indicator of how much work needs to be done before present and future governments can feel confident that Poles will show up in the right numbers to vote on accession.
"We feel a little unsatisfied because of the turnout," said Ryszard Kuc, director of the preliminary referendum office in Swidnica city hall. "It's not what we worked toward."
To get the 50% turnout rate for the vote to be valid under EU law, the government will have to reach people like Elzbieta Bieniowska, a 42-year-old economist employed by Bank Zachodni in Swidnica. While she knew about the referendum ahead of time, she said she chose not to participate. "I don't think a person should express himself if he doesn't know exactly what the benefits (and costs) will be," Bieniowska said. "Obviously, entering the EU is going to cost a lot of money. I would like to know how much it is going to cost me."
Judging from the Swidnica experience, Euro-huggers may have to turn to a more hesitant ally, the Catholic Church, to mobilize the masses. While no church representative took a seat on the citizens' committee in Swidnica, signs are that the church played its part in ultimately getting at least some people to the polls on June 11.
Czeslaw Sliwakowski, a retired factory worker from the village of Mokrzeszow, is a case in point. Not having heard about the referendum before the actual day, he cast his vote for joining the EU after attending early morning Sunday mass.
"In his sermon the priest said the referendum was today in Mokrzeszow and he urged us to go vote," he said. Sliwakowski was one of 53 people in the village who ticked "yes" in favor of joining the EU. "Living with the West is our only option," he said. "Maybe I won't benefit, but my daughter and grandchildren will for sure."
