Look to the future
In the euphoria following President Aleksander Kwasniewski's successful re-election bid, Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) parliamentarians along with Peasants Party (PSL) and Labor Union (UP) partners pulled out a pre-Halloween trick last week when they called for a national referendum on how Poles should be compensated for property lost during World War II and under communism.
In a joint press conference, leaders of the three parties called for Poles to vote on what property should be returned and to whom. To back up their bid, the leaders waved the signatures of a half a million citizens who apparently support the idea.
While any move on the part of politicians to seek out the vox populi to inform debate and voting in Parliament is to be welcomed, the tripartite bid threatens to keep reprivatization on the front burner of national politics for years to come rather than bring the issue to a close. The referendum would undermine a nearly completed reprivatization draft law that has been in the works for the past year and a half and is due to be voted on in the next month.
In making the proposal, the parties are riding the diminishing wave of national support for reprivatization. According to CBOS research done at the beginning of the year, only 47% of Poles support privatization, less than the 65% who backed the initiative in 1991.
The falling support may be a sign of tough economic times. At a time when Poles are absorbed with shortages in the national budget to cover the costs of four major but poorly implemented reforms, they might just calculate that footing the bill for the wrongs of generations past might not be worth it.
Waiting for a referendum could also mean that more Poles go to national and international courts in search of justice. Rulings against Poland on individual cases could drain more from the national coffers than the broadest of reprivatization laws.
Poland is one of the last post-communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe to pass a comprehensive reprivatization law. In addition to frustrating former property owners and their families, from a business point of view this void has meant that at a time of unprecedented economic transformation, both foreign and Polish developers have had to move forward on investments with a great deal of trepidation.
This government's draft bill on reprivatization is far from perfect. It has angered Poles abroad and caused legal experts to scratch their heads while wading through its legislative vagaries. But this bill is part of a legislative process that all parties have participated in. Rather than coming up with surprise initiatives five minutes before midnight, politicians should imitate their peers in the multi-party group that is upgrading Polish law to European Union standards. They should work together on passing a law that makes both moral and economic sense, not only for the generation that lost their property, but also for future ones yet acquire their own.
