Not a dead issue

Last week's vote may have put the controversial legislation on the back burner, but the restitution issue will not wander far from Poland's political and diplomatic agenda.
By : Juliet D. Golden

   MPs backing the government's property restitution bill last week failed to garner the necessary votes to overturn President Aleksander Kwasniewski's March veto of the bill.

   In a vote of 211-207, MPs fell 42 votes short of obtaining the necessary three-fifths majority needed to salvage the legislation.

   While the outcome of last week's ballot puts legal efforts to compensate former property owners on the back burner until after September's parliamentary elections, government officials warned that the restitution issue would not wander far from Poland's political or diplomatic agenda.

   "From what we gather, it's hard to expect that the issue will quiet down," said Stanislaw Kolanowski, director of the Treasury Ministry's restitution department.

   Not only are former property owners belonging to the National Coalition of Revindication Organizations (OPOR) preparing to bring roughly 40,000 court cases against the government, but the Treasury Ministry is attempting to engineer compensations by writing new rules for communist nationalization laws that have not yet been wiped off the books.

   Sources last week also said that holocaust survivors in the U.S. seeking the return of property in Poland are pressuring the White House to place the property restitution issue high on President George Bush's agenda when he heads to Poland next month.

   The defunct bill would have reimbursed owners for up to 50% of their lost property, either through the return of real estate or via government bonds. The plan was estimated to cost the government zl. 47 billion ($11.75 billion).