Report of Poznan/Wroclaw Expo rivalry angers officials
Poznan and Wroclaw authorities strongly denied reports last week that the two cities were competing against each other for the right to host the International World Fair, also known as Expo.
The news that Poznan had taken on Wroclaw came in the form of a report from the daily newspaper Zycie last week, which stated that politicians in the Wielkopolska region were at the drawing board preparing their own application to host the international event in 2014.
The Zycie story about the rivalry between the two cities drew immediate criticism from officials in Poznan and Wroclaw.
"That's not true," said Dariusz Urbanowicz, spokesman for Poznan Mayor Ryszard Grobelny. "Poznan is not a candidate. We don't intend to trip Wroclaw up."
Ryszard Lechki, a representative with the Wroclaw Expo office was equally surprised by the report.
"This article does not describe reality," Lechki said. "We don't know anything about a conflict between Poznan and Wroclaw."
With most eyes on the international competition coming from cities such as Shanghai, Buenos Aires, Singapore and Trieste, Wroclaw campaigners were caught off guard last week by the news that they may face stiff competition on the home front. For the past eight months, Wroclaw has been carrying out its own national campaign aimed at finding backing for its bid to host the Expo in 2010.
Officials from both cities said last week that talk of a Poznan-Wroclaw rivalry may have been incited by steps the Wielkopolska region is taking to create its own long-term development strategy, Urbanowicz said. Spurred on by Wroclaw's move to host the Expo, last March politicians from Poznan and the Wielkopolska voivodship started mulling over the possibility of hosting their own international event, which would serve as a catalyst for infrastructure development and rapid economic growth.
"We are in the idea stage right now," Urbanowicz said. "Talk of competition is absurd."
In an attempt to prevent the story from gaining too much steam, both Poznan and Wroclaw officials were quick to point out mistakes in last Tuesday's Zycie article, which they claim undermined the report's credibility. First, this year's Expo venue is Hanover, not Hamburg as the Zycie report states. Second, the article names Zerniki as Poznan's choice for its exhibition site. Zerniki is a district of Wroclaw and the site Wroclaw authorities have eyed for its show.
"This is not information, this is misinformation," Lechki said.
True or not, the controversy generated by the Zycie article came at a sensitive moment for Wroclaw. With eyes on the Hanover Expo in June, where Wroclaw will make its international debut as an official Expo candidate, Wroclaw campaigners have been scrambling to secure a parliamentary resolution by the end of May voicing support for Wroclaw's plans. If passed, Polish politicians, including President Aleksander Kwasniewski and Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek, will be free to announce Poland's candidacy and lobby the world leaders present in Hanover to support the country's bid, said Wladyslaw Serwatowski, who is responsible for Wroclaw's Expo bid.
"Our power is to be united," Serwatowski said. "If there are many texts like this it will make the project less effective."
In related news, following reports two weeks ago that Lower Silesia could not afford to participate in the upcoming Hanover Expo, organizers of the region's exhibit last week announced that they planned to head to Hanover after all. The organizers scaled their exhibit budget down to an affordable zl. 350,000 from the original zl. 1 million ($243,000), said Marek Natusiewicz, the commissioner at the Expo 2000 office in the Lower Silesian Parliament.
