Poland opens Communist-era secret Files.
Poland launched a long awaited scheme in February to open up personal files gathered by communist-era secret police in their war against pro-democracy activists and others if considered subversive. Poles are now able to apply at the local branches of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) to view files which the feared SB communist security service collected on them. The IPN, which was created in 2000, is similar to the Gauck agency in former eastern Germany which oversaw the unveiling of personal files held by the Stasi. The Institute will need about six months to process the application, so the first Poles should be able to inspect their files by July.
Unlike many former Soviet-block countries, Poland has been reluctant to open its files because of pressure from politicians rooted in the old system and from anti-Communist liberals, who argued that the files had often been falsified. (Reuters)

New Political Movement
Recently a new political movement was created in Poland which sparked major public interest. The new movement is called the Civic Platform and was established by Andrzej Olechowski, Maciej Płażyński, and Donald Tusk. Many prominent politicians are joining the platform and several parties are divided into fractions either advocating or opposing the joining of the platform. The new movement held its first convention in Gdansk on January 24, 2001 attracting more then 4000 supporters from across Poland. The Platform is established primarily as an initiative to improve the situation in the state, something which cannot be accomplished by the socialist left (SLD) and the unionist right (AWS). The platform is to be a meeting place to "combine idealism with pragmatic thinking". Several prominent members of various parties have already joined the platform. Overall the founding of the platform seems to be a positive idea.

The complexity of gas pipelines.
Poland uses approximately 12 billion cubic meters of gas every year, of which 7 billion is imported from Russia, .5 billion is imported from Germany, and 4 billion are extracted locally in the Podkarpacie region. Russia with its Gazprom gas distribution company is one of the largest producers of natural gas in the world. The pipeline which runs through the Polish territory towards Germany has historically been a symbol of dependency on Russian favors. When General Jaruzelski had doubts about the introduction of severe measures to quell the political unrest in the country in 1981, Soviet marshal Kulikov and minister Boybokov visited Warsaw with threats of reducing the gas supplies. In 1993 an agreement was signed about the construction of the Jamal pipeline which would connect Germany with Russian gas through the territory of the Polish republic. Only when the 2nd pipeline was discussed which would avoid Ukraine and go straight through Belarus and Poland did the energy supply question become a political issue. Not having to solely rely on Russia is a major issue of energetic security to the Polish authorities. To achieve full security a country is ideally to have three different sources of energy each not surpassing 35%. In case of crisis, emergency, or sabotage from one of the suppliers, the amounts received from the remaining two are increased, reserves are used, consumption is reduced and somehow the crisis is contained.
There are various propositions as to the ways to solve the energy crisis. The first is to build a pipeline which would provide gas from Norway, the second proposed by Polish businessman Aleksander Gudzowaty, the owner of several gas trading companies, is to connect the German pipeline in Bernau by Berlin with Szczecin in Poland, and thus have an alternative to Russian gas. Others still propagate a higher usage of domestic Polish gas, as new sources were reported to be found by an American drilling firm in the Koszalin region. The obvious flaw in Gudzowaty's plan is that the German gas in Bernau is really coming from Russia in the first place. Poland thus is faced with these problems in the eve of its entry into the EU by 2006. The EU regulates the supply of gas and other resources between its members and Poland would be able to participate in the scheme upon joining. This is a future possibility but the reality remains that the Polish authorities need to be concerned about the present.