Warsaw (PMN)—Poland’s Finance Minister, Jacek Rostowski, told the Financial Times that Poland may postpone its plans to adopt the euro in 2012 by at least a year, because of a budget deficit and amid signs the economy is worsening. He added that if it is moved by one year "that’s not the end of the world."

The center-right government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk has made joining the common currency one of the lynchpins of its anti-crisis policy, hoping to send the message that the Polish economy is stable compared with more economically troubled countries in the region, such as Hungary and Latvia.

Nevertheless, the prospects of joining the euro have dimmed. Last year, the government forecast the economy would grow by more than 3% in 2009. Currently it hopes for 1.7%, but the European Commission has said Poland could contract by 1.4%. While Rostowski has disputed the commission’s numbers, he acknowledges the economy is slowing sharply.

The government is also still at odds with the opposition over amending the constitution, which has to happen if Poland is to adopt the common currency. In addition, criteria for joining the euro call for a deficit of no more than 3%, which would make joining it by 2012 unrealistic.

Although growth estimates have been slashed, Poland’s domestic market has been resilient. Unemployment appears to have stabilized at 11%. The zloty, which declined sharply this year, has regained some strength, thanks in part to Poland receiving a $20.5 billion flexible credit line from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

London (PMN)—Regarding the famous Roundtable that was used in 1989 in discussions that ended Communism in Poland, Timothy Garton Ash of Britain’s Guardian newspaper, wrote on May 20, 2009: "As a piece of carpentry, this table is nothing to write home about. The dark-stained veneer is already peeling in several places, the top surfaces are a bit rough, and the farmhouse-style, floor-level beams remind me of a beer-stained British pub table. As politics, it is a work of genius."

Specially made by Polish carpenters for the country's pioneering round table talks in early 1989, the first in communist Europe, and now preserved as a historical exhibit in the presidential palace in Warsaw, this large piece of furniture, actually made of 14 separate sections, is the symbol of the new kind of peaceful, negotiated revolution which in 1989 superseded the old, violent style of 1789. "The round table," Ash wrote, "replaces the guillotine."

The tortuous negotiations of the first half of the year looked nothing like a revolution. A round table, with people talking around it, does not make compelling television. Even the breakthrough, semi-free Polish election of June 4, 1989, which led directly to the emergence of the first non-communist prime minister in what was then still the Soviet bloc, was a rather quiet affair. Ash bet "that come the 20th anniversary this June, there will be far more media coverage of the Tiananmen square massacre, which happened that same day." He was correct.

Warsaw (PMN)—The European Union of Football Associations (UEFA), the governing soccer body in Europe, announced the names in late May of the four Polish cities that will host Euro 2012 championship games. Of the six candidate cities named two years ago, Warsaw, Poznan, Wroclaw and Gdansk were chosen. That disappointed Krakow and Chorzow, which were selected as alternate cities when Poland originally placed its bid for Euro 2012.

Warsaw, as the Polish capital and home to a population of two million, was the most obvious choice. Preliminary construction work has begun on the city’s new 55,000-capacity National Stadium. However, Warsaw also has a number of infrastructural shortcomings, such as a lack of ring road or major motorway leading to it.

Public transportation during Euro 2012 may also prove challenging for Warsaw, as the city is served by just one subway line and plans to construct a second line could cause some disruptions.

Wroclaw and Gdansk are also building stadiums from scratch, but their preparations and intrinsic qualities impressed UEFA. Gdansk, located on the Baltic Sea, may be struggling with its moribund shipbuilding industry, but the city was also the birthplace of the legendary Solidarity movement.

Wroclaw, meanwhile, is one of the fastest developing cities in Poland. It is a strong university city, attracting IT and innovative companies thanks to its special economic zone and a mayor known for his tireless promotion of the city.

Poznan, for its part, is an important commercial and industrial hub in western Poland. It will host Euro 2012 matches at the Lech Poznan stadium, which is currently undergoing expansion.

Poland’s Deputy Defense Minister Stanislaw Komorowski, told reporters on May 21, 2009, that Warsaw expects to receive the Patriot missile battery that was agreed upon as part of the deal signed in August with the U.S., regardless of whether the United States decides to move forward with its plan for a missile shield system in the Czech Republic and Poland.

The Patriot missile battery was a key negotiating point for the Poles, who also wanted specific security cooperation guarantees and a promise to help upgrade Polish air defenses. According to the Reuters news agency, the deal calls for about 100 missiles to be based in Poland for a short period each year in 2009, 2010 and 2011. Komorowski said that from 2012 a U.S. Patriot battery would be permanently based in the country.

Regardless of the decision regarding missile defense, President Barack Obama has said other cooperation with Poland, including strategic projects such as modernization of our armed forces, will definitely be continued.

On May 19 new doubts were raised as to whether the planned U.S. missile shield would be effective against an attack from countries such as Iran. A joint U.S.- and Russian-led panel of experts into the matter compiled a report stating that the shield would not effectively in stopping missiles from entering the Western airspace. According to The Washington Post, this report could further dampen the Obama administration’s enthusiasm for a Bush administration plan to deploy radars and interceptor missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Brussels, Belgium (PMN)—The European Commission (EC) referred Poland to the European Court of Justice on May 14, 2009, for failure to incorporate EU rules prohibiting gender discrimination in access to and supply of goods and services. Poland has not yet adopted the necessary measures to give effect to the legislation in its national law. The deadline to bring the laws into force expired on December 21, 2007.

Vladimír Spidla, European Union (EU) Commissioner for Equal Opportunities, said, "I regret that Poland has not yet informed the Commission of its national measures to give effect to this important legislation, which was agreed unanimously by Member States and adopted in 2004. Equal treatment is a fundamental right in the EU and this Directive is crucial to tackling discrimination on the basis of gender."

The EU rules ban sex discrimination outside the workplace and prohibit direct and indirect discrimination based on sex, as well as sexual harassment. They apply to goods and services offered to the public, outside the area of private and family life. They do not apply to the content of media and advertising or to education, matters of employment and occupation.

To date, infringement proceedings have been initiated against twelve Member States, six of which are still open, as in the case of The Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Poland and The United Kingdom.

Warsaw (PMN)—The Polish Ministry of Economy has issued a report on the first five years of the country’s presence in the European Union (EU). It shows that the accession stimulated the pace of economic development and increased foreign trade turnover. The five EU years saw also a rise in foreign investment inflow to Poland.

The first five years of the Polish presence in the EU witnessed considerable changes in the structure of the country’s economy. According to the Ministry of Economy the sharp acceleration of economic growth resulting in the country’s economic development, exceeding other European economies, has much to do with the Polish EU membership. The fact, that Poland joined the EU has also help increase investment activities on the part of Polish companies both in the country and abroad. Likewise, Polish presence in the European structures has undoubtedly stimulated foreign investors to transfer their production activities to Poland.

Polish EU membership translates also in a dramatic change on the Polish labor market. Due to the free movement of persons and workers since 2004 Poles have the possibility to legally work in selected EU member states, which generated a considerable migration not without effects on the domestic labor market and personnel resources of Polish companies.

The report was prepared by analysts from the Analyses and Forecasts Department of the Ministry of Economy in co-operation with the Gdansk Institute for Market Economics, Institute for Market, Consumption and Business Cycles Research and the Institute for Structural Research.

Warsaw (PMN)--Visitors from abroad can squeeze more out of their money in Poland than they could have done at this time last year. The weaker zloty can help Poland attract foreign tourists.

According to the Polish Institute of Tourism, a relationship between tourist inflow and the currency exchange rate is now visible. In 2007, about 14.7 million foreign tourists came to Poland, while throughout the entire 2008, when the zloty was very strong until autumn, only 13 million tourists visited, 13% fewer.

The tourism sector in Poland, as everywhere, is dependent on the state of the world economy. It is natural that foreign tourists tighten their belts during times of economic contraction. However, it is possible that business tourism will feel the pinch, rather than the leisure segment.

On the domestic scene, due to the expensive euro, many Poles may put off foreign vacation plans and explore Poland instead.

This year it is predicted that not only will tourists return, but the country can expect newcomers who would like to explore Poland because of several events, such as the 20th anniversary of the fall of communism, the EuroBasket 2009 [basketball] championship or the Polska!Year campaign in the UK.

Shopping tourism is also popular, with citizens of neighboring countries crossing the border to buy cheaper goods. For example, Lithuanians cross the border into Poland’s Podlasie region to buy cheaper food products. Lithuanian currency is now linked to the euro, hence Lithuanians are interest in coming to Poland to fill their carts with groceries. Czechs tend to be more attracted by Polish kitchen furniture and wicker products, while Germans can save as much as 40% per liter on gasoline.

Warsaw (PMN)—The Warsaw Business Journal reported on May 22, 2009, that Google’s controversial Street View cars have launched work on a virtual map of Warsaw. They have been touring the city since the start of the month. The Street View service, which is a feature of Google Maps and Google Earth, offers panoramic views of selected urban and rural locations. It is expected to cover the Polish capital in a matter of months.

Its arrival in Poland has aroused the same kind of privacy concerns previously voiced in other countries. Street View pictures capture people unaware they are being photographed and have notably featured individuals caught in all kinds of embarrassing situations.

When it was launched in the United Kingdom in March, 2009, the service came under fire for featuring naked children in a park, a man coming out of a sex shop and other discomforting images, such as a man being arrested. All told, hundreds of privacy-breach complaints have so far been lodged with watchdogs around the world.

On its part, Google claims it has provided general information in the Polish media about the filming. "Photographing people is absolutely not our goal. But we cannot ask all the residents to leave the city for a month or two," Marta Jozwiak of Google Polska told a Polish TV service.

Google’s Street View was first introduced in the United States on May 25, 2007. In July 2008, when the Tour de France route was added, the service entered Europe and it is currently available in the United Kingdom, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain. Outside of the United States and Europe, the service is also available in Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

Brussels, Belgium (PMN)—Following a complaint from Jan Tombinski, Polish Ambassador to the European Union (EU), the European Commission (EC) plans to expand Poland’s part in an online video about the fall of the Iron Curtain. The almost three-minute clip, entitled "1989-2009: 20 years of Liberty!" was made for the EC's YouTube page by a Brussels-based media and published in mid-May, quickly attracting over 60,000 viewers.

The film shows the life story of a man born in 1989, with archive footage from Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, the Baltic States and Romania. It culminates in a street scene in 2009 at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate, symbolizing the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Polish Ambassador says it gives undue weight to Germany’s role in ending Communism, while underplaying Poland’s contribution.

Tombinski, wrote in a letter to the commission on May 18, 2009, "The fall of the Berlin Wall was just one of the final accords in a chain of events." The letter listed strikes by the Solidarnosc trade union in Gdansk, Poland’s 1989 Round Table agreement to remove its Communist government and the political actions of Pope John Paul II as being central to the story.

The EC initially tried to draw a line between "artistic" and "historic" films, with officials taking a light-hearted view of the matter, despite Brussels’ willingness to make changes. EC spokesman Joe Hennon stated, "To make videos that are absolutely, 100% historically accurate — that’s not the role of the Commission … You're not going to give the entire history of the fall of Communism in two and half minutes."

Toronto, Canada (PMN)—Like the renowned American folk artist, Grandma Moses, who launched her career in her 70s, Mayer Kirshenblatt did not start painting until he was 73. For that reason, and others, the Associated Press (AP) felt he might be called the "Polish-Jewish Grandma Moses."

Since then, the 92-year-old Toronto resident has painted hundreds of canvases that evoke the vanished world of Jewish life in small-town Poland before the Holocaust. More than 80 paintings and drawings by the self-taught artist can be seen at The Jewish Museum in New York in an exhibition that is striking for its vivid detail, innocent charm and folkloric quality.

The AP Kirshenblatt was born in Opatow, Poland, in 1916 and emigrated to Canada when he was 17. Nearly all the paintings in this exhibit are devoted to the daily rhythms of life in his boyhood town of 10,000 people, about two-thirds of whom were Jewish. Other paintings capture the hustle and bustle of market day, as well as domestic life in the Kirshenblatt family two-room house, with its charming stenciled walls and spotlessly clean floor boards.

Even though his paintings ache with nostalgia for a simpler way of life, Kirshenblatt decided as a teenager in 1934 to emigrate to Canada. "I always considered myself a Pole," he says. By leaving, though, he was spared the fate of so many of his relatives who perished in the Holocaust.

Eventually, he took the plunge, making a pencil drawing, then a watercolor, then an acrylic painting on canvas board of the kitchen where he had slept as a youngster and taken baths with his three brothers in a big washtub. That was in 1990, and he is still painting, trying to create a comprehensive record of the "big world out there before the Holocaust."

The exhibit at The Jewish Museum, "They Called Me Mayer July: Painted Memories of a Jewish Childhood in Poland Before the Holocaust," runs through October 1, then travels to Amsterdam in late 2009 and Warsaw in 2011.

Warsaw (PMN)—According to Anand Grover, United Nations special reporter "on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health," the access of Polish women access to contraceptives, prenatal tests and abortion is unsatisfactory.

Grover visited Poland May 5-11, 2009, and held a news conference at the end of his visit to tell reporters about his observations. He said he had met with women in Poland who said that Polish doctors refused to perform abortions even in cases when they are legal. Grover said the government must ensure that women’s human rights are upheld in such cases without barriers and bureaucratic delays.

Polish non-governmental organizations put the figure of illegal abortions at anywhere from 80,000 to 180,000 a year, he said.

Grover voiced concern over what he called a lack of information on children’s and young people's sexual health. He appealed for providing unbiased information and education on sex and relationships. He also spoke about complaints he received during his visit that methadone therapies for drug addicts were unavailable in Poland.

The UN reporter appealed to Polish lawmakers to adopt laws that would ensure unrestricted access to health services in line with the principle of equality and non-discrimination.

London, England (PMN)—Der Spiegel [The Mirror] magazine, Germany’s most authoritative weekly carried a headline reading "The accomplices. Hitler’s European helpers in the Holocaust" in mid-May, 2009. Complete with a big picture of Hitler, the headline is deliberately provocative and could even hurt relations with Germany’s neighbors.

Spiegel’s reaction to the deportation of Ukrainian-born Nazi war crimes suspect John Demjanjuk, who faces charges he helped murder at least 29,000 Jews at the Sobibor death camp in 1943, is groundbreaking as it tackles a subject Germans have so far given little thought to. The uncomfortable thesis is that while Germans were responsible for the Holocaust, Nazis had help from a huge number of non-Germans in neighboring countries. And most of those countries have been far slower than Germany to take a proper look at their past.

The article pointed to Ukrainian gendarmes, Latvian auxiliary policeman, Romanian soldiers or Hungarian railway workers. It also implicated Polish farmers, Dutch land register officials, French mayors, Norwegian ministers and Italian soldiers. "They were all plainly involved in the crime — the Holocaust," writes Der Spiegel.

The magazine was also careful to point out there were acts of bravery as some non-Germans defied orders and helped Jews.