Is that Poseidon on the water feature?
Neptune I think
Same fella I think
Probably
Thanks. I’d say Gdansk is the most improved city I’ve seen in my time here.
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I love going to Poland. It’s a great place.
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I really liked Gdansk. I was drunk the whole time though. Will ye head for Sopot
Don’t know. Will be mobbed today.
It is a must for both history buffs and the uninformed
Gdansk is a little gem
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@balbec Can we get a brief summary on this Polexit court case and the state of play around the country? I read an article on it yesterday but couldn’t figure out why the government are being blamed for a decision made by a court and the quotes I read (handily translated into English) all seemed very benign.
The government hand picked the judges. They are all stooges is my understanding
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Need to have a think about that. Will get back to you later.
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Correct.
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@Rocko Where to start?
The ruling party Prawo i Sprawiedliwosci (PIS) are right wing conservative. They are pro Catholic, Euro sceptic, anti LGBT and anti women’s rights.
Among the fundamental requirements for a democratic society are an independent judiciary and free media. PIS have been chipping away at both since they got back into power in 2015.
The National TV station (TVP) pursues a pro PIS stance and a belligerent stance against the opposition. They have purged all alternative views and those who might hold them from state media. It is a parody. I put the TVP news on one evening here and the missus asked me if it was a comedy programme. On the other side you have TVN which is owned by Discovery Channel. TVN has pursued a pro Western, pro democracy, pro materialistic agenda. It is highly critical of PIS and the Holy Roman Catholic Church. PIS despise them. I wouldn’t be a fan of everything TVN does but they do hold politicians of all sides to account.
PIS also hate Donald Tusk the leader of the opposition (PO) because he defeated them in the General Election in 2007 and kept them out of power for almost a decade. Tusk was PM for seven years, took his eye off the ball and fucked off to feed from the EU trough in 2014 leaving a bunch of stooks behind in Government. PO got hammered in the GE of 2015. He is back now . The next election will be vicious.
Since 2015 PIS have been trying to get control of the media and the courts. The Viktor Orban model. They have been removing judges at every level and replacing them with those more sympathetic to their agenda. One outcome was the restriction of abortion rights which was supported by the Constitutional Court over a year ago, causing uproar but keeping the Church happy.
They have also been pushing their anti foreign media agenda and passed a law to prohibit ownership of Polish media from outside the European Economic Area. Ostensibly to prevent ownership from Russia or China (!!) but really to target TVN. This has displeased the Yanks immensely. The law was actually defeated in parliament but they kept bringing it back to be voted on again and again until it was passed after some jiggery pokery. Unconstitutional but who cares? Funnily enough the State Media licensing body extended TVN’s license to broadcast anyway with the proviso that Discovery moved their ownership into a legal entity in Luxembourg. PIS blinked under US pressure.
For the last few months they have been grumbling about the EU. The EU doesn’t like the anti LGBT agenda and the interference with the judiciary. Development funds were withheld from areas where anti LGBT regulations were passed. PIS blinked again and the regulations were cancelled . PIS have recently been posing rhetorical questions about how Poland would fare outside the EU at various conferences and think tanks and publishing data that suggests that Poland is a net contributor to the EU, complete rubbish. This week we had the judgement from the placemen in the Supreme court that Polish law is superior to EU law, contrary to what they signed up to when joining the EU of course.
It remains to be seen whether this judgement is just posturing or not. The ruling has not been passed into the statute books yet so it is not effective. (They did the same with the abortion laws and left it off the statute books for a while until things calmed down).
The economy has been booming for years and “only” declined by 3.5% last year. Inflation is heading towards 6%, the highest rate for twenty years. Wage inflation is heading for 10%. PIS have been spending money like a drunken sailor even before the pandemic. They need the EU funds badly and are probably in their own minds sabre rattling. Like most bullies they are all talk until someone stands up to them. Because the economy was going well most Poles have given them a free pass to mess around. How long that will continue is the question.
Then there is the crisis on the Eastern border. Belarus is granting visas to migrants from the Middle East and Africa and the migrants are making their way across the borders of Poland, Latvia and Lithuania. The Poles are rounding up the migrants and bussing them back across the border only for the poor misfortunes to try to get across the border again. Some groups have been over and back twenty times. A state of emergency has been declared in the East and the media are banned from entering or reporting. Basically to give the border guards freedom to do whatever they like. Real hard men getting tough with women and children. Frontex, the EU border control agency have demanded access the the border but been denied. There are reports of migrants dying from hunger and cold in the forests. It is shameful.
What happens next? God only knows. It is depressing. All the good that has been done in this country since 1989 is being undone.
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We did the annual cemetery trip today. 400km to Wohyn in the east. This is the partisans grave, twenty nine shot by the Germans in 1943. Ages ranging from seventy to nineteen. A cousin of my wifes grandmother is buried here.
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Is ww2 close to the surface in Poland and discussed/remembered much?
The Government use it to stoke nationalism and anti German/ EU sentiment.
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