POLAND: With The EU, Gay Tolerance Grows Despite Religious Social Conservatives.

G.POST / J.CIENSKI

   For years, social conservatives warned that the 2004 EU membership  would force changes in a religious nation that has traditionally frowned on gay rights — even though homosexuality has been legal since 1932.
   Dead former president Lech Kaczynski twice banned gay pride parades in Warsaw when he was mayor and so pleased the hard-right in the 2005 elections that they gave him the victory.
  Now being openly anti-gay there...is almost as unacceptable as being anti-Semitic.
  And some politicians are learning that being anti-homosexual is costly.

POLAND: Smolensk Plane Crash Investigation Turning Into A "Brasilian Soap Opera."

BLOOMBERG/      The Smolensk plane crash in April that killed President Lech Kaczynski and 95 others provided a few weeks of national unity-- that has now turned into a political dogfight. “My country and the government behave worse than in a Brazilian soap opera,” Marek Siwiec, an EU parliament member from the Left Democratic Alliance, wrote on his blog. “Responsibility for the catastrophe has become a top theme of the political fight. When it will end? Shame.”

POLAND: Smolensk Crash Transcript Released; Pilot Perhaps Not Pressured.

BLOOMBRG  with NYTIMES details/    
Poland released a 40-page transcript about the crash in Smolensk that killed 96 and eviscerated its government. It shows no evidence that President Lech Kaczynski pressured the pilot to land. It also proves that the pilot was aware of the thick fog. “It’s going to be dreadful, we won’t be able to see anything,” said a crew member. Pilot Arkadiusz Protasiuk persisted. “Well, no, you can see the ground,” he said, six minutes later. “You can see something. Maybe there won’t be a tragedy.”

POLAND: Pensions And EU Requirments Roil Politics.

NYTIMES/
Joining the EU and raising the retirement age are two big reasons for the political struggles between Prime Minister Donald Tusk and President Lech Kaczynski in a coming election. To lower deficits required by the EU, the government must raise the age Poles when can qualify for a pension from 64 for women and 65 for men to 67 for both, politically unpopular measures. But pension debt has grown to 13 percent of Poland’s GDP. By 2050, more than 63% of Poles will be over 65 years of age. And its annual budget deficit may reach at least 5% of G.D.P. this year, well above the E.U.’s limit of 3%.

POLAND: Political Sniping Begins Over Economy.

BLOOMBERG/
“Poland’s government is definitely doing a lot of things right,” said World Bank economist Kaspar Richter. Because Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk and President Lech Kaczynski are expected to run against each other again in 2010's presidential election, they have accused each other of foreign and economic mistakes. Tusk lost the race in 2005.

Poles and Czechs Stall Signing EU's Lisbon Treaty.

From The Economist.

The presidents of Poland and the Czech Republic are reluctant to sign the European Union's Lisbon Treaty though their parliaments have ratified it.

Why?

The Economist describes both men as "prickly nit-pickers," and lists other reasons why the two have put-off the signings.