2008-11-27 |
| Structural Funds for Poland in years 2004-2006
| | According to the last data of the European Commission Poland has exploited almost 100 % of the structural funds available for the country between 2004-2006. On 18 November 2008 the percentage of the exploited funds was approx. 93 % of the allocated amount i.e. 7,7 billion euro, which were used for regional development, fisheries, social fund and rural development. With such results Poland is the second (after Lithuania) on the structural funds exploitation list. In comparison, the exploitation of the Cohesion Fund resources for financing the large-scale infrastructure and environmental projects is not as advanced, since the percentage of the used resources amounts to approx. 48,7 %, what places Poland on the last position among the ten countries which joined EU in 2004.
source EuroPAP |
2008-10-24 |
| Vysehrad Group summit in Warsaw
| | The Vysehrad Group summit with the Baltic Sea States will take place in Warsaw on 5 November.
The summit, extended to Baltic Sea countries: Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, will concentrate on energy and climate package. The right to vote the package, that Poland has won during the EU summit in Brussels, will give us a chance to negotiate the limited in time preferential treatment of Polish energy sector.
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2008-10-20 |
| Poland satisfied with the results of the EU summit concerning energy and climate package
| | 16.10.2008 Brussels (PAP) – Poland is satisfied with the results of the EU summit relating to the energy and climate package due to negotiating by the Polish prime minister that the final decision on the package will be taken unanimously.
“As a result of the difficult negotiations prime minister Mister Donald Tusk was reassured that the decision on the package will be taken unanimously (not by qualified majority) and the interests of each member states will be taken into consideration” – said Mister Mikołaj Dowgielewicz, the European affairs minister after the summit.
“Poland has regained its right to veto in this issue” – added Mister Dowgielewicz and underlined that prime minister D.Tusk represented the coalition of the eight new EU member states.
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2008-09-03 |
| Agreement on economic cooperation between Poland and Portugal signed
| | The Agreement on economic cooperation just signed in Warsaw provides the trade and technologies development but also the exchange in the investment in the business field. The document was signed at presence of the Polish President Lech Kaczyński and the President of Portuguese Republic Anibal Cavaco Silva, who underlined that Poland has become a major Portuguese business partner in the Central and Eastern Europe. Poland is the fourth targeted market of Portuguese investments abroad, said President Anibal Cavaco Silva. President Kaczyński welcomed the fact, that Polish export to Portugal has increased recently and expressed hope that our turnover with this country will double soon. |
2008-08-05 |
| Minister Dowgielewicz on the Government`s programme of preparations to the Polish EU Presidency
| | Minister Dowgielewicz, recently appointed Government Plenipotentiary for the Preparation of Governmental Administrative Bodies and the Republic of Poland's Presidency of the Council of the European Union has just announced that the programme of the preparations for the Presidency will be ready in October. He noticed that drawing up such a programme and amending the act on the civil service as well as some other regulations are the most important issues. M. Dowgielewicz also underlined that he finds the preparations process a good occasion for public debate in our country to “make everybody in Poland feel that the project concerns us and is our common task and success”. Polish Presidency is a great opportunity to promote our country in Europe, said Minister Dowgielewicz. |
2008-06-09 |
| Cooperation of the Polish-Danish-Cypriot Trio concerning their joint EU Presidency
| | Representatives of Poland, Denmark and Cyprus met in Warsaw for talks on the preparations to their joint EU Presidency in July 20011. The concept of the presiding Trio (provided in the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe) was introduced in September 2006 with the aim “to strengthen cooperation between three consecutive presiding countries with the view to creating a more coordinated development of the EU's strategic policies”. The system of joint Presidency – so called Troika – was first introduced informally by Germany in 2007.
During the meeting in Warsaw the partners agreed on the common training for the Polish, Danish and Cypriot officials responsible for the eighteen-month joint Presidency.
“We especially count on the Danish administration expertise as Denmark has already held the EU Presidency six times”, said M. Dowgielewicz, minister of the Office of the Committee for European Integration, adding that the meeting with the preceding Trio Presidency (Spain, Hungary and Belgium) is planned this year.
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2008-05-19 |
| Poles are satisfied with a 4-year EU membership – the newest UKIE report
| | The report includes information about different aspects of Polish integration with the EU, including for example macro economical change accompanying Polish membership, processes in labour market, in agriculture, in area of freedom, security and justice. From the report it appears that majority of Poles (78%) supports Polish membership. Poles see bright future of Poland in the EU over the coming 10-20 years. As much as 69% of citizens think that Poland will definitively or rather benefit from membership. Not only young, educated people who live in big cities, but also groups which were anxious before accession like for example farmers express a positive attitude towards the EU.
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2008-03-03 |
| The Information Point on European Funds opened
| | On the 27 February in the European Information Centre there was an official opening of the Information Point on European Funds for years 2007-2013 as the common project of the Office of the Committee for European Integration and the Ministry of Regional Development. | | |
2008-12-02 |
| Poles on introducing the euro
| | According to the recent CBOS survey 47 % of Poles are for introducing the euro and 45 % are against. It shows the slight growth in the number of the supporters, as in 2007 44 % were after and 46 % against replacing the Polish złoty by the euro. Majority of the supporters (63 %) believe that the best time to introduce it would be in 2012, date proposed by the government. In the common opinion of the surveyed (84 %), after introducing the euro the prices of the goods and services will rise. 75% of the Poles expressed their willingness to participate in the referendum on the euro introduction.
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2008-11-26 |
| European Commission has withdrawn another complaint against Poland
| | The Court of Justice of the European Communities has announced that European Commission has withdrawn an complaint against Poland in action C-142/08. The Commission’s action concerned failing to adopt and notify the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with Commission Directive on markets in financial instruments (hereinafter referred to as MiFID I) and a directive introducing implementing measures (MFID II Directive). |
2008-10-22 |
| Leszek Balcerowicz named by Barroso a member of supervisory team
| | Leszek Balcerowicz named by Barroso a member of supervisory team
Leszek Balcerowicz, a former head of the Polish national bank and, as finance minister, the architect of Poland’s “shock therapy” in the early 1990s, currently the head of the think-tank Brugel was appointed on 21 October by José Manuel Barroso to the seven-member group tasked with reviewing financial supervisory framework in light of the current crisis. The group will present its first conclusions next spring, in time for EU leaders to consider their advice when they meet at a summit in March 2009.
The team will be headed by Jacques de Larosière, a former managing director of the IMF. According to Karel Lannoo, the chief executive officer of the Centre for European Policy Studies “there is a good balance and a good combination of people from different countries and different experiences of finance and economies”.
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2008-10-14 |
| Delegation for General Affairs and External Relations Council in Luxembourg
| | Minister for European Affairs Mikołaj Dowgielewicz will be the head of the Polish delegation for General Affairs and External Relations Council in Luxembourg. The meeting will be devoted to discussing preparations to the EU summit in Brussels on Wednesday and Thursday as well as the financial crisis, climate and energy package, energy safety, relations with Russia and current situation in Georgia. |
2008-07-17 |
| Information
| | The Council of Ministers has adopted a Regulation on establishing the Government Plenipotentiary for preparing the government administration and holding by the Republic of Poland the EU Council Presidency and has appointed Minister Mikołaj Dowgielewicz for the position. The Plenipotentiary will be in charge of i.e. coordination of the government bodies activities concerning the Polish Presidency and drawing up the draft programme of the preparations to the Presidency holding. |
2008-06-06 |
| Poland`s Eastern Partnership Initiative
| | At the EU foreign affairs ministers meeting in Brussels Poland and Sweden submitted the new initiative which aim is expanding the EU`S relations with the Eastern countries. As the Polish foreign affairs minister Radek Sikorski explained, the EU neighbours may one day become candidates applying for the EU membership and “this instrument was invented to help them achieve it”. The main objective of the initiative is expanding relations with Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldova and – at the technical and experts’ level – with Belarus. The idea provides establishing a forum of the regional cooperation of the 27 member states with the Eastern countries and using this forum to implementation of particular actions i.e. creating the deepened free trade area or aiming at visa-free travel.
The Eastern Partnership initiative was received positively by a number of the ministers present at the meeting.
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2008-04-16 |
| The European Film Archive started in CIE
| | In year 2008, announced the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue, the European Information Center launched a new initiative – European Film Archives.
Films selected in cooperation with the European cultural institutions and embassies of the EU member states will be presented in the premises of CIE (Warsaw, ul. Krucza 38/42) every second Thursday (occasionally on other days) at 16.00 p.m.
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2008-02-14 |
| Polish initiative to celebrate in 2009 20th anniversary of changes in Central and Eastern Europe
| | Poland is proposing to celebrate in EU the 20th anniversary of the transformations in Poland, former Czechoslovakia, Hungary and the Fall of the Berlin Wall. The proposal has been submitted by the Chairman of the UKIE, Mr Mikołaj Dowgielewicz during the meeting of the European affairs ministers in Brussels. The second initiative concerns the celebration of the enlargement of 1 May 2004. | |