28 November 2007

Britain's new ambassador to Poland is enthusiastic about his latest posting. Ric Todd, who arrived in Warsaw last month, says he loves Central Europe, understands the postcommunist mentality and intends to speak to Polish officials in their own language. He talked to Peter Konończuk.

What are you personal goals during your stint as ambassador to Poland?
My personal aim is that Britain and Poland will always vote the same way in the European Union and NATO. I want Britain and Poland to help lead the EU in finding more effective policies on Ukraine, on Russia, on energy and on trade. I also want to travel around Poland a lot-I know there's much more to Poland than Warsaw. I want to make my Polish better.

I'm also quite attracted by the idea of seeing if the Poles would like to have a memorial or square or something in Warsaw named after [British wartime prime minister] Winston Churchill.

Will Poland's relations with Britain change under the new economically-liberal Civic Platform (PO) government?
We are convinced that there are lots of shared interests between Britain and Poland and that the excellent relations between Britain and Poland will continue.

Poland's Kaczyński government had a reputation in Europe as difficult to deal with and stuck in the past. New Prime Minister Donald Tusk of the PO is seen by many as more pragmatic, forward-looking and Europe-friendly. Are Brussels and London breathing a sigh of relief that the Kaczyńskis' Law and Justice (PiS) party is no longer in power?
We never had any bilateral problems between Britain and the Kaczyński government. We never found them a difficult partner in the EU and NATO. We agreed on a number of things and, as always in the EU, we discussed our differences on some things. Poland had a number of issues and interests which it wanted to speak up for and defend in the Union. We regard that as perfectly natural.

We hear you've been busy learning Polish.
I had three months in England to learn Polish and also spent a month in Sopot and a month in Gdańsk. My plan is to speak only Polish with Poles. That's what I did in Slovakia, where I was British ambassador from 2001 to 2004. This can be tricky. But if you are always frightened of doing it then you will never learn.

Are you already fluent in Polish?
(He switches to good Polish, with a pronounced Slovak twang) Sometimes people say I have a funny accent. People ask me if I'm English or Czech. The first Slavonic language I learned was Czech when I was in Prague just before the [1989] Velvet Revolution. Learning Czech was a terrible experience. It's a very difficult language. (Switching back to English) I've learnt six languages but when I learn a new one the old one just sort of disappears. I speak only English and Polish but understand French, German and Slovak.

You have considerable experience of pre- and post-communist Central and Eastern Europe. Do you feel you understand Poland?
My time in Czechoslovakia was very valuable for me because I had experience of socialism and travelled around Central Europe. Now, because of that, a lot of things in Central Europe make sense to me in a way that they don't to people who come in new to this region. A lot of the talk about the układ [network of shady interests and culture of backroom deals] in Poland, how people behave, all these things can be explained if you knew how the situation was beforehand.

One of the things socialism did was to destroy trust between people. In socialist countries people trusted only those who were very close to them, family and close friends. They viewed everybody else in society with suspicion. They suspected there was a dark, sinister purpose behind actions carried out by strangers. You still get that sense all across Central Europe. Socialism in many ways destroyed civic values and people's trust in each other and it created this whole culture of corruption and lying and stealing. You can't change that completely overnight. But I can see the fantastic progress Central Europe has made in 18 years [after the end of communism]. I don't regard Poland as a particularly difficult or corrupt country. It has come an enormous way and it will go just as far, just as fast, in the next 18 years.

What are the weakest points in Polish-British relations?
We could still do more to make ourselves better partners in the EU and in NATO. It's less a weak point and more an area for development. In military terms we are allies in Afghanistan and Iraq. The willingness of Poland to deploy its troops abroad is something we value very much

What cultural differences have struck you the most since you arrived in Poland?
In Poland, unlike in Britain, in everyday dialogue, people want to talk about history. People will say to me, "Tell us about British policy towards the Soviet Union in 1919. Why don't the British like Napoleon? What about Yalta?" [The 1945 conference at which, according to many Poles, Britain and the United States betrayed Poland by handing it over to the Soviet sphere of control.] I'm a student of history, so I love to talk about this.

The second thing I find striking is that Poles conduct their political discussions, whether in a group of friends, with colleagues at work, or between politicians in a TV studio, with a much higher level of strong words and piquant expressions than the British ever would.

When a Polish politician says the situation in this country is a "catastrophe," what he means is that growth has fallen from 5 percent to 4.5 percent. Or when a Polish politician says, "democracy in our country is threatened, we are facing the most terrible crisis we have ever known," what he means is, "I'm not sure I agree with everything which my friend has just said."

Poles are just comfortable with a higher level of what British people would think of as colourful language or even abusive exchange.

After London opened the doors to Eastern European workers in May 2004, there are now some 600,000 Poles in Britain, according to official estimates. Other sources put the number at 2 million. Are Britons worried at this influx?
I think the attitude of British people is overwhelmingly positive towards Central Europeans being in Britain.

In 2004, when the EU was enlarged, the British government decided we were going to treat all the accession countries from the start as our full partners and we were not going to discriminate against them. We were not going to see Central European friends as a threat or some problem.

That's still our view. Poles are our full and free and equal partners and they are welcome in our country to work, travel, study and drink beer.

Right-wing British tabloids have regularly rung the alarm bells about a flood of cheap labor swamping the country. Don't they have a point?
It's important not to pay too much attention to editorial comment which is on the margins of what most British people think. We're very happy we have a multicultural and multiracial society and Polish people have integrated well into the way we are now.

Should Poland be worried that hundreds of thousands of young, energetic people are abandoning their country for Britain and elsewhere?
As the Polish economy grows and gets stronger, there will be more and more opportunities for Polish people to bring the skills they have learned in Britain and other countries back to Poland. I honestly don't think that Poles need to worry that they are going to lose from free movement of people. I think Poland can only gain from it.


FACTFILE
Ric Todd
Age: 48
Education: Studied history at Oxford University
Career: Joined Britain's Foreign Office in 1980. Posted to Cape Town/Pretoria 1981-1984; Czechoslovakia 1987-1989; Bonn 1991-1995; British Treasury
1995-2001: ambassador to Slovakia 2001-2004
Family: Married with three children, aged eight, 15 and 18
Interests: history; Central European languages; walking in woods; looking at buildings

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