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On Oct. 16, 1978, Poles were electrified by news of the election of the first Polish pope in the history of the Roman Catholic Church. Even though, in their official comments, representatives of the communist authorities at the time expressed their congratulations, it was clear that Cracow Cardinal Karol Wojtyła as supreme pontiff was not at all good news for the movers and shakers in the former Polish People's Republic-a country in which the government was afraid of the authority of the Church and tried to reduce its influence at any price (even though forced "atheization" in Poland was at its lowest level among former satellite states of the Soviet Union). For Polish society, the election of a Polish pope was a signal of further erosion of the system imposed by the Soviets after World War II. Today, after a quarter of a century, it is easy to trace John Paul II's role in the peaceful disassembly of communism. Consequently, for residents of Central Europe, the Polish pope is more than just a religious figure.
The two-day European Union summit in Brussels brought no breakthrough in the issue involving the future shape of the EU Constitution Treaty. The meeting was dominated by the issue of changes proposed to the text of the EU constitution by the European Convention, as compared to the compromise made at a summit in Nice in December 2000. Poland remains a staunch advocate of the Nice Treaty as far as the future division of votes in the Union is concerned. It also opposes ideas to establish EU armed forces outside NATO, and the same goes for the planned introduction of rotating voting rights for EU commissioners designated by the 25 countries that will form the EU as of May 1 next year. Finally, the government in Warsaw continues to insist that a reference to Europe's Christian traditions needs to be placed in the treaty's preamble. Not much indicates that these demands will be supported by most of Poland's EU partners, yet this has not reduced the determination of the Polish government.
The budget bill drafted by the government and submitted to the Sejm will now be reviewed by a parliamentary committee. The SLD-UP coalition has enlisted the votes of several smaller parliamentary caucuses and circles and managed to outvote the opposition, which demanded that the government proposal be immediately scrapped. It is not known what will happen with the document later; Jerzy Hausner, the deputy prime minister and minister of the economy, labor and social policy, now seen as the main architect of the economic policy of Leszek Miller's Cabinet, did not rule out modificiations to the government's own budget proposal in the next few weeks.
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