'This is ridiculous. The whole debate has reached tabloid levels. We are disclosing things that are not disclosed anywhere in the world', ex-foreign minister Adam D. Rotfeld tells Gazeta.
'Three important summits have recently taken place and we are probably the only country in the world where the newspapers are full of reports about who told whom what in the corridor and who took offence at whom'.
'The very idea of disclosing such a memo is a blow to the solemnity of the Polish state', an experienced diplomat told Gazeta. 'In such conversations you say various things for the sake of tactics, sometimes revealing secrets so that your partner opens up. If such things are disclosed, the country's credibility suffers. It is unacceptable to sacrifice the principles for the sake of settling a current political conflict between the president and the prime minister', the source said.
What is the whole story about? On Saturday, Prime Minister
Donald Tusk accused President
Lech Kaczyński of acting against the cabinet's instructions at the Nato summit in Strasbourg and Kehl. Mr Kaczyński did that , Mr Tusk said, by voicing support for the candidature of the Danish prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, for the head of Nato already on the first day of the summit, even though his instructions were to stall for time. And if Turkey vetoed Mr Rasmussen, Mr Kaczyński was to propose the Polish foreign minister,
Radosław Sikorski, as an alternative candidate. Even if his candidature were eventually rejected, Poland could bargain something for itself. According to unofficial reports, that could have been a Nato communications battalion in Poland and a high-ranking position for a Pole in the Nato secretary general's secretariat.
The cabinet has already disclosed one document in the course of the whole affair. Responding to the president's claims that he had not received any official instructions before the summit, the Foreign Ministry published an instruction sent to the Presidential Chancellery on 2 April. But Piotr Kownacki, the Chancellery's head, said yesterday the document was hardly an official position since it 'had not been endorsed by the Council of Ministers.'
The president repeated that he had supported Mr Rasmussen, because the Danish prime minister claimed to have had Mr Tusk's support. An evidence of this is a memory from the Polish prime minister's 1 April conversation with Mr Rasmussen. Mr Kaczyński admitted that he saw it for the first time ten minutes before the summit's opening and did not even try to confirm it.
'Disclosing this memo is of vital importance, because in a diplomatic language it says it all. It effectively closed down the playing field. Because if there are no unknowns, there is no game', Mr Kaczyński said.
Cabinet spokesperson Paweł Graś: 'I've gone through this memo again. The conversation was about the Nato summit and the choice of a new secretary general. But in no way can it be interpreted to imply Mr Tusk's support for Mr Rasmussen.'
The prime minister is to decide today whether to disclose the memo. He was hesitant yesterday.
'In my view, it would be a very wrong thing to do. Imagine Chancellor
Angela Merkel calling Mr Tusk and asking him whether the contents of their conversation are going to be published too. That would be awful', says an official close to the prime minister.
President Kaczyński has no such fears: 'We won't cause any scandal. It's in our interest, because it shows that not only the president holds Mr Rasmussen in high esteem and doesn't intend to be putting stumbling blocks in his way', said the president.
Politicians kept returning to the Nato summit all day yesterday. Mr Sikorski said on Radio ZET that the president's conduct at the summit was a 'wasted opportunity'. Asked whether Mr Kaczyński should be taken to the State Tribunal, as was suggested Sunday by Zbigniew Chlebowski, leader of the PO parliamentary caucus, Mr Sikorski replied, 'I hereby state that in this case the president did not fulfil the constitutional requirement of cooperating with the cabinet.'
Cabinet spokesperson Paweł Graś tried to calm things down a bit: 'The prime minister will not endorse such a motion [for taking the president to the State Tribunal]. What he wants is for the Constitutional Tribunal to speak on the issue. It is clear for us that, constitutionally, it is the cabinet that is responsible for formulating and carrying out Poland's foreign policy and the president should cooperate with it in this', Mr Graś tells Gazeta.
Mr Kaczyński repeated yesterday that Mr Sikorski had no chances of becoming the Nato secretary general anyway. Otherwise, the government would have officially submitted his candidature.
'I understand he hoped - though this was hardly an indication of political maturity - of becoming the secretary general after all', Mr Kaczyński did not spare the foreign minister caustic remarks yesterday. 'It was as realistic as the odds of my winning the high jump competition at the upcoming London Olympics.'
Translated by Marcin Wawrzyńczak
