Third Polish Republic
| Rzeczpospolita Polska | |||||
| Republic of Poland | |||||
| from 1989 | |||||
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| Official language | Polish | ||||
| Capital | Warsaw | ||||
| Form of government | Parliamentary Republic | ||||
| Government system | Parliamentary democracy | ||||
| Head of state | president | ||||
| Head of government | Chair of the Council of Ministers | ||||
| surface | 312,678 km² | ||||
| population | 38,186,860 (June 30, 2010) | ||||
| Population density | 122 inhabitants per km² | ||||
| currency | Zloty (1 Zloty = 100 Groszy) | ||||
| founding | 1989 | ||||
| National anthem | Mazurek Dąbrowskiego | ||||
| Time zone |
UTC + 1 CET UTC + 2 CEST (March to October) |
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| License Plate | PL | ||||
| ISO 3166 | PL , POL, 616 | ||||
| Internet TLD | .pl | ||||
| Telephone code | +48 | ||||
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The Third Polish Republic ( Polish III. Rzeczpospolita ) emerged in 1989 from the Soviet- dominated, communist People's Republic of Poland , which is not considered a continuation of the tradition of the Polish-Lithuanian aristocratic republic (1569–1795) and the Second Polish Republic (1918–1939).
history
Revolution and reform in Poland
The socio-political transformation from communist regime to democratic republic was a process that began with the strikes in August 1980 and ended in 1989. There are several dates that are considered the concrete beginning of the Third Republic. The end of the round table talks on April 5, 1989, the first partially free elections in the Eastern Bloc on June 4, 1989 with the clear victory of the Solidarność movement, the formation of a government by Tadeusz Mazowiecki on August 24, 1989, and the reintroduction of the The former state name Rzeczpospolita Polska ( German Republic of Poland ) and the golden crown on the eagle of the Polish coat of arms by constitutional amendment on December 29, 1989, up to the first free parliamentary elections in 1991 are seen as the beginning of the Third Republic.
The round table negotiations from February 6 to April 5, 1989 were one of the clear signs of changes in the political landscape in Poland. Representatives of the communist party Polish United Workers' Party ( PZPR ), the opposition trade union Solidarność , the Catholic Church and other social groups sat facing each other. The round table was preceded by negotiations between Czesław Kiszczak and Lech Wałęsa and their delegations in Magdalenka near Warsaw . The round table negotiations in various working groups led to profound changes in all areas of public life. In the political arena, the gradual introduction of full popular sovereignty with the associated pluralism was agreed . As an immediate measure, the “Solidarność” union was re-approved on April 17th. The recognition of a multi-party system , the principle of free elections and independent courts were other important stages in this process, which was a mixture of revolution and reform.
On June 4 and 18, 1989, partially free parliamentary elections took place for the first time after the Second World War, something that had never been possible in the Eastern Bloc . The seats in the Sejm were allocated according to the key 65 percent for the PVAP and its bloc parties, 35 percent (161 of 460 seats) for the opposition, while the elections to the Senate were unlimited. All the 161 awarded (of 460) in free choice seats in the Sejm were the "Citizens Committee Solidarity", the political organization of Solidarity won, which also won 99 of the 100 seats in the reformed Senate. Of the total of 261 Solidarność candidates, only one Senate candidate was not elected, while the PVAP only got its candidates through with the help of a short-term amendment to the electoral law.
On July 19, 1989, General Jaruzelski was elected in the National Assembly to the post of President , which was re-established by the Sejm on April 7, 1989 , with a majority of only one vote. A cabinet led by the PVAP under General Kiszczak did not come about.
The "Solidarność" succeeded in cooperation with two previous bloc parties on September 13, 1989, to form a government under the Catholic publicist Tadeusz Mazowiecki . Mazowiecki announced in a speech the orientation towards the future and the plan not to settle accounts with the past, but to draw a "thick line" under it ( Przeszłość odkreślamy grubą linią ). This earned him numerous criticisms, which were repeated in later years. In October 1989, Finance Minister Leszek Balcerowicz presented the so-called Balcerowicz Plan , which envisaged the rapid transformation of the economic system into a functioning market economy.
These events in Poland contributed significantly to the fall of communism in Europe and also to the fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany. In December 1990, the former Solidarność chairman Lech Wałęsa was elected president in a popular election. On July 1, 1991, membership in the Warsaw Pact ended when it was dissolved. After the political change, there was also an economic reorientation in the first half of the 1990s, the state socialist structures were dissolved, and national and state property was converted into private property.
Governments of the Third Republic
Euro-Atlantic integration
Poland joined NATO in March 1999 , having worked in its Partnership for Peace program since 1994 .
On May 1, 2004, after a majority of Polish citizens voted in favor of joining the EU in a referendum in June 2003 (73% yes votes with around 59% turnout), Poland joined the European Union together with nine other states Union. Poland is the most populous and largest country in terms of area among the 15 new member states.
On November 13, 2006, an agreement was signed with Germany, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia to form a joint EU task force. Poland should take over the high command and provide 750 soldiers.
Poland developed into an important ally of the USA in Europe during the Third Gulf War and in the postwar period, alongside Great Britain , Italy and Spain . During the war, Poland sent 400 special forces from the GROM unit who were actively involved in the fighting over the Iraqi city of Umm Kasr . Poland also played an important role in post-war Iraq . Since September 1, 2003, Poland had command of around 10,000 soldiers from countries such as Spain ( withdrew after Zapatero took office ), Ukraine , Bulgaria , Mongolia and other smaller troop contingents.
Due to the attitude of the Polish government during the Iraq conflict, however, there were serious disagreements in relation to Germany and France , who took a negative attitude towards the war in Iraq.
During the conflict over the presidential elections in the neighboring state of Ukraine in November and December 2004 , Polish President Aleksander Kwaśniewski acted as a mediator between the conflicting parties in the so-called Orange Revolution , while the Polish public and the media showed a particularly high degree of solidarity with Ukraine and its new president Viktor Yushchenko practiced.
German-Polish neighborhood policy
In 1990 the western border of Poland was recognized by the reunified Germany under Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl in the German-Polish border treaty . Kohl thus completed what Willy Brandt had started in the course of the New Ostpolitik at the beginning of the 1970s. Since then, Poland’s contacts with its western neighbor have developed very trustingly and closely. Many friendships have also developed between former German residents of the former Eastern Territories and today's Polish residents. Particular catalysts in this understanding are the churches and parts of the associations of expellees. In Poland, too, there is growing interest in dealing with the “complex of displacement”, including the resettlement of Poles from the former eastern regions .
Another highlight of the better relations between Poland and Germany was the invitation in 2004 to the German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder to the celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising . Schröder was the first German Chancellor to take part in the annual celebrations. The bitter aftertaste was the discussions that followed Schröder's visit about reparations to the German expellees , which led to new fears against the Germans in Poland coming to the fore. When the brothers Jarosław and Lech Kaczyński took office, relations between Poland and Germany cooled down significantly. After Donald Tusk took office, however, this tendency has been reversed.
Latest developments
In December 1995, Aleksander Kwaśniewski was elected to succeed Wałęsa as president . During Kwaśniewski's tenure, Poland joined NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004 .
On April 2, 1997, a new constitution was passed by the Sejm and Senate (National Assembly) and on May 25, 1997, the Polish people adopted it by referendum. It came into force on October 17, 1997.
The parliamentary elections in 2005 led to a change in politics in Poland. The SLD, which had ruled until then, was punished drastically. The winner of the poorly frequented Sejm and Senate elections was the right-wing conservative PiS ahead of the liberal-conservative PO . The post-communist-social-democratic SLD landed in third place. Also represented in parliament were the peasant party Samoobrona of the populist Andrzej Lepper and the national-clerical LPR , as well as the moderate peasant party PSL .
Lech Kaczyński , Jarosław's twin brother, subsequently won the presidential election in October 2005 .
Contrary to the expectations of many, a coalition of PiS and PO did not come about. On November 10, 2005, a minority government of the PiS under Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz was given the confidence of the Sejm . On May 5, 2006, he formed a coalition with the clerical-nationalist LPR and the left-wing populist farmers' party Samoobrona , which had a majority in the Sejm. The chairmen of the two coalition partners were elected deputy prime ministers. On July 7, 2006, however, Marcinkiewicz announced his resignation as Prime Minister, which took place on July 10, 2006. The PiS political committee recommended the president's twin brother, Jarosław Kaczyński , to succeed him, who subsequently became Prime Minister of Poland. In the following two years there was a noticeable cooling of the German-Polish relationship, as well as an increasingly negative international role for Poland in the EU. In addition, the work of the coalition at home was marked by multiple crises. The last of these crises ultimately led to the final collapse of the coalition in late summer 2007 and to early elections on October 21.
In the parliamentary elections of October 2007 , the PO emerged as the big winner. The PiS not only fell back to 2nd place, its former coalition partners also stayed below the five percent hurdle and thus missed re-entry into parliament. The election winner PO now formed a government coalition together with the moderate peasant party PSL , initially under PO chairman Donald Tusk , and from September 22, 2014 to November 2015 under Ewa Kopacz as prime minister.
10 April 2010 crashed near Smolensk the government plane with the President during the landing approach in heavy fog Lech Kaczynski , his wife and a delegation from the political, military and society, to a commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre were traveling with all 96 people on board perished. In accordance with Article 131 of the Polish Constitution , the President of the Parliament, Bronisław Komorowski, assumed office until a new President was elected, and the presidential election originally scheduled for October 2010 was brought forward to June 20.
In the early presidential election on June 20, 2010 , Bronisław Komorowski achieved the highest percentage of votes of all candidates, but missed an absolute majority. On July 4, 2010, he successfully emerged from the run-off election against the runner-up Jarosław Kaczyński , the twin brother of the deceased president.
In the general election in Poland in 2015 , the balance of power was reversed. The PiS won 235 of the 460 seats in the Sejm. The Szydło cabinet ruled from November 2015 to December 2017 and was replaced by the Morawiecki I cabinet .
See also
literature
- Andrzej Chwalba : Brief history of the Third Republic of Poland 1989 to 2005. Wiesbaden 2010, ISBN 978-3-447-05925-1 .
- Jörg Roesler : With or against the will of the workforce? Privatization in Poland and the new federal states 1990 to 1995 in comparison. In: Yearbook for Research on the History of the Labor Movement , Volume II / 2015.
Web links
- Composition of the Tusk government
- Anna Hofmann: Security Discourses and Polish Foreign Policy (1999-2006) . 2009, dissertation ( full text )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Foreign Office
- ↑ Główny Urząd Statystyczny, "LUDNOŚĆ - STAN I STRUKTURA W PRZEKROJU TERYTORIALNYM" ( Memento from May 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) as of June 30, 2010
- ^ Andrzej Chwalba: Brief history of the Third Republic of Poland 1989 to 2005. Wiesbaden 2010, p. 18.
- ^ Timothy Garton Ash: We the people. The Revolution of '89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin and Prague. London 1999, p. 14.
- ^ Andrzej Chwalba: Brief history of the Third Republic of Poland 1989 to 2005. Wiesbaden 2010, p. 20.
- ^ A b c Andrzej Chwalba: Brief history of the Third Republic of Poland 1989 to 2005. Wiesbaden 2010, pp. 21-23.
- ^ Andrzej Chwalba: Brief history of the Third Republic of Poland 1989 to 2005. Wiesbaden 2010, p. 73.
- ↑ Jörg Roesler makes a comparison between privatization and economic transformation in Poland and the former GDR : With or against the will of the workforce? Privatization in Poland and the new federal states 1990 to 1995 in comparison. In: Yearbook for Research on the History of the Labor Movement , Volume II / 2015.
- ↑ Information from the State Election Commission ( Memento of October 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), (Polish) (PDF)
- ^ Composition of the government under Kaczyński. Government homepage ( Memento of January 30, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) (Polish)
- ↑ Election results according to the State Election Commission ( memento of October 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), (Polish) (PDF)
- ↑ For the composition of the government see here
- ^ According to the election commission, PiS won an absolute majority in Poland. In: www.salzburg.com. Retrieved January 1, 2016 .
- ^ Prime Minister Beata Szydlo: New government sworn in in Poland . In: fr-online.de . November 16, 2015 ( fr.de [accessed January 1, 2016]).
- ↑ Poland's new head of government, Morawiecki, sworn in . In: DerStandard.de , December 11, 2017, accessed on August 6, 2018.