Prime Ministers Of Poland

"General Wojciech Jaruzelski, the Minister of Defence since 1968 and thus a major Warsaw Pact figure, became Prime Minister in February 1981 and First Secretary of the Polish Communist Party in October 1981. Jaruzelski had taken part in operations against anti-Communist resistance fighters in the late 1940s, had led Poland’s contribution to the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, and had been in command when Polish troops shot striking shipyard workers in 1970. Jaruzelski claimed he had opposed the last operation and he sought a peaceful settlement with Solidarity, but serious economic problems continued to create discontent in Poland and to lead to criticism of the government. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union pressed Jaruzelski to come out in defence of Communism. This pressure indicated that any meaningful change in the Soviet bloc would have to come from Moscow, and thus underlined the subsequent importance of Gorbachev’s stance."

"I think, however, that it is better when we solve the Polish matters realistically, with prudence, when we discuss them calmly, normally."

"We have survived the boycott, restrictions and the barrage of instigatory propaganda. The Government of the United States and some of its customers can see for themselves the bankruptcy of attempts to interfere in Polish internal affairs."

"I do not make any promises. But I do promise one thing - anarchy will not be allowed into Poland. Let no one in Poland or outside cherish any illusions that the present decisions will allow for another round."

"The rigors of martial law were applied by us sparingly. We started easing and lifting them almost right away, from the very start. Observance of law and order is getting ever stronger. That allows to positively answer the appeal of the patriotic movement of national rebirth, as well as the other social initiatives aiming at a similar direction."

"Exactly one year ago martial law was introduced. The year that has passed was a great test. We have passed it. It has been passed by the party, by the people's authority and all the citizens. But there is the only winner: the Polish nation. This is the shortest-put truth about the past year."

"Citizens of the Polish People's Republic, Difficult years are behind us. Hard times had rolled over the Polish lands. They had produced internal splits and dangerously weakened that bond that throughout centuries was uniting Poles in the face of the greatest dangers. I will not recall those pre-December days. We all remember them. Nothing can conceal the merciless meaning of the then facts. It is only facts that truly count in politics, in the life of nations."

"We are a sovereign country so we must get out from this crisis by ourselves. We must draw away danger with our own hands. History would never forgive the present generation for wasting this chance."

"So today, platforms and communication networks and intellectual property are even more important than the land and the buildings and the technology assembly lines and all the materials that go into creating these digital realms. And these dynamics do not make it easier to grasp the elements of the moving parts of the complicated interdependent economic jigsaw puzzle that is our modern age."

"Mister Speaker, Members of the House! I want to form a government that is able to act for the good of the people, for the good of the nation, and for the good of the state. It will be a coalition government focused on delivering thorough reform of the state. Today, such a task can only be undertaken by a government that embraces cooperation between all the forces represented in this Parliament and by a government that is formed on new political principles."

"The government I will form is not responsible for the legacy it inherits. However, this legacy shapes the circumstances in which we must act. We must draw a thick line in the sand and separate ourselves from the past. We will be responsible only for what we will now do to get Poland out of its current state of collapse. I am aware that for my compatriots today, the most important question is whether things can ever be better. I assure you that, together, all of us will respond to that question."

"The government alone will not heal any-thing. We must do this together, for Poland will only be different, if we all truly want it to be so."

"We all desire to live with dignity in a sovereign, democratic, and law-abiding state, one that everybody - regardless of their worldviews and ideological and political diversity - can consider their own."

"We want to live in a country with a sound economy, one where it is profitable to work and to save money, and where meeting our basic material needs entails no anguish or humiliation. We want a Poland that is open to Europe and to the world; a Poland which, with no inferiority complex, contributes to the creation of material and cultural goods; a Poland whose citizens will feel they are welcome guests in the other countries of Europe and the world, and are not deemed troublemaking intruders."

"We reject a political philosophy asserting that economic reforms can be launched over and against society, above people's heads - one that pushes democratic change aside."

"We, as a people, must surmount the sense of hopelessness and confront the challenge of the moment - namely, the tasks of extricating ourselves from economic disaster and reconstructing our state."

"The Polish people are acutely aware of belonging to Europe and the European heritage. They are as conscious of this as are the other European peoples situated at the cultural crossroads adjacent to the superpowers, experiencing alternating phases of political existence and non-existence and hence feeling the need to strengthen their identity. In all these situations, Europe has always remained a beacon, an object of affection which the Poles felt ready to defend."

"If we have managed to survive as an entity, we owe this partly to our deep attachment to certain institutions and certain values regarded as the norm in Europe. We owe it to religion and the Church, our attachment to democracy and pluralism, human rights and civil liberties and to the ideal of solidarity."

"Our country is confronted with the enormous task of reconstituting the rights and the institutions that characterise modern democracies and rebuilding a market economy, after an interruption of several decades. Added to this, there is the need to overcome enormous economic problems. We not only have to re-create rights and institutions but, in cases where they were non-existent, we have to start from scratch. Otherwise, our two European worlds will never manage to live in harmony."

"The 1988 strikes discouraged the Party leadership and demonstrated its failure to find a solution to Poland’s problems. Combined with Gorbachev’s renunciation of intervention on behalf of Communism, this failure encouraged the leadership to move toward yielding its monopoly of power. On 30 November 1988, there was a televised debate between Lech Walesa and Alfred Miodowicz, the head of the official trade union federation and a member of the Politburo. This was a highly significant step as the television served as a means of controlling the dissemination of opinion. On 6 February 1989, Round Table talks between government and the technically illegal opposition began, with the Church, an institution of great prestige in Poland, playing an important mediatory role. Under an agreement, signed on 5 April 1989, reached against a background of widespread strikes, elections were held in Poland on 4 June. Only 35 per cent of the seats in the lower house, the Sejm, were awarded on the basis of the free vote, the remainder going to the Communists and their allies, but all of these seats were won by Solidarity. This expression of the public will was a dramatic blow to the old order. Communist cohesion collapsed, not least with the Communist Party being abandoned by its hitherto pliant allies. Strikes and other protests meanwhile continued. The new government was headed by Tadeusz Mazowiecki, a member of Solidarity and a Catholic intellectual. He became the first non-Communist Prime Minister behind the Iron Curtain. There was, however, to be a major division between those who endorsed the ‘Round Table’ political settlement of 1989 as a way to avoid bloodshed, and those who criticised it as, allegedly, a compromise providing subsequent cover for ex-Communists to pillage the state."

"The French writer, Albert Camus, once lamented that "man eventually becomes accustomed to everything". I have always believed that this is an unjustly pessimistic view of our human condition; and in recent weeks I have seen enough to convince me that Camus, on this point at least, was wrong: 30,000 East Germans abandoning home, friends, jobs, everything, to escape to a new life of opportunity but also uncertainty in the West; thousands of Soviet miners striking not for more pay, but for better supplies; the joy of Poles as they greet their first non-Communist Prime Minister in 40 years; over a million inhabitants of the Baltic states forming a human chain to protest against the forced annexation of their nations; demonstrators in Prague braving the security forces to mark the 21st anniversary of the Warsaw Pact invasion; or in Leipzig calling for freedom of speech. Clearly the peoples of the East have not become accustomed to their lot. Totalitarian rule has not made people less attracted by freedom, democracy and self-determination. The opposite is true. Nor has it made them incapable of exercising these values through political organization and self-expression: look at the debates in the new Congress of the People's Deputies, the activities of the popular fronts, Solidarity in Poland or the opposition parties in Hungary. The demand for pluralism and reform can now be heard in every Eastern nation."

"All the atrocities and all the victims, everything that happened during the Second World War on Polish soil, has to be attributed to Germany. We will never be accused of complicity in the Holocaust. This is our 'to be or not to be.'"

"We cannot accept turning perpetrators and those responsible for committing cruel crimes against both innocent people and invaded countries into victims. Together - in the name of those who perished and for the good of our common future - we must preserve the truth."

"An EU in which there is a European oligarchy that punishes the weakest (of the member states) is not the EU we have entered and it is not the EU that has a future. We say 'yes' to the European Union, but 'no' to being punished like children. 'No' to mechanisms which mean that Poland and other countries are treated unfairly."

"We are fighting to make sure that no country, neither today nor tomorrow, is denied funding based on an arbitrary and non-transparent mechanism. This is a matter of fundamental trust on which the European law is based."

"Algorithms or the owners of corporate giants should not decide which views are right and which are not. There is no and can be no consent to censorship. Freedom of speech is the salt of democracy, for that reason we must defend it. The owners of social platforms cannot act above the law. We will suggest that similar regulations are also put in place in all of the European Union."

"We have to be consistent and patient with regard to our Russia policy because the stability of Russian strategic policy is a challenge to us and to the European Union, where governments change much more often than in Russia and where there are different views on Russia. The further from the east, the lesser Russia is perceived as a threat."

"At such breakthrough times for the world, it is our duty to be where history is forged; because it is not about us, but about the future of our children who deserve to live in a world free from tyranny."

"It is here, in war-torn Kyiv, that history is being made. It is here, that freedom fights against the world of tyranny. It is here that the future of us all hangs in the balance. EU supports UA, which can count on the help of its friends — we brought this message to Kyiv today."

"To defend [my vision of Europe] does not mean to lecture anyone. The British citizens will make this decision themselves and they do not need any whisperers, especially from Brussels. I understand this very well. But when I hear the EU being compared to the plans and projects of Adolf Hitler I cannot remain silent. Such absurd arguments should be completely ignored if they hadn't been formulated by one of the most influential politicians of the ruling party."

"Mr Tusk, who has been given to using the analogies of the divorce and divorce petition, is behaving like a cuckolded husband who is taking it out on the children."

"More and more leads, more and more information, and more and more commentary in the global press all relate to the suspicion that this unprecedented paedophilia scandal was co-organised by Russian intelligence services. I don't need to tell you how serious the increasingly likely possibility that Russian intelligence services co-organised this operation is for the security of the Polish state. This can only mean that they also possess compromising materials against many leaders still active today."

"I know the taste of victory, I know the bitterness of defeat, but I don't know the word surrender."

"If we told our story even half as well as we actually governed, we would be winning election after election."

"The paradox is that 500 million Europeans are asking 300 million Americans to defend them against 140 million Russians. We must rely on ourselves, fully aware of our potential and with confidence that we are a global power."

"Now, all that matters is help for people threatened by flooding and state action. Those who can, let them help, those who can't, let them not hinder. Politics must give way to solidarity."

"Bad politicians are elected by good citizens who stay at home."

"But if we restore the normal role of public television. Not that they say 'Tusk is a genius and Kaczyński is a Jew'. Just saying... Only that there would be normal public television again, people with different views, debates and so on."

"Tomorrow I meet PM Boris Johnson. I hope that he will not like to go down in history as “Mr. No Deal”."

"[I will] not co-operate on [a] no-deal."

"The fate of Brexit is in the hands of our British friends. As the EU, we are prepared for the worst, but hope for the best. As you know, hope dies last."

"It means that until 12 April, anything is possible: a deal, a long extension if the United Kingdom decided to rethink its strategy, or revoking Article 50, which is a prerogative of the UK government. The fate of Brexit is in the hands of our British friends. As the EU, we are prepared for the worst, but hope for the best. As you know, hope dies last."

"There is a special place in hell for those who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan of how to carry it out safely."

"[David Cameron told me] he felt really safe, because he thought at the same time that there’s no risk of a referendum, because his coalition partner, the Liberals, would block this idea of a referendum. But then, surprisingly, he won and there was no coalition partner. So paradoxically David Cameron became the real victim of his own victory."

"If a deal is impossible, and no-one wants no deal, then who will finally have the courage to say what the only positive solution is?"

"Europe should be grateful by President Trump, because thanks to him we have got rid of old illusions. He has made us realise that if you need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of your arm."

"The UK's decision on Brexit has caused the problem and the UK will have to solve it. Without a solution there will be no withdrawal agreement and no transition."

"I may be from the east but I am not a beast."

"It will make it more complicated and costly than today for all of us. This is the essence of Brexit."

"Brexit means drifting apart but we don't want to build a wall."