Solidarity Legalized in Polish Pact : Agreements Signed by Walesa Also Call for Free Elections

Lech Walesa and a government minister today concluded a historic pact to legalize the independent Solidarity trade union after a seven-year ban and to hold Poland’s first free elections since World War II.

The Solidarity leader, representing the opposition, and the interior minister, Gen. Czeszlaw Kiszczak, endorsed hundreds of pages of agreements hammered out during intensive talks on Poland’s political and economic reforms.

They approved the pact as the 57 participants in the 2-month-old negotiations, known as the round-table talks, gathered for one last time at the Council of Ministers Palace.

“There is no freedom without Solidarity,” Walesa said at the beginning of a brief speech explaining why the opposition had approved the agreements.

“I think that the round-table talks can become the beginning of the road to democracy and a free Poland, and hence we look with boldness and hope into the future,” he said.

When Walesa was asked earlier today when he thinks Solidarity will be legalized, he replied, “I think immediately after signing.”

Kiszczak opened the meeting with a speech lauding the talks that brought together all sides of the nation’s splintered political spectrum.

“This documentation is a social contract,” he said. “We declare the will to fulfill honestly the agreement we symbolically conclude today.”

He called the debates a “first, extremely significant step” and said the talks can be “a priceless element in the accomplishment of our work.”

The meeting was preceded by separate signings of agreements on economic, political and trade union reforms by the opposition and government officials.

As early as this morning it had not been clear whether Solidarity intended to sign the accords, especially after a dispute with the officially backed OPZZ trade unions over the formula adopted for compensating workers for inflation as part of the economic agreement.

But Walesa told the National Executive Commission of Solidarity during a closed-door, three-hour meeting that the union has achieved its main goal in the talks--legalization--and that it can better fight for further economic and political reforms after it is registered and organized.

The Executive Commission authorized Walesa to sign the agreements, clearing the final hurdle to the round-table meeting with Kiszcak.