Poles Expected More in U.S. Aid Package

From the rococo quarters of Poland’s Communist government to the gray marble chambers of its newly elected Parliament, President Bush won polite applause Monday for his proposals to revive the country’s moribund economy.

But no sooner was Bush out the door than economists on both sides of Poland’s political divide said the U.S. plan falls well short of what the country needs to recover from years of economic crisis and continue its move toward democracy.

“The amount of Western assistance we are given will determine whether the process is kept under control or explodes,” said Witold Trzeciakowski, a newly elected member of the Polish Parliament’s upper house, the Senate, and the chief economic spokesman for the opposition Solidarity trade union movement.

“If it is a small amount of Western assistance, we will have small chances of success,” he said. And how the Bush plan stacks up in that equation, he added pointedly, “is too early to judge.”

“If our economy were working at a normal pace, one could say that the Bush plan is what we need,” agreed Janusz Trzcinski, a Communist member of Parliament’s lower house, the Sejm. “But our economy is in very bad shape, and under that circumstance I’d say we had expected a bit larger offer.”

The economic crisis has depleted consumer goods from stores, brought sporadic shortages of foodstuffs, driven inflation to an annual rate of 100% and deepened a national mood of pessimism. Political and economic experts on both the Communist and opposition sides fear that, without some relief, the country could face an outbreak of labor unrest that would threaten the reform process.

Despite what they perceive as dangerous times ahead, many of the newly elected lawmakers said they were not surprised that Bush’s pledge of aid was smaller than they had hoped.

“It is a little disappointing perhaps,” said Jan Litynski, a Solidarity member of the Sejm and a longtime union activist. “But I think it is reasonable because you can’t expect (Bush) to give more now, when we do not even have a government in place.”

Poles are at an impasse over the selection of a president, a new office that had been expected to go to party leader Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski until he withdrew his name after defections in the Communist-led coalition. The president is designated by law to appoint a premier, who will then form the new government.

Bush seemed to go out of his way at several events Monday to praise the “courage” of the Polish leadership and to compliment Jaruzelski, who is despised by many Poles as the man who declared martial law in 1981.

To both Communist and opposition members of Parliament, Bush’s warm remarks about Jaruzelski almost suggested an endorsement of his presidential candidacy. A senior White House official said, however, that Bush had no desire to influence Poland’s internal politics. Instead, the President’s intention was to praise efforts on both sides to maintain the country’s stability in the midst of reform, he said.

In any case, Trzcinski noted dryly, a Bush endorsement “probably won’t affect the outcome.”

White House aides said they were pleased with the aid package that was devised during several weeks of quiet planning in Washington, and they pointed with particular pride to the proposal for a $100-million “enterprise fund” to promote private entrepreneurship in Poland. “Nothing like this has ever really been tried before,” said one.

But Polish officials from both the Communist Party and Solidarity said they view the fund as an interesting idea but one that will have relatively little economic impact.

“It’s an essential step forward, but the private sector accounts for only 10% of our production,” said Solidarity’s Trzeciakowski. “Restructuring the economy (to increase that share) will take years. Our main problem today is finding immediate assistance.”

Trzeciakowski said the central issue remains the rescheduling of Poland’s crushing $39-billion foreign debt to allow the country to attract new investment capital.

Bush said he will press for “generous and early debt rescheduling,” but Trzeciakowski said, “We have to wait until the Paris summit (of the seven major industrial democracies this weekend) to evaluate what that means.”

When Solidarity leader Lech Walesa meets with Bush today, he will hand him an opposition proposal for $10 billion in Western economic relief, Trzeciakowski said. Administration officials have already called that figure unrealistic.

Part of the problem appears to be a basic divergence: The Poles contend that economic reform will first require an infusion of aid; the Bush Administration, and most Western countries, are holding out for serious reforms first, as a condition of sending more aid.

“The United States stands ready to help you as you help yourselves,” Bush said in his speech to Parliament. “ . . . As Poland reforms itself, the United States will respond.”

Premier Mieczyslaw Rakowski seemed anxious to pin that commitment down. “I’d like to put that slogan on the walls with your name on it--and mine too,” he told Bush, according to officials.