Poland Will Drop Visa Rule for Americans as Spur to Investment

Polish President Lech Walesa threw open Poland’s doors to Americans on Thursday, saying they would no longer need visas to visit his country as of April 15.

Polish officials said the move was a special gesture to American businesses to spur investment in the country. Poland is struggling to establish a market economy after decades of communism.

“Poland will be fully open to every American citizen,” Walesa, a former shipyard electrician and leader of the Solidarity resistance movement, told reporters after meeting congressional leaders on the second day of his visit to Washington.

In the past, Polish visas were normally issued to Americans within about a week after application was made at the embassy in Washington, an embassy spokesman said.

But he said business people from smaller U.S. cities occasionally faced delays in getting visas issued.

Poland is trying to attract Western business from medium- and small-sized firms as well as large corporations, he added.

Walesa is on a weeklong trip to drum up U.S. financial aid and investment for his country, which was at the vanguard of Eastern Europe’s anti-Communist revolution and is now trying to impose economic changes that have been painful.

He told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the economies of Eastern Europe had stalled after the old Communist system of management collapsed.

“The economic system has come to a standstill. It is now falling apart,” he said. “It has to be put into motion again.”

He also warned that if the people of Eastern Europe do not soon see tangible results from reform, they will flee westward.

“We have already had the first example, in Albania,” Walesa said, referring to the recent flood of refugees from that country to Italy. “Others will follow if reforms are not successful.”

President Bush welcomed Walesa Wednesday with the announcement that the United States is forgiving 70% of Poland’s $3.8-billion debt to Washington as a reward for its switch to democracy and market reform.

Later Thursday, Walesa laid red and white roses on the grave of Ignace Jan Paderewski, the Polish statesman and pianist who died in the United States on June 29, 1941. Poland was under Nazi occupation when Paderewski died, and he was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Walesa will fly to Los Angeles today, where he will meet with former President Ronald Reagan. He’ll then go to Chicago, a city with the largest Polish population outside Poland, and to New York.