Walesa Asks Economic Support but Western Europeans Resist

Polish President Lech Walesa sought economic support Wednesday from the European Community, but his mission instead served to underline Western Europe’s resistance to opening its markets to cheap imports from Poland and the other new democracies of Eastern Europe.

At a joint press conference with EC President Jacques Delors, Walesa warned, “We would not like that the Iron Curtain be replaced by a silver curtain, separating a rich West from a poor East.”

Delors reassured Walesa that the West found it in its best interest to “anchor the Polish economy more firmly in Europe.”

But he made no promises that Western Europe would begin buying Polish goods--particularly its farm products, textiles and steel.

Poland, like Hungary and Czechoslovakia, is trying to negotiate an “association agreement” with the 12-nation EC that would open each side’s markets to the other.

But while the Eastern European countries have already opened their markets, the EC is resisting imports of Eastern European products that would compete with already-threatened Western European farmers, textile makers and steel manufacturers. Among the EC countries, reliable sources said, France and Spain have been particularly intransigent.

Polish negotiators, according to knowledgeable sources, stormed out of a negotiating session two weeks ago in dissatisfaction over the EC stance. Hungary and Czechoslovakia are just as unhappy, though less vociferous.

Before visiting EC headquarters, Walesa met at the Polish Embassy on Wednesday with NATO Secretary General Manfred Woerner. Like Czechoslovak President Vaclav Havel, who two weeks ago became the first Eastern European leader to address NATO, Walesa asked for a close working ties with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization but not for membership.

Walesa’s reason was the same--a fear of isolating Moscow at a time when Eastern Europeans fear Soviet hard-liners could regain power and again swallow up its small neighbors.

“We want to have a single Europe, and there is room for the Soviet Union,” Walesa said.

Woerner, concurring, said he seeks “an all-European security system,” built not “in a confrontational way.”

Neither Walesa nor Woerner set a target date for Polish membership in NATO.

Likewise at the European Community, Walesa and Delors remained intentionally vague about when Poland might be granted full membership in the EC.