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The text of the expose delivered by Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek at the Sejm of the Republic of Poland on November 10, 1997.
Mr. President
Mr. Sejm Speaker
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present a program of repairing the state, the program of the new government formed jointly by the Solidarity Election Action and the Freedom Union, the groupings having their roots in the democratic anti-Communist opposition. After 1989 we were divided by serious programme differences and different political options. Today we have decided to join our forces within one coalition. What joined us was a common belief that Poland should and can be changed: to repair what is wrong. We must do everything not to waste this chance. This is more important than differences between us.
The Solidarity movement has its long history. There were Solidarity people who began the building of a free and sovereign Poland.
This great touching event on the Polish road to democracy, the August of 1980, was the starting point for changes in communist states. This was the beginning of the end to the Empire of Evil.
In 1989 Solidarity was the winner. We were not prepared then for such a victory. The situation became ever more difficult as we collided with the biggest problems a democratically elected government can face.
The task to liquidate the structures of a totalitarian state turned out more difficult than we had earlier thought. The then leaders of our camp made a mistake to give up a dialogue within the Solidarity community of parties and groupings. As a result, our political opponents took over power in 1993.
We have drawn conclusions from the past. We began to control conflicts and emotions. We have constructed a new common political camp above the hitherto divisions--the Solidarity Election Action. Today, taught by painful experience, we want to make up for lost time, do what was not done after 1989.
That year was the year of the beginning of the end of communism in our country. Communism, which despite reformatory efforts, continued to remain a totalitarian and criminal system where basic civic rights and freedoms were not respected. Communism that led to the economic and civilisational fall of our country. The year 1989 was, as I mentioned, the beginning of the end to communism in Poland. I will do everything so that 1997 be remembered as the year of the beginning of repairing the state. The final breaking with the adverse past.
In May, the Solidarity Election Action announced its program. I will once more recall its passages:
"We are facing a great chance. We can create a modern and just state. A Poland of strong families and generations living in solidarity. A country of equal chances for all families. A Poland of a modern economy. A state built on the basis of patriotic and Christian values, on love for freedom. We can build a Republic which will be safe thanks to its membership of the North Atlantic Pact."
The Solidarity Election Action was running in the elections with such a vision of Poland. Such a vision of the future was supported by millions of people securing the victory for Action's program.
I will recall other important words: "Freedom and independence of the state regained after 1989 gave us a chance to freely shape the future of our homeland. We must protect the national identity in the conditions of openess to the world. We must complete the construction of a good state. This will be possible thanks to the engagement on the part of each of us, the citizens of Poland." These are excerpts from the program of the Freedom Union, a partner grouping in the government I head.
The vision of Poland presented in the program of AWS and contained in our slogan "Always Poland, always freedom, always family" helped win success of my grouping, the Solidarity Election Action. The program of the Freedom Union, having many points similar to those of the Action, also won support of many Poles.
This success, the success of all people of Solidarity, people who identify themselves with the message of August, 1980, placed a great responsibility upon us, the politicians, for the fate of millions of our compatriots remembering that, as the Holy Father put it, "The order of freedom is built in pains." That the "real freedom is measured with the readiness to serve, to make sacrifices."
Let us sacrifice ourselves to our homeland. Let us overcome our weaknesses. Let us offer our country all what is best in ourselves to make our desires come true at last. So that Poland and all the Poles could proudly entered the new millennium.
We, the government, parliament, all people of goodwill are facing four great tasks.
Our first and basic task is to secure proper living conditions to people, to Polish families, to help them freely shape their future.
To achieve this, the state must give part of power and property to people. Only then Polish families will be truly free.
Only after the decentralisation of the state and propagating the ownership titles it will be possible to create a lasting foundation of a future Poland, Poland of the 21st century. The solidarity of free people will be possible.
So, firstly a man, a man with a strong, sound family.
The achieving of this goal will not be possible without a great reform of the state, without repairing its structures. We must make Poland a just and efficient state. This is our task.
The state must serve society, this great family of families. Numerous fields of public life must be free of party influence. This great goal of Solidarity of 1980 and 1989 must be implemented.
We were going for power for people, to give it back to people. So that citizens and local communities take this part of power which they can use better than the state can. So that the state, with its influence limited, becomes stronger than today in the fields where it cannot be substituted, for instance as concerning guarantees of security to the nation and counteracting cataclysms.
The right to ownership titles must be popularised. The Polish middle class must be strengthened. We will not permit the forming in Poland of the economic rule of the elite oligarchy. What we want is free economy with chances for everyone, we want a state of social dialogue between labour and capital.
Our government will not lack determination as concerning this question. We will declare war against ills of our economic life.
Already during the first sitting of the Council of Ministers I resolved to control numerous controversial decisions made during the past four years.
We do not want to replace one "our men" with the other. To economic management, to civil service we will appoint well-educated professionals, also young ones. We have halted the generally criticised enrolment to the civil service carried out according to rules biased by a political interest.
The local government reform and the accompanying repairing of public finances, privatisation, reprivatisation and popularisation of ownership titles will create a foundation for the efficient implementation of the reform of the educational, health service, welfare and pensions systems. The changes in the state structures and institutions of the social sphere will make it possible to build an efficient economy on the basis of the private property, the economy with no monopolies, with modern structures, promoting the activity of citizens and supporting the weakest.
Only the implementation of all those reforms will guarantee a long-lasting economic growth built by everyday organised efforts by millions of people. This will make it possible to improve the living standards and broaden the economic independence of families.
Firstly--free people with strong families. Secondly--repairing the state.
Both those tasks require guarantees of internal and external security of Poland.
Citizens must feel safer than today. This requires the improvement of the work of police, other services safeguarding order and security of citizens, prosecutor's offices and courts. We would like to become as soon as possible the full member of the Euroatlantic community which offers the highest guarantees of civilisational development which is based on free market and democracy, on the freedom of individuals and nations. There is no better guarantee of Poland's sovereignty than NATO.
I would like to say this especially today, on the eve of regaining independence by Poland. Poland in the North Atlantic Pact means Poland safe and independent for ever.
Free citizens, state's repairing, security. This will not be possible without strengthening moral values being a foundation of our Christian civilisation: truth, good, love. The respecting of moral values will be our contribution to Europe under unification process.
Without the foundation of values, without respecting the right to life and dignity of every man there will be no strong families, there will be no solidarity of generations, the nation will not be able to live in dignity. Without moral values there will be no freedom, either. Here there is a huge area of a common concern on the part of the state and churches, and particularly the Catholic Church. What is needed is their cooperation, with preserving the autonomy of the both sides.
Let us also remember that without the preserving of the commonly accepted moral values there will be no efficient economy. Joint efforts require at least minimal confidence in partners and recognition of the value of human work. The mass breaking of social norms increase the management costs, as economists say.
Four great tasks for Poland and Poles, four tasks of my government are closely linked with one another. We are fully aware of the fact that we can implement all of them or we can fail to satisfactorily complete any of them. That is why the government, and I personally, will be very determined. We will be adamant. This program must be a success. The whole Poland is waiting for it! All Poles are!
A family is the foundation of society, it is the place of man's upbringing and development. One of the most important tasks I am placing before me and our government is to introduce a pro-family policy. It does not consist in but provisional actions, such as an increase of social benefits.
Systemic changes are necessary. They will support a family in what determines its lasting character and development, respecting its dignity. What should be reconstructed is the economic independence of families--especially with many children, and single mothers--whose important element is the tax law. We want to guarantee independence to families and possibility to determine education and upbringing of children by their parents. They will be able to chose a school for their children, make decisions concerning learning legally recognised religions at public schools, they will have a possibility to counteract the negative influence of criminal circles and sects upon their children.
Education is an investment of nations and free people in their own future. This is education and higher schooling which will determine Poland's position among other states. Education today determines the identity of a nation and the development of its culture in the conditions of openness to the world. Education is also the best way to equal life chances. That is why we deem it necessary to carry out a radical reform of the educational system, to adjust it to the requirements of the 21st century.
A school should help parents bring up children, a school run by a commune can contribute to the development of the local environment--we want to look at the future of the Polish educational system from those two angles.
We will decentralise the educational system fast and introduce the full programmatic reform. We will replace an entry examination to secondary schools with a final examination at primary schools. We will make the secondary education universal. We will introduce new final exams at secondary schools. We will radically reform vocational schooling. There are also plans envisioning every third graduate of a secondary school continuing education at a university.
It is also necessary to create such a system of grants which would more effectively equal chances for rural youth to complete secondary and higher education. Regardless of this system I am planning, in cooperation with the education and agriculture ministers, to found special grants for the most talented pupils and students of many-children families in villages and small towns.
We will modernise the system of educating teachers. We will unblock the promotion canals for good teachers improving their qualifications. We will help increase teachers' pays. My government will lead to equalisation of state and non-public schooling.
We will increase expenditure on higher schooling. We will also support the development of science. It constitutes, together with education, the most important field of investing in the nation's future. We shall create the conditions conducive to the improvement of the system of distributing means for education and necessary restructurisation of the already existing scientific institutions. The implementation of the above mentioned goals will be served by the adoption of a new law on national education and amendments to the law on higher education embracing also the law on higher vocational schooling.
We all know well that the housing conditions of millions of Poles are bad. It is not possible to make up for many-year negligence in the field of housing construction over a short period. The basic condition for effective repair actions in this domain is to curb inflation and secure the constant economic growth.
We will begin the implementation of the National Programme of Housing Construction. This means the opening of housing funds, increasing investments in construction sites development, streamlining the construction and spatial planning laws, supporting the modernisation of technologies and wiser spending of budgetary means. We will try to gain non-budgetary means for housing construction.
We will encourage local governments to invest in housing construction. We will restore the system of considerable tax relieves.
My government wants to expand the rights of local government, with the uniform state structure being preserved. Communes are an obvious base for local government. That is why first of all we will consolidate their position. We will guarantee to communes financial autonomy, broaden their competencies. We will expand the system of local governments creating self-governed counties (powiat) and provinces with central and local government authorities. We will adjust the state administration to the conditions of the new situation of sharing the governing with local governments at different levels.
The private property is the foundation of a modern and strong state. That is why we will accelerate the privatisation processes and carry out reprivatisation. We will also complete the programme of mass enfranchisement.
We are aware of the fact that privatisation should be completed by 2001, that is by the end of this Sejm tenure. Claims on the score of reprivatisation should be settled immediately and a reprivatisation law should be passed to guarantee the recovery of property in kind, or compensation.
We are planning to change the recently passed by Parliament law on national industrial funds. Ownership transformations concerning the major part of the State Treasury property will include enfranchisement understood as conveying enfranchisement coupons to those social groups who have not so far had their share in the outcome of privatisation (this concerns mainly public sector employees, local governments and people over 50). Those transformations will also serve to support the reform of the pension system.
We will immediately begin the inventorying and valuation of the property of the State Treasury by specially appointed services. Suggestions as to the further procedure as regards the remaining property of the State Treasury will be worked out.
We will counteract unemployment and its negative effects. The best way to fight this phenomenon is to create new jobs and improve qualifications of the jobless.
We deem it particularly important to pursue such policy towards young people so that they can avoid entering their adult life with queuing for an unemployment benefit.
Among the great reforms of the social sphere I mentioned at the beginning of my address the most important for me is the reform of the system of old-age and disability pensions. The system which is our target is to provide guarantees of a safe future to pensioners, is to be clear and easy to comprehend to all, is to guarantee that a pension will be determined by paid fees while no groups will be privileged at the expense of the others.
To realise this task, the coalition will soon adopt laws improving the current system.
The reform of the social insurance will begin in 1999 on the basis of the law on pension funds and the law on employees' pension programmes.
I would like to add here that the reform will be carried out with the full guarantees of not lowering the level of the current benefits so as to secure a proper living conditions for pensioners. The future pensioners system, through capitalisation of fees, will act for the economic growth which will result in a real increase of benefits.
We shall also introduce a system of the universal health insurance which will require deep changes in the provisions of the law on the health insurance. The new system will be based on insurance funds independent of the state administration and self-governed institutions managing the health insurance funds. I would like to add that the reform envisions room for development of other forms of health insurance. The rules of using health benefits from public means will be determined by the amended law on the common health insurance, and carried into effect immediately.
The reform will result in the increase of the real pays of health service employees and lowering the costs of the functioning of the whole structure.
The health service should serve patients. Such is the aim of changes we are planning to introduce.
Simultaneously with deep reforms we will undertake urgent repairing actions. So, another profound analysis of needs concerning hospital equipment and equipment serving to secure patients' safety will be carried out to create a time-table of the most urgent purchases covered from the state budget. Stress will be put on preventive measures coordinated by the government and carried out within the basic health care system, mainly by family doctors.
The health care employees have found themselves over the recent years in material situation inadequate to their responsible position in society. This is the source of justified frustration and dissatisfaction. Thanks to the introduction of the common health insurance system and other changes in the health protection system, the proper position of medical profession will be restored. The majority of physicians will be performing their profession while nurses, mid-wives, medical technicians and other employees will be protected by collective labour contracts.
Poland's economic transformations must be carried out in cooperation with main social forces. The agreements of employees and businessmen, building social peace in Polish economy is an important condition of country's development. Our coalition will adopt modern legislation concerning labour relations and dialogue of social partners referring to the idea of solidarity. We will present to Parliament the draft law on the Tripartite Commission for Socio-Economic Affairs working out independent opinions about socio-economic policy of the state. Its composition will also include representatives of local governments on the part of employers.
We also want that--under new laws--collective labour contracts be signed only by representative social partners. That this law specifies the criteria of naming such representatives.
The assessment of the condition of economy after four years of the rule of the SLD-PSL coalition must be critical. Although those years were marked by economic growth and coming down inflation, other problems accumulated including the trade deficit and current turnover deficit which were a simple effect of abandoning reforms. The inflation was coming down too slowly, privatisation was delayed while Polish economy has been limited by numerous red tape regulations making businessmen's life difficult . The restructurisation of many key fields of Polish economy has been delayed year by year.
It is a goal of the government to soon improve the living conditions of Polish families and avoid the crisis of public finances through a rapid economic growth, three times faster than in Western Europe, through the curbing of inflation and faster creating new jobs. To achieve this end, we will speed up the decentralisation of public finances and privatisation processes, carry out enfranchisement and reprivatisation, liquidate monopolies and red tape in economy through eliminating overextended concessions, reglamentation systems and harmful regulations. A government commission with the participation of economic organisations will be appointed to review the regulations.
The maintaining of macroeconomic equilibrium must be accompanied by institutional reforms as concerns the spending of public money. Beside this, we will gradually develop new elements of economic policy, the policy of economic growth, through the building of a system of infrastructure investments, linking education to economy, constructing a new system of supporting small businesses, development of new financial institutions and instruments, and regional policy closely linked with the restructurisation of certain branches.
Economic growth will be also supported by state's financial policy and stable tax policy.
Gradually, with the consolidation of economic growth, the tax burdens on economy will be lifted. My government will counteract inflation through controlling the budget deficit and will gradually lower this deficit. We will prepare a law on state's financial responsibility. We will increase monetary discipline thanks to the strong position of the central bank. We will create an easier access to credits for medium size and small businesses, craftsmen and traders.
We will uphold the adopted reductions of income taxes and simplify and stabilise the tax system through amending the tax law.
Polish economy must cope with great challenges. That is why it is necessary to actively support competition and modernisation of the home industry, its pro-export orientation. We will create conditions conducive to restructuring enterprises of key industrial branches making it possible to adjust them to market conditions and achieving constant profitability. We will remove barriers to home and foreign investments. We will protect state's strategic interests in some branches through special legal solutions.
Financial support of repairing processes can concern those business entities that stand a chance to remain in the market. The key question in case of losing jobs will be naming the ways of creating new ones. Available means should be directed so as to provide professional training for employees of enterprises going bankrupt.
The problem of security nets and social programmes of branches under restructuring shall be negotiated with trade unions.
My government is well aware of the special situation of hard coal mining industry: the challenges are the biggest there while the production and prices are of key importance to the development and competition of Polish economy. An additional problem is that nearly all hard coal mines and its processing plants are situated in the same region.
We will review and begin to implement the program of highways construction. Nothing has been done in this field over the recent four years. We shall begin the restructuring of the Polish State Railways PKP and start preparations for its privatisation, we plan to develop transport infrastructure, improve the Polish road traffic safety. We will pass a new telecommunications law, in tune with regulations binding in the European Union. We will privatise Telekomunikacja Polska SA. We will create the market of telecommunications services.
In today's Poland unemployment is the gravest problem in the countryside and in small towns.
Just Poland not wasting its capacities is Poland offering chances to all people, to all local communities. This requires supporting the development of villages and small towns.
We will speed up the transformation processes on the areas particularly delayed as concerns the development of technical and social infrastructure. We will support the creation of new jobs in rural regions. We will improve the educational level there.
The goal of farming policy pursued by my government will be a multi-function development of the countryside and agriculture's modernisation, and in particular guaranteeing the expansion of modern stable family farms.
We will stabilise the market of farm products to help shape farmers' incomes and protect consumers' interests. My government will pursue an effective policy of preventing disturbances on the farm product and foodstuffs market caused mainly by the import of subsidised or damaged food. We will promote and support the export of farm products. We will include Polish experts in the work on the final form of the "European Charter of Rural Areas." We will properly prepare ourselves for negotiations on EU membership.
The social insurance policy will be developed in the near future within the Farming Social Insurance Fund with work on forming farming pensions funds being carried out simultaneously.
We are the supporters of a balanced development of the country. To guarantee the right protection of natural environment is one of the basic conditions of proper living and also additional costs of the economic growth. The costs that we want to and should pay. Nature is a part of our national heritage.
The condition of building a honest and efficient state breaking with the communist past is the securing of competent personnel in offices and the whole public sector and carrying out vetting. We will separate political activity from the work of professional staffers. While recruiting employees of the civil service we will apply the principle of a contest preferring however graduates of the National School of Public Administration. It is necessary however to change the binding law so that the seven-year period of working at managerial posts be excluded as a regulation artificially promoting cadres educated during the communist period.
We shall introduce regulations obliging high-ranking officials to sign declarations on their property.
We will present to the Sejm the draft law on the openness of public life and on a common access of citizens to records of the former communist special services. We will strive for the implementation of the vetting law and at the same time we will strive for its necessary amending.
The main task of the coalition and its government is to improve the security of every citizen through improving work of police, prosecutor's offices and courts. This aim will be served by effective, professional police forces and special services. The effectiveness of executing law must be increased so that the new penal code could be properly applied.
The government will undertake fast moves to cut the employment of policemen in administration to increase the number of policemen in the streets. We will create a system of contacts between police and local communities and their representatives to help citizens organise themselves and carry out joint preventive actions as well as provide assistance to neighbours.
We will restore the apolitical character of special services. The State Protection Office should be under governmental and parliamentary control. The government should name tasks for special services and assess their work according to effects. It is inadmissible that intelligence and counterintelligence services name their own tasks, or support a certain side in political games. This requires deep changes in special services, reconstruction of their structures and cadres.
The administration of justice is the foundation of a strong state. Meanwhile, it is affected by a deep crisis. To give people the right to legal protection and guarantee their respect for the state it is necessary to facilitate the access to fast and effective administration of justice and reform prosecutor's offices.
We will establish courts of the first instances to examine simple civil and penal cases and minor offences to speed up the activity of the administration of justice. We will require more from those on managerial posts in courts. The condition of securing the real unquestionable respect to the judges will be the removal of those who during the years of the communist rule departed from the judge's independence.
We will undertake actions to reform prosecutor's offices. We have to make it impossible to use the office of prosecutor for political ends.
The liquidation of the aftermath of flood disaster suffered by Polish southern regions in summer will be our first great test. The areas stricken by floods urgently need a realistic program of recovery. Such plan is under preparation. While drafting and implementing this project one must remember to avoid the situation when the reconstruction would mean the recovery of obsolete reserves. The reconstruction of those areas should contribute to their modernisation.
To minimalise the aftermath of such catastrophes in the future we must improve the functioning of the state. It is necessary to create a modern system of coordinating the activity of different services during natural calamities and ecological catastrophes.
Our borders must be safeguarded by apolitical competent army subject to civil control. To achieve this aim, we shall create a National System of State Defence and increase the outlays for army's modernisation. We will continue and intensify activities approaching the Polish armed forces to the requirements of Poland's NATO membership.
We will introduce clear rules of state's functioning during emergency states and in armed conflicts. The smaller but more effective armed forces will be the basic part of the state defence system. We will systematically cut the compulsory military service (conscription).
We plan to rationalise army's expenditures removing the burden of unnecessary infrastructure. We will introduce clear procedures of purchasing military equipment and armament, with preferences given to the Polish arms industry.
An independent state means the sovereign foreign policy. Eight years ago we recovered a possibility to pursue it. One can say that the main directions of the foreign policy of independent Poland are unchangeable. Simply, Poland has been in the sphere of Western civilisation and this determines our policy.
The priority of full military and political integration of Poland and NATO is not a result of our fears of anyone. It stems from the consistent will of the nation so that our belonging to the Euroatlantic world be full and unquestionable.
Poland's introductory negotiations with NATO were completed successfully. The government of Poland, being aware of the costs and duties, having support of citizens, expects that Poland will become NATO's full member in 1999.
The national security is not only of a military dimension. The economic and social stability and rooting our young democracy in international structures are of equal importance. That is why the soonest possible integration with the European Union structures is also a priority of our foreign policy, equally important as the NATO membership is. The announcement of the soon starting of negotiations with the selected countries, with Poland being also mentioned, is to us an obligation to coordinate activities and speed up the adjustment processes.
During the negotiations we will see to it that the integration process with the European structures be carried out with the Polish identity being respected.
Safe, democratic and well-off Europe does not close itself within its geographical frames. The United States are its element, too.
We believe that it is a strategic interest of Poland and the whole Europe to maintain the American military and political presence in Europe. It is the will of my government to reach the highest possible level in our relations with the American partner.
When we draw a line between Paris, Berlin and Warsaw on the map of Europe, we will have the picture of a "backbone of Europe" of its kind. This explains the weight we attach to the Weimar Triangle, that is to relations with Germany and France. The bilateral relations with Western European states are an integral part of our integration strategy.
We are undertaking also regional integration efforts. After the five-year existence, the Central European CEFTA agreement on free trade turned out a success both as concerns economic and political dimensions. We are thinking about its expansion. Common interests are linking states grouped in the Council of Baltic States, the organisation with great perspectives for the future. Also the Central European Initiative proved useful. The relations between Poland and Ukraine are better than anyone could expect a few years ago. I believe that those examples offer hope for Poland playing an important role in European integration processes.
Let me once again mention my personal experience. Sixteen years ago, during the first Solidarity congress, we adopted the "Message to the nations of Central and Eastern Europe." Its contents seemed then to surpass the boundaries of our real possibilities. Today, we are the neighbour of our historical partners: independent Ukraine and independent Lithuania. The support for democratic and market reforms in those countries is for us both a moral duty and a political interest.
I cannot in this context avoid to express my concern over the situation in Belarus. This country, situated in the key area between Baltic and Black Sea seems to evolve towards different direction than the rest of Europe. I remain in the conviction that this is a temporary tendency.
The new government under my leadership will attach particular attention to relations with Russia. Not burdened with historical past, as it was the case of the previous coalition, we will undertake efforts to make the Polish-Russian contacts partnerlike and as good as is mutual knowledge of Poles and Russians about one another. We have a large field of common interests, mainly as concerns economy and culture. The will of the Polish government as regards this question is as strong as possible.
Special connections are linking us with Hungary and the Czech Republic. Common political goals are linked with the closeness of our nations. I do hope that Slovakia, a natural partner of our three countries, will share our goals and strivings and also the manner of their implementation.
While focusing on neighbours, I must also mention our sincere support for the processes of reforms in Romania and Bulgaria which were visibly speeded up and are bringing those countries closer to Western structures.
Especially close relations are linking us with the Apostolic See. The presence of the Polish Pope there strengthens Poland's position in the world and is the subject of our national pride. One of the first moves of the new government was the decision to send to the Sejm the draft law on the ratification of the Concordat between the Republic of Poland and the Apostolic See.
And now the question to which the new government will attach great significance: Poles abroad. I am declaring the policy of open doors for our countrymen in the West and East. Soon we will streamline the procedure of obtaining the citizenship of the Republic of Poland by Poles abroad, especially in the East. Poland has not forgotten you!!!
The Polish foreign policy pursued by my government will be the policy of the sovereign and determined defence of Polish interests, and also the policy which will enter offices. I would like those goals and rules I spoke about become the goals of all citizens. And this policy will be implemented by the government together with Poles and for Poles.
I am nearing the conclusion of my address. I have presented to you the main plans serving to implement the first three tasks of my cabinet. I have not mentioned only means serving the execution of the fourth task: the strengthening of the world of values. This question, the most important one I think, will be touched upon by me at the conclusion.
Let us remember, Ladies and Gentlemen, that only a nation strong through the community of recognised and respected cultural values can cope with challenges of the contemporary civilisation. There will be no strong Poland without moral order. Without recognising the truth as a foundation of social and public life, without referring to patriotism, Christian roots of our civilisation and love for freedom, without respecting the dignity of the nation. Here I would like to address the creators of culture and recall their meeting with Marian Krzaklewski at the Royal Castle in Warsaw. I am recalling the words of the AWS leader: "The world must build a new civilisation. The civilisation where human freedom, human autonomy will be balanced with family ties, ties of human solidarity, modern patriotism, faith. This is the task for you, the men of culture, Polish culture."
We want all spheres of life be filled with values. I am thinking here about education, law, treating people according to the rule of personalism. Here I am speaking about the probably most important sphere: about culture. We will create better than the present conditions for creative work, support the broad access to cultural goods. We will implement the program of cultural education in mass media.
The results of the elections gave us the right to implement program provisions. They oblige us to complete our plans. My government will undertake fast energetic steps. It will make all the needed decisions, also the difficult ones, unpopular but necessary ones that will soon bring about positive social effects.
I will do everything so that my cabinet could make a turn in thinking and acting. So that it deals not only with current administrating but implements a well-designed plan of most important strategic actions. So that it could strengthen the authority of the state, our Poland.
This government, the coalition government, will be a coherent government. It will be efficient since this is required by the tasks it is facing. Since such are expectations of our electorate.
In tune with Article 154 of the Constitution I am asking you to pass a vote of confidence in the Council of Ministers as appointed by the President of the Republic of Poland.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Together we shall build Poland of the 21st century, a country we can be proud of. I would like that Poland be built not only by those who supported AWS and UW. I would like this Poland be for all people of goodwill, Poland built by all people of goodwill.
I would like our energy to be consumed not by purposeless political disputes but by solving problems faced by the country, great challenges of the future.
I promise you that my government and I personally will do everything to achieve this goal. That our children and grandchildren can live in the country of our dreams. I will do everything this can happen. So help me God!!!
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