Polish Government manages to brand itself as a government of potatoes
Warsaw, Poland July 13, 2006 Through what one can only describe as less than astute diplomacy, the Polish Government has managed to create a media feast over the Polish President's failure to attend a meeting of the Weimar triangle and in the process create an image of Poland being governed by potatoes.
Everything started with a satirical article written in a German newspaper that probably would have gotten very little attention outside its own local readership were not for the Polish President canceling his meeting with French President Chirac and German Chancellor Andrea Merkle for reasons of being sick.
The Polish media tied the President's sickness to an article that had been written nearly a week before the meeting cancellation and speculated that the President was not sick at all but was avoiding the meeting on purpose. The President went into seclusion and did not reveal any information about his sickness and, in the process, only added to the media feeding frenzy. See The Polish President's secret sickness creates a political storm
The President's staff criticized the newspaper to the point of demanding a response from the German government and sending the matter to the Polish public prosecutor to have criminal charges placed against the German reporter. One of the senior members of the ruling coalition party even went so far as to speculate that perhaps a European Union and arrest warrant should be issued to bring the German reporters back to Poland to face charges. See Polish Government to prosecute German newspaper for insulting the Polish President
Poland's former Ministers of Foreign Affairs wrote and published a letter to the President of Poland that denounced his missing of the meeting under the circumstances that it was missed. This letter created another firestorm inside Poland and Polish politicians denounced the foreign ministers. See Polish President denounced by former ministers of foreign affairs
The Polish ambassador in Berlin even went so far as to criticize the Polish Government publicly for its emotional response to the matter.
“ Poland is "mishandling" relations with Germany, Warsaw's ambassador to Berlin said on Tuesday , in a rare breach of diplomatic protocol that reflects underlying tensions within the administration of President Lech Kaczynski.
Speaking in a Financial Times interview in Berlin, ambassador Andrzej Byrt said Warsaw's reaction to a controversial satirical article in a German newspaper in which the Polish President was compared to a potato had been "too emotional".” Link to original article is here. https://registration.ft.com/registration/barrier?referer=http://www.beatroot.blogspot.com/&location=http%3A//www.ft.com/cms/s/23dc171a-1104-11db-9a72-0000779e2340.htmEnvoy in 'potato' jibe at Poland's top twin
All this political tomfoolery has been taken of note by the foreign media and they have carried forward and developed further the refrain of Polish potatoes in the Polish Government. See http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,426197,00.html Poland's Hypersensitive Twins
and see http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,,1813736,00.html Polish-German summit halted after potato jibe
Even in Poland such comments as " His (the President’s) cabinet consists of museum experts and secretaries doing ministers' work." by Jadwiga Staniszkis, a renowned sociologist and political commentator, talking about the change of PM makes matters uncomfortable for the Government, support the branding process.
The original article was a trash article in what some people consider a trash daily newspaper. Had the President, or as is reported his brother, the now Prime Minister, had the strength of character to ignore this article and move forward on Poland's destined path to good relationships with Germany, it would have gone away; just like the stomachache that the President purportedly had.
But the Polish Government is not very experienced in international affairs and really quite amateurish in any of its attempts at building personal relationships. So as an unintended consequence of an emotional response to something that should have been ignored, the Polish Government will now have to work hard to prove that it is not a government of Polish potatoes.
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