27th March 2008

Polish government to boycott opening of Olympics

Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced that he will not participate in the opening ceremony of the Olympic games in Beijing.

By making this statement Tusk became the first head of a European government to make such a decisive declaration after the wave of Chinese repression in Tibet. "Poland is an average country, it is not fighting to be the first, but my decision is very clear: the presence of politicians during the inauguration of the olympics seems inappropriate," declared Tusk. Moreover, Deputy Foreign Minister Ryszard Schnepf announced that government representatives plan to undertake a wider diplomatic initiative to increase interest in this issue among other EU states. This is however a very difficult decision as Chinese authorities made it clear that such a boycott could put multi-billion Euro contracts between the EU and China at risk. (Dziennik, p. 1) A.K.