Following up our reports on the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Hungary, Slovenia, Cyprus and Malta (cf. SirEurope no. 44), we are now providing further reports on the other four countries about to enter the EU (Poland, Estonia, Slovakia and Latvia). With its 39 million inhabitants, per capita income of 5,090 euros and annual economic growth rate of 1.1%, Poland is the “leader” country, in terms of size, population and economic potential, among the ten preparing to enter the European Union. But it’s also the one most beset by internal difficulties, due to a series of fears at the economic, social, cultural and also religious level. The peasants, who form 80% of the population, fear that their livelihoods will be severely penalized by agricultural production in the “Western” countries of the EU. In recent days, the Polish bishop of Siedlce, Msgr. Zbigniew Kiernikowski, speaking in Florence, listed other questions that are close to Poland’s heart: “We cannot, nor do we wish to prevent enlargement, but our people who have suffered numerous invasions and are ready to defend their own land with tooth and claw need to be understood. Our presence in Europe also depends on whether Catholics can really contribute to the common legislation and whether the EU can develop a mentality of real solidarity”. For speaking of Poland means speaking of a largely Catholic population (90.7% of the population share the faith of the Polish Pope, while only 1.4% are autocephalous Orthodox and 0.8% Protestants), a country with 43 dioceses, 9966 parishes, 3891 charitable associations. However, Polish Catholics, though they voted for a post-Communist president, thus relegating Lech Walesa and his “Solidarnosc” movement to the dustbin of history, fear that the European Union may mean having to accept EU laws on abortion and euthanasia and a materialist and technocratic view of life. “The Polish bishops identify themselves fully with the teaching of the Holy Father on European issues says the general secretary of the Polish Episcopal Conference, Bishop Piotr Libera . That’s why we are conscious that Poland’s effort to achieve her rightful place in the European structures cannot be limited exclusively to the economic and political aspects, nor can it mean its renunciation of national sovereignty, both political and cultural, and hence of its religious identity”.
