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Fourth, £5 million a year for five years would be provided for a "know-how" Fund to provide Poland with training and advice to support progress towards democracy and a market economy. Finally, she had offered to send the Minister of Trade, Department of Trade and Industry, to Poland to identify opportunities for investment by British companies in joint ventures. Although agreement with the IMF was the key element of the package, the other measures
aken together should bring valuable benefits in the
terim.
nuing, THE PRIME MINISTER said that General Jaruzelski hay also raised the question of the return to Poland of the repons of the Polish war leader, General Sikorski; she had replied that the Polish Church, Solidarity and the Polish émigré community in Britain would need to assent to such a step. General Jaruzelski had made clear in
wariness of the revival of nationalist feeling in East Germany. He had left Britain apparently well satisth the results of his visit.
discussion
In discussion, behaved respons
as argued that Solidarity, which had
In the wake of their election success,
could not indefie avoid taking some share of responsibility for decisions in Poland, and this would be the real test of the turity. The IMF would certainly insist on major econonceforms, including the establishment of a propeicing system, which could lead to a reduction in the standard of living in the short term; Solidarity would need to dede whether or not to support these hard but necessary me
and had so far shown little sign of willingness to do. Arguably the only real concern of the political opposition in Poland and its public support was to seize this first opportunity since the 1940s to dismantle the Commu regime. It would be important to be clear whether Weste economic assistance to Poland was to be linked to conting political progress, and should therefore be reversed in the event of backsliding by the regime. The current stance of the West should be to be tough but generous, and not to ask for the impossible; reform in Poland must be given a hance to succeed. The bureaucratic obstacles to edonor progress, for example by small farmers, were much greater than appeared at first sight; on the other hand senior figures in the regime took little trouble to co their disbelief in Communist ideology. General Jaruzels deserved some credit for patriotism despite the excesses for which his regime was responsible when martial law imposed in 1981. It was nevertheless unrealistic to` the Polish émigré community in this country to moderate their hatred of the Communist regime.
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