27 January 1999
(Defense Minister on NATO, Polish industry, Belarus) (560) By Rick Marshall USIA Staff Writer Washington -- Poland's defense minister, Janusz Onyszkiewicz, returned to the National Press Club January 27, more than a decade after he first appeared there as a spokesman for Solidarity. At that time his country was part of the Warsaw Pact; today Onyszkiewicz is Washington to speak with Clinton adminstration officials about Polish accession into NATO and other matters of mutual concern. "We were never in doubt after 1989 that NATO should remain" in Europe, or that Poland should become a member, Onyszkiewicz said. Poles never considered NATO a purely defensive alliance. To them it also represented a "community of values" -- cooperation, democracy, good relations with one's neighbors, and prosperity. Poles also saw NATO as the basis for a strong U.S. presence in Europe, he said, a presence that is essential for imparting a sense of security to Europe. Further, the U.S. gives the Alliance leadership and a sense of cohension, Onyszkiewicz said. Its presence guarantees that individual country interests do not break the Alliance apart. "There is a broad consensus" about the importance of NATO throughout Poland, he noted. All major political parties and political figures have come to support membership in it. Poland's contribution to NATO's common budget has been set at 2.48 percent, the defense minister said. That means the country expects to spend about $40 million this year on NATO-related matters. Asked about upgrading the military equipment Poland will need to meet NATO standards, Onyszkiewicz pointed out that the United States has lent Poland $100 million to purchase U.S. military equipment over the next two years. Other countries, including Belgium, have offered to lease or sell it fighter aircraft. Warsaw is considering these offers now and expects to make a decision this spring on how to proceed. In the meantime, a good deal needs to be done to restructure Poland's industrial base, Onyszkiewicz said. When the Warsaw Pact collapsed, Poland inherited a vast industrial base geared to production of Soviet-style military equipment. What Polish industry needs now is an injection of new technology in order to be competitive. To this effect, the country is about embark on a "very intensive privatization process," in which every factory except one will be available for privatization, he said. Onyszkiewicz commented on Poland's good relations with neighboring Lithuania and Ukraine, with each of whom Warsaw has established joint battalions. "Belarus is a different case," he said. Poland would like to have good relations with Belarus, but the country is not a democracy and often raises the false spectre of a Polish threat. Further, Onyszkiewicz said, "We don't recognize the Belarussian parliament because of the way it was elected." Nor does Poland consider it inevitable that Belarus will form a union with Russia, he said, citing a referendum in which the majority of Belarussians voted for their independence. The defense minister concluded by noting that Poland is the single largest contributor to United Nations peacekeeping operations. In addition, the country has contributed a combat battalion to the NATO-led multinational force serving in Bosnia, has another in reserve, and would be prepared to contribute to other such missions in the future, he said.