There is going to be a pretty good scene in the European Parliament. This week we will be discussing and voting on the agreement between the European Union and the United States on the use of Passenger Name Record (PNR).

The subject is not new because such an agreement has worked since 2007. Americans have been receiving all the information that facilitated the catching of potential terrorists, a total of nearly 20 items. Among them: travel itinerary, information about tickets, baggage, seat number, payment information, accompanying persons and some other obvious ones as the name. In 2010 the European Parliament demanded a negotiation of a new version of the agreement, which was to create a guarantee that data will be protected as required by European law. The agreement was initialled one year later and now it is to be approved or not by the EP. And there arouse a dispute.

Many MEPs think that the agreement does not meet the European standards, while others cite its efficiency (the number of arrested criminals estimated to be hundreds of people). So let’s argue.

My political group is divided and I support this agreement. What helps me to make this decision is the fact that even if the EP rejects it, Americans will start communicating with individual states or directly with the airlines and then there will be no negotiations, just a simple dictum: in exchange for information we will give you the entrance on the market.

In the Polish news, in the shadow of the anniversary of the Smolensk tragedy, there is the American struggle for the presidency and behind it – the efforts for the abolition of visas to the United States. Officially, the proud leaders of my country do not ask the Americans for anything, but the practice is different.

The Polish Embassy in Washington has just released a special web publication dedicated to Poland and the “suspension of visas” programme. From the five selected pages of a carefully prepared text we can learn that the implementation of the programme will be good for America and business, it will increase the level of US national security and give the American public diplomacy a strong argument.

Next, we learn why Poland is not in the programme despite its successes. The Embassy reminds readers that we fight in Afghanistan, we bear losses and they have been able to come to our country without visas since 1991. Then it gets even harder. They write that every year 7 million Poles go abroad, and only 100 thousand from them go to US. Not enough.

The best of all, however, is at the end. It turns out that despite the promises of President Obama, the support of the American Chamber of Commerce and others, the great project is supported by 9 senators (out of 100) and 30 congressmen (out of 435)… Let me remind that in autumn the Americans will elect not only their president, but also one third of senators and the entire composition of the House of Representatives…

We must decide whether at the current stage of Polish-American relations the maintenance of visas is a Polish or American problem. If the problem is Polish, then such publications make sense. But if we are going to proudly wait until the Americans get softer, giving out pleading leaflets on the Internet does not make any sense.

In Belarus it is like in the old joke when the Jew came to the rabbi to complain about the very small one-room house. The rabbi told him to buy a goat and everyone knows what happened next.

Lukashenko plays similarly. After winning “elections” he put in prisons several hundreds people and today he releases some of them. It that a policy change? No, the policy is the same because he pardoned the people that he previously sent to jail. Lukashenko just wants the EU ambassadors to return to Minsk and hence gestures, and not a policy change.

By the way we will see how coherent the EU policy is. When recently the list of people banned from traveling to the West was expanded, Slovenia fought until the last minute for deletion from it of one businessman who works closely with this country.

And one more thing. I wish that all those who called for withdrawal of Belarusian ice hockey world championship in 2014 make a brief report of their self-efficiency.

Spring in Kiev begins under the sign of the election and the city’s preparation for Euro 2012. The stadium is working, the new bridge at the Dnieper is finished, the escape roads are being repaired and – most important – you can see the building of the new beautiful airport. And what about politics? Here a lot is going on!

The recent research published by the newspaper “Segodnya” give the Party of Regions (in power) 18%, Yulia Tymoshenko Block – 15%, Front for Change (Yatsenyuk) – 9% and UDAR (Klitschko) – 8%. In the Verkhovna Rada there would also be a place for the Communists with a score of 7%. From the figures published by the newspaper you can draw some conclusions. 20% of respondents do not intend to vote and the other 20% want to vote for someone else or they have not decided yet. Another issue is the fact that if there was a consolidation of the opposition, it can already expect an outcome significantly better that the party in power. It is worth to note that the quoted percentages relate to the proportional distribution of seats in the middle of Verkhovna Rada. The rest will be elected with the majority system. And these are governed by slightly different rules.

Yesterday in Kiev my interlocutors clearly suggested that the talks about creating a common opposition formation are at a very advanced stage. In the Ukrainian conditions, where you cannot create a coalition, it means that there are two options: either a creation of a new party, or a consolidation under one of the existing structure. I think that within a few days “something” will happen.

The opposition is preparing intensively for the election despite the detention of its leaders in jail. There will not be any breakthrough in here. It turns out that further charges against Tymoshenko are being prepared and apparently in the prosecutor list there are other politicians. There were some hopes concerning the chance to treat the former Prime Minister in Germany but in the Ukrainian law there is no concept of “prisoner hospitalised abroad” and the authorities in Berlin do not really know how to deal with a sanctioned person.

Together with the Board of the YES Foundation we tried to convince our interlocutors that the quality of the parliamentary elections to be held in October is perhaps the last chance to revive the association process and free trade agreement. They all agreed with us. But how will it influence the observers’ opinion? We will see that in half a year.

I will probably return more than once to the “poem by Günter Grass”. Today I would like to say a few words on the reactions in Israel.

I disapprove of this work and its political message. However, I find Israel’s reaction unfortunate and counterproductive. I understand that Grass was condemned but the ban on crossing this country’s border is totally overeager. If I were in the place of the authorities in Jerusalem, I would do the contrary – I would invite Grass and give him a chance to talk with the public that is the most concerned by this problem. Let him present his arguments to students, intellectuals, to all those who in some time may become the target of Iranian nuclear weapon. I would not discuss with him about his membership in the SS because before he wrote this poem, no one in Israel had problem with that.

And I would also offer him a permanent residence in the Holy Land. If he is so sure about the peaceful intensions of Iran, let him stay for a longer time, because apparently nothing bad would happen to him.

I owe my readers a summary of the Euronest session which took place this week in Baku.

We adopted all planned documents, although the discussion was not very lively. Euronest took over the mechanical procedure of the European Parliament and the real dispute was going on outside the plenary room, or it was simply avoided.

The four adopted resolutions contain a set of general postulates on which everyone agreed, with the tacit assumption that some partners will meet them, and the others will not. The subject that caused tensions was Nagorno-Karabakh. The hosts raised the issue of occupation of this territory by Armenia, attacking the Armenians in every speech, and they did the same. Fortunately there were no such gestures as leaving the room.

Let me remind that in 1923 the USSR created on this territory an Armenian autonomous area but it was incorporated to the Republic of Azerbaijan. When Armenia and Azerbaijan gained independence, as a result of military actions Armenians took over the territory and so it is today.

***

Baku abounds in wealth – at least some of its inhabitants and the representational space. The city has elegant buildings which become its architectural showpiece. The elegant architecture was created there in tsarist times with money from oil and the USSR did not manage to break it. Prosperity ends in the depths of the city but Azeris live better than many of the inhabitants of the former Soviet Union.

***

During our meeting suddenly the case of Yulia Tymoshenko came out. European People’s Party, or actually its Polish part, has prepared a resolution which was presented at the last moment. The topic has sparked controversies not because we have different views on the sentence and treatment of Yulia Tymoshenko, but because the European Parliament had many times taken position on this issue. And the partners from Eastern countries did not have a special desire to interfere in the internal affairs of Ukraine. Ultimately, the project was supported by 40 MEPs, there were 20 abstentions (mainly socialists, including myself) and 20 people, mostly from the Eastern countries, did not vote. With this resolution in hands Pawel Kowal went to visit the imprisoned former Prime Minister.

PS Happy Easter to readers, editors and bloggers!

Günter Grass has caused a fuss. His views expressed in the geopolitical poem “What must be said” are shocking because of two reasons: the credibility of the author and the total antagonism towards the German policy in the Middle East.

Grass, the 85-year-old poetaster, after having received the Nobel Prize award and admitted that he served in the SS, is now trying to condemn Israel’s nuclear power, the hypocrisy of the German policy, and generally takes the side of those who supposedly are threatened by Israel.

Since the last major war in the Middle East it has been over 12 years. Even if Israel has nuclear weapon, the threat of its use has never served offensive purposes. Moreover, Israel has proved that even the Egyptian tanks near Jerusalem in 1973 did not cause such a decision. Iran is an opposite case – it has no weapon yet and it already threatens Israel. And here lies the difference.

Günter Grass movingly asks in his poem: “Why do I stay silent, keep silent too long?”. Ad he answers: “Because I thought that my ancestry, which is afflicted by an irredeemable blemish, would forbid me to confront with this fact as spoken truth”. And this message frightens me the most. If it turned out that Grass’s way of thinking is typical for a part of the German public opinion, we would have to deal with a new quality. Then a significant group in this country will be revealed. A group that thinks in the same way as Grass but has never so far spoken in the name of “the irredeemable blemish”.

From time to time in Poland you can read complaints that there are not enough of us, Poles, in the EU institutions “and in general the Germans have the power”. Judging from the number of candidates, working for the institutions is a dream of Polish graduates. Recently released statistics show this “German” stereotype in a different light.

Germany represents 16.31% of the EU population. In 2010 only 7.6% of the EU staff came from this country. Last year this number fell by a further percent. It is even worse with the British – they represent nearly 13% of the EU population but among those who start their careers in the institutions, only 2.5% are from UK. It turns out that for the young, talented and educated graduates from rich countries the work in the EU is not financially attractive.

There is also a problem concerning the recruitment of highly skilled professionals with experience. Following the new obligations under the fiscal pact, the Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs hardly filled 22 out of 60 vacancies. The reason is similar. The skilled economists would rather work in business because the EU cannot afford their qualifications.

All this sounds encouraging for the Polish graduates who, despite the competition, fight like lions in countless competitions. Very often successfully.

The Euronest Parliamentary Assembly has been created as an idea for a closer binding of the six countries of the Eastern Partnership with the European Union, and specifically with our parliaments. It took a long time but today finally for the first time we meet at a plenary session outside the EU – in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Landing at 4 am and the trip to the hotel do not give much chance to evaluate the city but if I had to express my opinion, Baku is more like Dubai than the periphery of the former Soviet Union. I think of this city in a particular way because I was there as a student activist in the late 70s…

The company at today’s plenary is fairly impressive. There are almost 40 Members of the European Parliament. There are also representatives of all the partner delegations, except for Belarus, of course. Among them, which was not that obvious, there will be also the delegation from the neighbouring Armenia – a country with which Azerbaijan is at war, and this is not a cold war. Every now and then in Nagorno-Karabakh people dye and Azerbaijan through its top leaders defines Armenia as an enemy. Armenia even withdrew its representatives from the Eurovision Song Contest, which this year will be held in Baku.

There is therefore an explosive potential in the Euronest. But – as it is usually with explosions – a well targeted potential might cause something positive.

When you read today’s press releases you can have the impression that the matter concerns the unification of Korea, peace in the Middle East or Ossetia’s annexation to Georgia.

- The leaders met formally
- Negotiations have started
- There was a long crisis in the negotiations
- For the whole time secret negotiations lasted
- The leaders turned to their “management” for the power of attorney for further negotiations
- Today, the leaders are to occur at a joint press conference and announce the success achieved through a hard work

But the thing is that the matter does not concern the world issues mentioned at the beginning, only pensions in Poland. Those leaders have co-formed the government for five years. One of them is the Prime Minister, the other one – Deputy Prime Minister. So they can meet wherever they want, when they want as long as they want and their “managements” do not question their position. There is therefore a chance for the end of the little spectacle.