Politics and Economy

Domination of one type of industry

Some towns and regions were dominated by only one type of industry or a heavy industry which underwent crisis in 90-es. Regions with heavy industry (Starachowice, Walbrzych - brown coal industry) or with one dominating industry, like for instance textile (Lodz area) or shipyard industry (Gdansk). We will write more about it in the following article about structural unemployment. Since the fall of the heavy industry there are regions where an unemployment reaches 30% and also there are towns (Warsaw, Poznan) were unemployment is very low. The fall of the industry is partly related to the old economic structure which was bounding all Eastern European communist countries into mutual dependence on one another, more about it in the next point of our analysis below.

Read more: Specific Features of Polish Unemployment

European neighbors Poland and Russia have both a shared, and a strained, history together. Both nations are Slavic, they speak similar languages, and have lived in relatively the same way throughout history. Over various periods of history, both Poland and Russia have conquered each other's territory. Despite all the similarities, however, there are sharp contrasts. Poles are Roman Catholics, and therefore use the Latin alphabet in their script, as well as being a very Western-oriented country; Russians are of the Orthodox religion, which has a centuries-long hatred of Roman Catholicism, and therefore write using the Cyrillic alphabet. In addition, Russia is oriented towards the East, towards Byzantine for its religious history, and the hordes of Mongolia for its political history. The centuries of conquering each other, as well as totally oppsite ways of thinking, have left a long mark of distrust between the peoples of these two countries.

Read more: Why uneasy relations exist between Poles and Russians

Finally all 25 European Union (EU) countries representing 450 million people adopted the European constitution after the negotiations which took place in Ireland on June 17-18, 2004. As you know from the earlier article Fiasko of EU Brusselss Summit - Position of Poland in Europe the agreement was not easy. During the first EU constitution Brussels summit in December 2003 the countries did not agree on all points of the constitution.

Read more: Nice or Death: Poland's Fight to keep Nice Voting System in European Constitution

Governments of almost all countries EU-members were under enormous pressure to show to the world that they can agree on a consensus and restore the confidence in EU institutions. The earlier elections to European Parliament in almost all countries brought a victory for parties of the opposition and Euro-skeptics. The turnover for referendum was very low, almost everywhere less than 50%. In the new country-members voting apathy was even worse, in Slovakia less than 20% of people voted in Poland about 25%. These recent trends suggested that there is a growing trend in Europe against unification rather that for it and the unification euphoria is gone especially since the economic growth is much lower in Europe than in the USA and unemployment is about 10% as a whole in EU countries. Also in Poland the opposition parties won the elections to European Parliament and almost a half of the seats went to euroskeptics.

Read more: Compromise on European Constitution