Establishing the new Polish-Lithuanian energy bridge will be an important part of the EU project to connect the so-called Baltic states – that is, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia – with the energy systems of the European Union.
GAZETA WYBORCZA
Aleksander Kropiwnicki.
May 20, 2008
On Monday, as the newspaper informs, Poland and Lithuania announced their plans to create a company to build the link. The company, called LitPol Link, is planning to build the bridge for about 237m euros. The Baltic states face a serious energy crisis. In 2009, Ignalino, a post-Soviet nuclear plant, delivering the majority of energy to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, is to be closed. So far, Estonia has an energy link with Finland, while Lithuania and Latvia are connected just with Russia and Belarus, reminds the newspaper.
The Russian language is coming back to Polish schools, informs DZIENNIK. This year 30 thousand Poles have decided to pass an examination for the secondary school certificate in this language. Under communism, this subject was compulsory and yet still most graduates couldn’t really speak fluent or even fair Russian after leaving school. This was because Russian was mentally rejected by generations of young Poles as the main language of the Soviet Union, an oppressive state occupying Poland. However, contemporary Polish students don’t have this sort of negative connotation with Russia or any kind of Russian complex. Therefore, they are likely to treat Russian as any other language. At the same time, it now pays to speak Russian, which, combined with English or German, is an advantage for a young person looking for a good job. Many private companies are keen to do business in Russia and they need Russian-speakers, explains the newspaper.
British hooligans attack Polish immigrants in the United Kingdom, alarms RZECZPOSPOLITA. The British police receives more and more information about Poles being abused, beaten or at least threatened with violence. Some attacks have no obvious motive. In some other cases, Polish workers are attacked by the British for being too ambitious or too professional. Most of these cases have happened in small towns and villages but Poles are not safe in big cities either. In the center of Edinburgh, a young Pole was beaten by three Scottish builders who shouted obscenities at him. ‘We have no problem with the Poles’, declares Simon Darby, a spokesman of the nationalistic British National Party. ‘On the other hand, what would you do, if 2m Chinese arrived in your labor market suddenly?’, he adds in his interview with the newspaper.
