“The breakup of the CBA will always lead to the loss of the potential to fight corruption and this is an unjustified action, which is contrary not only to logic, but also to certain trends visible at the international level,” says Stanisław Żaryn, advisor to the president. of the Republic of Poland, in an interview with wPolityce.pl.
READ ALSO: Dismantling the State! Siemoniak: We are working on a project to liquidate the CBA. I would like to see it adopted by the government in the first quarter
wPolityce.pl: What would you say about the words of Minister Tomasz Siemoniak, who announced that a draft law on the liquidation of the Central Corruption Bureau would be presented at the end of March?
Stanisław Zaryn: This is not surprising, because nothing was expressed in the coalition agreement as powerfully as two ideas – on the one hand, the restoration of pensions and benefits, which should go back to people who have been in the services and the army under the so-called decommunization, and on the other side the issue of the liquidation of the CBA. It is clear that the ruling coalition wants to destroy the fight against corruption and destroy the agency that has fought corruption so far.
These words are not surprising, although in substance they prove the very bad intentions of the ruling coalition. We are dealing with a project that will certainly have an impact on the effectiveness of the fight against corruption, because it is impossible to carry out such an operation without damaging the potential of the CBA and the effectiveness of the activities of this agency. The final assessment must of course await the shape of this project, but I have no illusions that it will involve paralyzing the fight against corruption, and unfortunately that will be the consequences.
According to Minister Siemoniak, the abolition of the CBA will make the fight against corruption better organized than before. So what is the government going to propose, some sort of merger with another service? Do you know anything about this?
I have as much information as Minister Siemoniak offers. So far we know that the CBA will be abolished and that these powers are planned to be transferred to other services. However, this is always at the expense of efficiency. The Central Anti-Corruption Bureau has been active for more than twelve years and it is its coherent, multi-faceted approach to the fight against corruption that guarantees success in this fight.
Breaking up the CBA will always lead to the loss of the potential to fight corruption and this is an unjustified action, contrary not only to logic, but also to certain trends visible at the international level. I would like to remind you that it has recently been pointed out, including at European Union level, that dedicated, specialized units should be responsible for the fight against corruption. Therefore, the CBA in Poland should not be weakened and torn apart, but rather strengthened.
READ ALSO: Isn’t there a line of shame that they don’t cross? Tusk: The task of our coalition is to rebuild a real anti-corruption agency
Minister Siemoniak expressed the expectation that President Andrzej Duda would support the liquidation of the CBA with his signature. Is this a possible scenario?
We should certainly refrain from making statements. The President is reviewing the details and we have to wait for the bill. Only then will the president be able to speak on this issue. The final decision will of course only be made after the approval of a specific project and when it reaches the president’s desk.
In the context of the announcement of the liquidation of the CBA, it seems important that Minister Siemoniak has not decided to investigate the so-called “Operation Lucien”, and this matter has been widely discussed.
I think that from today’s perspective it is clear that certain activities or media storms that the Civic Platform has organized around the services in recent years could have been purely political actions. ‘Operation Lucień’ is one of the elements that caused some hysteria around the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau, but also wider – around the secret services. I have the impression that it was a tool cynically used by the Civic Platform to destroy the image of the Polish services, which meant a weakening of Polish security, but also provided a basis for talking about how terrible the CBA is and must be liquidated.
“Operation Lucień” was part of a planned, coherent system of action intended to prepare the debate on the liquidation of the CBA. It was only about stirring up emotions, because an honest conversation about the outcomes of the CBA and other services showed that the previous government took the security issue very seriously and managed the secret services sector well.
Maybe it’s just pure politics? If the government did not liquidate the CBA, would the left be tempted to leave the coalition?
Maybe. Because this issue was so strongly and clearly emphasized in the coalition agreement, it was clearly visible that this was a project that united the coalition. Perhaps the effective actions of the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau, which hit the PO, PSL and left-wing politicians, are the denominator that holds the coalition together so strongly. We know, and this is publicly available knowledge, that specific politicians, currently associated with the government camp, had their own problems related to CBA investigations. Here, personal hatred and certain political prejudices underlie the plan to liquidate the CBA.
As you said earlier, the European Union has set certain standards regarding its anti-corruption policy. According to them, Brussels would welcome the delegation of one institution for these matters. Why then is Donald Tusk going against the European Union’s recommendations in this area?
Donald Tusk has his emotions about the effectiveness of the CBA. I would like to remind you that from the time of the first PO government – one can remember 2009 – the CBA, which exposed various kinds of pathologies in the political environment of Donald Tusk, was an institution that hindered the Prime Minister in governing the state. noting various types of irregularities and criminal activities in his political camp.
The gambling scandal is one of the many cases that the CBA has discovered in the vicinity of the Civic Platform. He may have his own reservations and some animosity toward this agency, but he may also be biased against the CBA from an environmental perspective. That is why I believe that the Civic Platform will not abandon this issue.
How would you comment on the changes in ABW structures, i.e. the expansion of its branches?
In fact, this is also a kind of weakening of the potential of the Polish secret service, this time the largest, which means that the case has a huge negative potential when it comes to the security of the Polish state. The change of some delegations into smaller units, i.e. long-range departments – which took place in 2017 – was caused by the need to strengthen field operations and cooperate with a network of operational contacts to make Poland more secure and the Internal Security Service to operate more . effective.
We then significantly reduced bureaucracy. We moved administrative issues to several key centers in Poland precisely so that people could work in the field and develop networks of operational resources. This has produced very good results in recent years. I would like to remind you that the ABW has made enormous contributions in recent years and never in the history of this service has achieved such results as in recent years.
I am afraid that the actions announced by Tomasz Siemoniak – that is, the reconstruction of delegations – will end with the restoration of high management positions, perhaps for some friends who will be appointed there. However, this will affect the effectiveness of the service’s work and we should all view it with concern. ABW should be an agency focused on operational work, not on expanding governance and bureaucracy.
READ ALSO:
— Operation Lucien. Wąsik exposes Wojtunik’s ‘sensations’ about the CBA: a fake started by the helpful media, a fraud that fits into Tusk’s story
— Józef P. was arrested again by the CBA! The former PO senator was charged. This time it’s about claiming influence
– Back to the old! The CBA liquidation project will be completed by the end of March. ‘There are two variants depending on the attitude of the president’
Source: wPolityce