Aleksander Kwaśniewski Quotes

Today there is no communism in Europe, no Warsaw Pact, no balance of fear. We, Poles, have a great satisfaction that the cause of the construction of better, united and secure Europe of free people began in Poland and has achieved the present phase here, in Rome.

The Cold War walls have come down. They have set free the spirits of freedom and democracy, but also unleashed the demons of new threats to security. Among those threats are unconventional capabilities of the so-called "states of concern."

Poland really started to change in 1989. Since then, we have achieved our main goals: we are in the European Union, we are in NATO, and we finally have democracy after almost fifty years of communist rule. We have a full-fledged free-market economy.

Ukraine is not an ideal country, nor will it be one for a long time to come. But we have the opportunity to introduce it to our standards. If we don't do that, Kiev will follow the Russian and the Belarusian model. Ukraine was strongly under Russia's influence for centuries, and its people experienced a very brutal form of communism.

I think, for me, the first important thing is that the West should have a common policy toward Russia. So the unity of the European Union and the United States is a precondition for good talks and good relationships with Russia.

In the old Belarusian society, women’s stories—however important—were silenced. The crucial change we observe now is that women are not only organising to survive but they are leading the fight. That is indeed incredibly inspirational!

Six years ago, I didn’t hope, I didn’t dream that in 1995 I would win the presidential election. But the situation in Poland changed very fast, and became totally unpredictable. Poland is going on this democratic way faster than we thought before.

The transformations in the Polish economy continue. We are slowly approaching the completion of the privatisation of enterprises and banks. We have built a securities and financial instruments market from scratch. The private sector, employing almost 70 per cent of the entire working population, is growing dynamically.

We have become aware of the responsibility for our attitude towards the dark pages in our history. We have understood that bad service is done to the nation by those who are impelling to renounce that past. Such attitude leads to a moral self-destruction.

I understand that if someone asks me to be part of some project it’s not only because I’m so good, it’s also because I am Kwasniewski and I am a former president of Poland. And this is all inter-connected. No-names are a nobody.