According to the information gathered by tvn24.pl, the Public Prosecutor's Office has started an investigation into the circumstances attending the conclusion of the contract for Russian gas supply by the coalition government of the Civic Platform and the Polish People's Party (PO-PSL) in 2010. Investigators will check whether the agreement could have been unfavorable for Poland and whether corruption could have been involved.
The fact that an investigation into the so-called Yamal contract was initiated was confirmed by the spokesperson of the Regional Prosecutor's Office in Warsaw.
“The proceedings were opened on 19 September. It concerns acting in contravention of official authority and failure to perform official duties by public officials in connection with the negotiation and conclusion of the international contract for the supply of Russian gas to Poland, which was unfavorable for Poland and contrary to the law of the European Union, and thus detrimental to the public interest”, Prosecutor Łukasz Łapczyński informs us.
No charges
The Prosecutor's statement means that the investigators have not charged anyone yet, while the investigation itself concerns the suspicion that “public officials” have committed an offence under Article 231 of the Criminal Code.
This article provides for a sentence of up to three years' imprisonment if an official fails to fulfil their duties, for example, out of laziness. However, the penalty is increased up to ten years if the official has done so in exchange for financial gain. Tvn24.pl's journalists have obtained a document from the Regional Prosecutor's Office, which describes the investigation differently than its spokesperson does.
“Concerns acting in contravention of official authority, failure to perform duties in order to achieve financial gain by the then Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and other public officials in connection with the negotiation and conclusion of an international agreement on gas supply, which was unfavorable for Poland” – states a document signed by one of the prosecutors.
In 2010 Waldemar Pawlak, the then President of the PSL, was the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy. It was he who negotiated the details of the long-term contract for gas supply from Siberia on behalf of Donald Tusk's government.
A political war?
The discussion on whether the agreement was beneficial for Poland fires the public imagination and sparks discussion among experts, as its details have been classified and remain directly related to the country's energy security. For many years, the Internal Security's Agency itself has been alerting politicians that Russia is treating the gas trade policy as its main instrument of pressure. In turn, the public is interested due to the value of the mysterious agreement which amounts to billions of PLN.
Interestingly, the ministers of Donald Tusk's government also accused Law and Justice's (PiS) politicians of signing an unfavorable gas supply contract through the Yamal pipeline. In 2011, the then Minister of the Treasury quoted in the Sejm documents signed five years earlier by his predecessor from PiS, minister Wojciech Jasiński (today's President of PKN Orlen). Mikołaj Budzanowski argued that Jasiński had signed a contract without even reading the documents beforehand, which meant that expensive gas caused “Polish families to lose a billion in just a single year”.
“Gas has always been an element of political war. This time, however, it is a novelty that the Public Prosecutor's Office is investigating potential corruption accompanying the 2010 contract”, one of the opposing deputies tells us informally.
Waldemar Pawlak himself did not respond to our numerous requests for contact. We will publish his comment on the opening of the investigation as soon as possible.
“In-depth analysis of documents”
According to tvn24.pl's informal sources, officers of the Internal Security Agency sent their materials to the Public Prosecutor's Office. Our interlocutors state that there is circumstantial evidence of corruption among these materials. However, this is not officially confirmed by the spokesperson of the Public Prosecutor's Office Łukasz Łapczyński. The answers he provided us with show that the basis for the investigation was found in a report lodged with the Public Prosecutor's office back in 2010 by Mariusz Błaszczak – the then chairman of the PiS caucus, and today's Minister of the Interior and Administration.
“The analysis of the case files, including documentation obtained during the verification activities, indicated that the refusal to start the investigation in 2010 was premature. This is because not all aspects raised in the report, the accompanying documentation as well as the documentation collected during the verification activities have been adequately explained”, responds Prosecutor Łukasz Łapczyński.
The spokesperson announces that this time, the analysis of the documents and circumstances surrounding the contract's conclusion will be “in-depth”.
Źródło: tvn24.pl/tłumaczenie Intertext.com.pl
Źródło zdjęcia głównego: Gazprom