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My brief stay in Mazowiecki's office

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Refusing to be bribed
Aleksander Smolar Political scientist
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There was a second attempt to involve me in corruption. My family was still in Paris at that point and obviously I was keen to visit them from time to time so I was offered free tickets on LOT airlines. Again, I thought this was strange. Fortunately, I was very cautious and I didn’t avail myself of either the first offer or of the second. I have to say there was also the problem of my attitude. I mean, I’ve returned to Poland and I feel completely at home here yet at the same time, my life is split between Poland and France, I’ve come back to Poland but in a sense I’ve never come back. I mean, I have my family over there, I go back there constantly, I only worked for the government on one more occasion. I didn’t take any money, this time I took the normal salary for advisers when I was offered it since I’d come from abroad and so was entitled to receive money from the European Union and be financed by them. I refused. In other words, I refused every privilege and was very careful not to take any money from the public purse and you could say that this was one of the reasons why I secured a strong position for myself in an organization which was independent of the government.

Była druga próba w związku z tym, że rodzina jeszcze była wtedy w Paryżu i w sposób oczywisty zależało mi, żeby wpadać od czasu do czasu do nich, to zaproponowano mi darmowe bilety LOT-owskie. Znów wydało mi się to dziwne. Wykazałem na szczęście czujność, nie skorzystałem ani z jednej, ani z drugiej propozycji. I zresztą muszę powiedzieć, to był też problem mojego stosunku. To znaczy, wróciłem do Polski i czuję się tutaj jak u siebie, ale też w jakimś sensie żyję między Polską i Francją, wróciłem do Polski i w jakimś sensie nigdy nie wróciłem, to znaczy, że mam rodzinę tam, że jeżdżę tam bez przerwy, że pracowałem dla rządu jeszcze tylko raz. Nie brałem żadnych pieniędzy poza normalną pensją dla doradcy. Chociaż kiedy przyjechałem z zagranicy, proponowano mi specjalne wynagrodzenie z pieniędzy bodajże Unii Europejskiej. Odmówiłem. Innymi słowy, odmówiłem jakichkolwiek przywilejów i w ogóle dbałem o to, żeby nie brać pieniędzy od państwa i stąd, można powiedzieć, to jest jedno ze źródeł tego, że znalazłem w sumie przyczółek w organizacji pozarządowej.

Aleksander Smolar (b. 1940) is a Polish writer, political activist and adviser, vice-president of the Institute for Human Sciences and president of the Stefan Batory Foundation.

Listeners: Vitek Tracz

Vitek Tracz is a London-based entrepreneur who has been involved in science publishing, pharmaceutical information and mobile phone-based navigation.

Tags: Poland, France, European Union

Duration: 1 minute, 38 seconds

Date story recorded: September 2017

Date story went live: 09 November 2018