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Warsaw prepares compensation project for pre-war landowners

PR dla Zagranicy
Nick Hodge 09.08.2012 13:05
The mayor of Warsaw has revealed that she is working on a project aimed at clarifying the muddle surrounding compensation for pre-war property owners.
photo - Polish Radio/ Wojciech Kusinskiphoto - Polish Radio/ Wojciech Kusinski

Mayor
Mayor of Warsaw Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz: photo - Polish Radio/ Wojciech Kusinski

Speaking to Polish Radio, Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz acknowledged that Poland is the only country from the former Eastern bloc that has not carried out the process of reprivatisation, failing to resolve the issue in a legal framework.

Currently, compensation or reprivatisation is carried out inconsistently in individual court cases.

“This is a huge loss to the budget of Warsaw,” she said, noting the preponderance of claims, stressing that this year alone some 200 million zloty (about 49.2 million euro) will have to be paid out.

“On the other hand, it is very difficult to invest,” she added, referring to the legal muddle.

On 26 October 1945, the so-called Bierut Decree or Warsaw Decree was passed that legalised the confiscation of plots of private land in the capital (stating also that compensation was applicable, although in practice this did not occur.)

The decree took its name from Polish communist leader Boleslaw Bierut, who was president of the intermediary Popular Council (1944-47) in the lead-up to the first post-war elections of 1947.

“We are preparing a concept for the 'de-Bierutisation' of Warsaw,” she confirmed, adding that Warsaw MPs are “determined” to submit the project to parliament.

Gronkiewicz-Waltz noted that the state “would certainly not be able to provide 100 percent compensation for a property,” noting that in previous years, 20 percent of the value was often talked of as the more realistic sum.

She argued that only in certain countries where cities were not largely destroyed was 100 percent compensation carried out.

The mayor indicated that prospective compensation levels would be even lower than previously proposed in Warsaw, “because the funds are not there,” but she said that the new project “will try to resolve the problem.”

As regards the nationwide question of compensation for lost property, successive post-1989 Polish governments have stalled legislation on the matter.

In 2009, Prime Minister Donald Tusk himself pledged to push a bill through, but in March 2011, he shelved the plan, saying that “Poland could not afford to do so at present”, owing to “the global financial crisis.” (nh)

tags: property, Warsaw
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