IRISH TIMES: CAMPAIGN ADDRESS: SOLIDARITY CO-FOUNDER Lech Walesa is expected to address a Libertas European election event in Ireland in the coming days.
The former Polish president has been attacked as a “disgrace” at home for appearing at Libertas events in Rome and Madrid – for a reported fee of €100,000.
As the European election enters its final phase, Mr Walesa’s reported five-city tour is also likely to include an address in Warsaw. Any such appearance will be a controversial one for the Polish icon many of his countrymen have accused of selling out.
“Lech Walesa is a symbol of peaceful democratic changes in Poland and elsewhere in Europe, our ambassador in the world. And now this ambassador disgraces us,” wrote the influential Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper, founded by former Polish dissidents in 1989.
At his second Libertas event, on Wednesday in Madrid, Mr Walesa said he agreed with the Libertas call for a more transparent Europe but that ratifying the Lisbon Treaty was the key to do so. “We must approve Lisbon so that we can change things from inside,” he said. >>> Derek Scally in Berlin | Saturday, May 16, 2009
