The Polish state news agency PAP's reporting on last week's government meeting had briefly mentioned that a proposal to close the Felczak Institute is on the agenda, with a decision expected in the third quarter of this year, in other words, by the end of September. The motion was to have been included in a bill to amend the functioning of the prime minister's office and the powers of the head of state, which, in the end, was not discussed and whether it will make the agenda by the end of the month is uncertain.
As the establishment of the institute was passed into law under the previous government, it will have to be debated in both the upper and the lower house of Parliament, a lengthy process, but is likely to be passed by the governing majority.
However, President Andrzej Duda, elected with the support of the former ruling national conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, is likely to withhold his signature. Legislators may hold off until the next presidential elections in May 2025, in the hope that the candidate of the current liberal-leftist government majority will win the race for the presidential velvet chair.
The elimination of the institute is also compounded by the fact that most of the staff are union members, which needs to consent to dismissals.
Establishment of the two sister institutions, the Felczak Institute in Warsaw and the Felczak Foundation in Budapest, were agreed by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and PiS President Jaroslaw Kaczynski at an informal meeting back in January 2016 in Niedzica (Nedec), on the Poland-Slovakia border. The Felczak Institute in Warsaw was established in 2018.
This week's issue of the conservative weekly DoRzeczy features an interview with Professor Maciej Szymanowski, the former director of the institute, who says he was informed of his dismissal by email.
"They didn't even bother to meet with me in person to sign the handover protocol. Weeks have passed since then and no new director has been appointed. One candidate finally applied, but it turned out that he had not been appointed, but had been entrusted with various tasks that are not at all covered by the 2018 Act on the Institute. I was dismissed in haste without consulting the Institute's Board, as required by the relevant law."
I went to the Administrative Court because too many things were happening that were not in line with the law on the Institute.
"I referred to the haste with which this transpired, that is reflected, among other things, in that I have not yet received the financial report from the National Development Bank (BGK), which clearly means that nothing is happening. The monies are being spent on administrative costs and not on programs. I don't see any activity on the part of the Institute. They weren't present at this year's annual Karpacz Economic Forum, an event they have always participated in until now. I do not see them attending any conferences. The Institute has entered into a state of deep torpor, even before winter," the former director said.
