-- PETRU ANNOUNCES NEW PARTY AFTER LOCAL ELECTIONS - https://300polityka.pl/live/2018/05/15/ -- KUKIZ’15 DOES NOT RULE OUT SUPPORTING ŚPIEWAK IN WARSAW MAYORAL ELECTION - on the front page of Gazeta Stołeczna: “What about the Razem Party? "It would be interesting if @Kukiz15 supported the egalitarian, democratic, and pro-social program. It would be a sign that our postulates convince even people we never expected it from. These are good postulates for Warsaw, so we hope it happens. One thing we can promise: if there are activists from @RazemWarszawa on the lists, they will certainly not be next to racists, homophobes, and misogynists" - responded the Warsaw activists of the Razem Party to our question”. http://warszawa.wyborcza.pl/warszawa/7,54420,23398210,kukiz-15-poprze-jana-spiewaka-w-wyborach-prezydenta-warszawy.html

-- CIVIC PLATFORM IS UNRELIABLE - says Włodzimierz Czarzasty in an interview with Łukasz Pawłowski and Filip Rudnik in KL: “Civic Platform is unreliable – therefore, it doesn't have the support it should have. You can't say in the morning that we can't afford 500+, and in the afternoon that we'll extend the program to the first child”.

-- CZARZASTY ON 16 THOUSAND PEOPLE ON LISTS: “Only four parties in Poland can field lists in all 350 counties: PiS, PO, PSL, and SLD. There are no others. You can bring all party members to the Palladium club, but if there are 150 of them, and you need to field 16,000 people on the lists, it's impossible”.

-- CZARZASTY ON THE SLD JOINING THE RAZEM INITIATIVE: “Fighting for people to have a better life always makes sense. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the Razem party. This is how it's done – you collect 100,000 signatures, then you submit a bill to the Sejm, and the Sejm adopts it. That's it. It's enough to do it. I think it's a very honest and good initiative. We will help them collect signatures”.

-- CZARZASTY ON THE RETIREMENT AGE: “Let's take the retirement age. We believe that the retirement age should remain at its current level, plus we would add the possibility of retiring after 40 years of work for men and 35 years of work for women. Documented, including "moonlighting" contracts and years spent raising children”.

-- CZARZASTY ON GDULA'S REPORT: “I like everything about it, I mean the reaction! The Warsaw elite was fascinated that some guy went and described Poland outside of Warsaw! I guarantee you that if you asked a hundred thinking people from Sochaczew, they would say the same thing that Gdula discovered: we hate Civic Platform because it's a lousy party; it's important to keep promises; generally, you don't vote for a party based on one thing, but on many factors. You would also learn that there is a large group of excluded people – who are not actually excluded – who have aspirations, want to break free, and voted for PiS. So Gdula found out a lot. Sochaczew simply groaned! Gdula is intelligent, he has an excellent research apparatus. I'm not laughing at him, but at the reactions. Sir – TOK FM, TVN24, 'Gazeta Wyborcza,' 'Polityka,' because it's the same people – they simply discovered an extraordinary story. They discovered Sochaczew”. https://kulturaliberalna.pl/2018/05/15/wywiad-czarzasty-lewica-polityka/

-- SLD STOPPED PRETENDING TO BE SOMEONE ELSE - Łukasz Rojgosz on 5 reasons for SLD's return: “Standing up for the wronged certainly didn't hurt the SLD, but something else played a key role here. The Alliance finally stopped pretending to be a different party than it actually is and to have a different history than we all know. Instead of adorning itself with the feathers of Western social democracy, it decided to be a left-wing party in the Polish way. Instead of running away from its own history, it made peace with it and stopped apologizing. Instead of allowing competitors and the media to personally furnish their own party, it came up with an interesting and, above all, effective mix of the 'SLD beton' and the young generation's left.” http://wiadomosci.gazeta.pl/wiadomosci/7,114884,23398714,nie-ma-lewicy-bez-sld-czyli-jak-sojusz-wrocil-do-politycznej.html

-- THE ŁÓDŹ VOIVODE WILL NOT RETURN THE AWARD TO CARITAS - front page of Dziennik Łódzki: https://www.egazety.pl/polska-press/e-wydanie-polska-dziennik-lodzki.html

-- PO AND PSL VOTERS AGAINST CUTS IN PARLIAMENTARY SALARIES, ALMOST 70% IN FAVOR OVERALL - Krzysztof Pacewicz on the Ipsos poll: “Most Poles support reducing the salaries of parliamentarians. Especially poor, less educated people, and supporters of PiS and Kukiz'15. The wealthy, residents of metropolitan areas, people with higher education, and supporters of the opposition have doubts. IPSOS poll for OKO.press.” https://oko.press/67-proc-polakow-popiera-zmniejszenie-pensji-poslow-tylko-zwolennicy-po-i-psl-przeciw-sondaz/

-- BRUDZIŃSKI CALLS AND APOLOGIZES TO THE RECTOR: “‘While we were at the rector of the University of Szczecin as conference organizers, Minister of Interior Joachim Brudziński called him,’ reports OKO.press Tymoteusz Kochan. ‘The minister said he was not responsible for this situation and apologized for the police entering the university grounds. We understood that the minister did not know on whose orders the services intervened.’” https://oko.press/min-brudzinski-dzwoni-do-rektora-i-przeprasza-za-wtargniecie-policji-na-konferencje-naukowa-o-marksie/

-- THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION IS A PRISONER OF ITS OWN HASTY CONCLUSIONS - KONRAD SZYMAŃSKI for wPolityce: “We never promised an agreement at all costs. De-escalation of this dispute can only occur with respect for Poland's right to carry out reforms. Crossing this line will put us back in a confrontational position, which Prime Minister Morawiecki and President Juncker want to avoid. The European Commission is a prisoner of its own decidedly overreaching, hasty conclusions. This makes an agreement very difficult.”

-- TIMMERMANS SPOKE ABOUT THE KEY DATE OF JULY 3RD BEHIND CLOSED DOORS - Tomasz Bielecki in GW: “Timmermans spoke to ministers behind closed doors about the ‘key date of July 3rd’ – as a result of lowering the retirement age from 70 to 65 years old, the term of office of Supreme Court President Małgorzata Gersdorf and those judges who did not ask President Duda for permission to work in retirement will end. The European Commission has indicated since July 2017 that this unconstitutional retirement purge is a 'red line' regarding Article 7. And it initiated this disciplinary procedure in December, as soon as Duda signed the law lowering the retirement age in the Supreme Court also for judges currently serving there. A possible concession on the Supreme Court issue may prove to be a decisive argument for accelerating or slowing down the Article 7 proceedings.” http://wyborcza.pl/7,75399,23398879,polska-ma-kilka-tygodni-na-kolejne-ustepstwa-ws-praworzadnosci.html

-- DO NOT PLAY WITH EUROPSKEPTIC FIRE - Michał Szułdrzyński in RZ: “Seeing how willingly societies in Europe are adopting anti-EU sentiments, it's not worth playing with fire. The unforeseen side effects of the rule of law proceedings could prove dangerous. Therefore, even a rotten (read: painful for all parties) compromise will be better than open confrontation.” http://www.rp.pl/Komentarze/305149907-Szuldrzynski-Nie-igrac-z-eurosceptycznym-ogniem.html

-- THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION IS COUNTING ON POLAND'S MOVE REGARDING THE KRS - writes Magdalena Cedro in DGP: “– In the opinion of the European Commission, the corrections made so far are cosmetic and do not address the core of the changes. The Commission appreciates the actions of Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, but not enough has happened yet – an EU diplomat told DGP. According to him, Timmermans cannot deviate too far from the recommendations issued in December. – He has no room to maneuver. If he withdrew from this dispute now, he would give the impression that there are deviations from the rule of law in the EU – he emphasized. According to the interlocutor, Brussels has shown 'realism' in informal conversations with Warsaw, softening the tone of its recommendations. As part of a compromise, the EC suspended its recommendations regarding the Constitutional Tribunal. Four recommendations were reduced to three essential conditions. The first is the depoliticization of the National Council of the Judiciary, whose composition was elected by the Sejm on the basis of new regulations at the beginning of March.” http://www.gazetaprawna.pl/artykuly/1123686,komisja-europejska-czeka-na-zmiany-w-polskiej-ustawie-o-krs.html

-- POLISH ARMY IS REFURBISHING SCRAP, CUTTING MODERN EQUIPMENT PURCHASE PROGRAMS - Paweł Wroński on the front page of GW: “The Ministry of National Defence is drastically cutting the program for purchasing modern weaponry. Instead, it plans to refurbish outdated equipment.” http://wyborcza.pl/7,75398,23399409,polska-armia-remontuje-zlom-z-zapowiadanej-przez-pis-modernizacji.html

-- KUCHCIŃSKI GOVERNS THE SEJM LIKE THE ARMY - KATARZYNA KOLENDA ZALESKA in GW: “Experts are not only not listened to but are actively prevented from speaking. When PiS realized that the opposition would not back down, it introduced a system of penalties, just like in a closed institution. The Marshal of the Sejm has taken absolute power and governs the Sejm like the army. There is no room for freedom and the exchange of ideas. The Sejm has transformed into barbed-wire-enclosed barracks subordinate to the whims of one party.”

-- ENTERING THE SEJM IS LIKE TRESPASSING - FURTHER FROM KKZ: “A visit to the Sejm is heartbreaking. And not just because its corridors are currently occupied by mothers and their disabled children. This place has lost its aura of community, which was felt – despite everything, uninterrupted – since 1989. Today, empty corridors, barriers, and locked doors are intimidating. There are more and more restrictions and an atmosphere of reluctance, as if being in the Sejm was equivalent to trespassing. Only one's own are welcomed cordially; the rest are unwanted guests who arrived uninvited.” http://wyborcza.pl/7,75968,23399372,pis-zdegradowal-sejm-goscinne-wystepy-we-wtorek-kolenda.html

-- ALL OF THIS IS BEING REMEMBERED BY POLES - Dominika Wielowieyska in GW: “It is also symptomatic that the protest in 2014 did not provoke the authorities to close the Sejm to citizens. Today, protesters are treated as if they were a terrorist threat. When 'Solidarity' blocked the Sejm and physically attacked MPs, the police set up barriers. Mariusz Błaszczak said then that the authorities were separating themselves from citizens. PiS is doing this today because it fears the protest of people with disabilities. All of this is being stored in the memory of Poles. Michał Karnowski is celebrating too early. The sum of these mistakes will sooner or later backfire on the ruling party.” http://wyborcza.pl/7,75968,23395763,czy-pis-sie-konczy-ta-nieznosna-polityka.html

-- FACT ON JACK RUDZIŃSKI, KACZYŃSKI'S ASSISTANT, AND HOSPITAL VISITS: “Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has visited twice so far for long meetings. Once, but briefly, the Minister of Justice Zbigniew Ziobro. On Friday, two Deputy Prime Ministers visited: Jarosław Gowin and Piotr Gliński. Sejm Marshal Marek Kuchciński also appeared, as did Maciej Łopiński – a former presidential minister, and now a member of the PZU supervisory board.” https://www.fakt.pl/wydarzenia/polityka/jacek-rudzinski-lacznik-jaroslawa-kaczynskiego-ze-swiatem/fkc00hy

-- BIRTHDAYS: Paula Sawicka, Jerzy Jachowicz, Marcin Graczyk.