Mr. Tusk - Rejtan in European Union

In 1773, a special session of the Sejm (Polish parliament) was convened in Warsaw, by its three neighbours (Russian Empire, Prussia and Austria) in order to legalize their First Partition of Poland. That Sejm is known as the Partition Sejm. Rejtan was one of the deputies that tried to prevent the first partition of Poland. He was a deputy to that Sejm, and had explicit instructions from his constituency to defend the Commonwealth. His arguments and protest did not bring results. When there was nothing more to be done to protect Poland from partitioning he made a dramatic gesture of baring his chest, blocking the exit with his own body in a dramatic attempt to stop the other members from leaving the chamber and ending the discussion, leaving Poland to be partitioned.

This image of the famous Polish painting came to mind when I heard from my Australian friend about Mr. Tusk’s action at the end of the Sunday night last chance meeting to solve Greece problems and prevent it from leaving the Eurozone. When Angela Merkel and Andreas Tsipras tried to leave the room breaking up the negotiations Mr. Tusk stepped forward saying : “Sorry but there is no way you are going to leave this room”. Just like Rejtan only he was better controlling his emotions. Times are different.  They stayed and reached agreement, Greece is still in Eurozone.

                                           

I also hope that Mr. Tusk’s action will be successful in the future and that Greece staying in the Union will really make sense. While my way of writing about the situation may seem flippant, this is not how it is intended. Mr. Tusk has been my hero for some time and for the sake of me believing in heroes at all, I hope he continues to be an honest, dedicated and clever world politician. I am sorry that in Poland he has been an antihero for some time now.  

As my ability to write political assessment of the Greek situation is very limited I would recommend Jim Belshaw's analysis.