It is known that Poland is coalish and pollutes. There is no declaration of total abandonment of coal, nor clear plans for energy transformation. In return, the miners have nothing. Just don’t emanate the fear that miners, led by empty promises to the brink of reason, will come to Warsaw to burn tires, or pour coal on rails. Of the three largest TV media in Poland: the owner of POLSAT has a lignite power plant – the worst poisonous energy shit, American TVN keeps an eye on American technology and business, and TVP – do you really think that anyone there speaks ill of Polish coal, don’t you? Will someone woken up finally admit that some serious hand is sticking out of this potty?
After two years, when the nonsense of fighting the windmills initiated plans to emigrate, Weronika returned in August 2019 from the “Human Energy” show at the Green Summer University, a convention of green supporters – with new energy. Urszula Zielińska from the Green Party talked about a chance to join the film to some project of the green association EKO-UNIA from Wrocław.
It was a project of pre-election political debates based on the WWF report on the economic development of Poland with the use of pro-environmental solutions, with the participation of candidates from all parties. WWF itself organized in the 12 largest cities and sent a tender to selected environmental organizations with a request to include smaller cities. He also added that if they knew any other interested organizations, they should share the request.
EKO-UNIA has approached us with this. They declared to organize 6-7 debates in Silesia and the vicinity of Wroclaw, we took other 16 cities. A few times in my life I’ve traveled through Poland, playing shows, running events or doing TV shows so I had some idea about the so-called “tour”. In response to the offer, EKO-UNIA also proposed to add a screening of our film Human Energy and… won a tender for all the proposed cities. Allegedly, thanks to additional points for the film. It turned out that there are 35 cities selected for the debates in total. I resigned from going to two festivals in the States, we set the route logically and Weronika started to call and organize.
Waiting for EKO-UNIA’s answer on the start of cooperation, Weronika prepared the month route of places meeting WWF conditions. And again, silence. I felt that something would be wrong. EKO-UNIA didn’t speak. The film is the source of our livelihood and in total we have only two prices: for groups and organizations involved and for shows open to all. The same offer was proposed before the tender for EKO-UNIA. WERA: I was in the euphoria of preparations, and to eliminate the intrusive suspicious silence I called with questions. After this call, constant changes in conditions began.
After all these discussions, we were pushed into the role of subcontractors. As subcontractor of EKO-UNIA we had to comply with all their decisions, which more than once created organizational confusion. On the one hand, we had our cities and our arrangements, and on the other hand, we took over their accounting duties and not only the cost estimates imposed from above. The texts of President Radosław Gawlik of the type “We act like a cooperative” or “Some things we do for free” were a cheap play. I mean what, we work for free, so what is the budget for? Who will take the rest of the money? It is like combining Marxism for the poor with Polish “Green BIZ Janusz”. Sound familiar?
Despite an imposed renegotiation call, 2 weeks earlier, in which President Gawlik forced me to lower the film licence charge, the day before the beginning of the tour, Weronika gets an email from the President, in which he completely ignores my person, my past and future responsibilities. As if I didn’t exist in this project. After so many years in the media – again another dejavu feeling. The WWF director says on our attempt to explain this whole shit: “Giving up would be too easy.” However, we did not agree to any subsequent changes in conditions and did not give up.
After trying to intimidate us with legal consequences, in case of not organizing the debate or not keeping the tongue in our mouths, EKO-UNIA started to lower our competences. For example, they did not want to recognize our technical, catering, marketing or PR costs. Also, they never promoted our film, BTW.
WERA: So far they haven’t posted press releases from our debates on their eko.org website, although they have dried up my head that I should send them directly to their employees’ emails. Even though there was very little time, I was able to persuade the candidates from the right wing: Law and Justice party and the Confederacy party to debate, which was the biggest challenge, either to gather a set of candidates from all parties or to persuade well-known journalists. However, there was a fight or an argument about everything. First by phone, then only by e-mail. It was really frustrating to work in such conditions.
WERA: As the above mentioned WWF director said, “the most important thing is for as many candidates as possible to come.” Before the debates, I talked to the Greens from various districts whether they would like to participate physically in the debates, and when Confederacy or the Left came with their court, there were no Greens at all. We were positively surprised at: Babiak, Bydgoszcz, Kielce, Ostrołęka, Radom or Szczytno. In Szczecin, the candidate from Green Party, even though I had sent him an invitation a month earlier, said: “I have a vacation now” and he didn’t come.
One of the candidates for MPs from the Green Party told me, accompanied by her colleague, a sympathizer of the Confederacy, that the Green Party, was influenced by our film and because of that they wrote its election program. The Chairwoman of the Green Party comes from the EKO-UNIA association, BTW. They took the inspiration, won the tender, allowed to organize and later “give back our green money”.
WERA: It turned out that they didn’t know how to organize it, I still had to consult with the WWF coordinator, which they later forbade me to do, arguing that it was them who signed the contract, not us. Their many years of experience, which the Vice President Miklaszewska was putting in charge of, turned out to be some kind of smokescreen. From the beginning they didn’t take our opinion into account at all and didn’t want to accept our invoices.
The mediation arranged by WWF legal counsel, resulted in the answer that there was nothing to adhere to, except for one “omitted” or late sent invoice. And then waiting for the payout. And nothing. And a pandemic.
Finally, it turned out that we were deceived by Polish accountants from M&D Consulting, hiding the failure to submit company tax returns and thus leading to the suspension of my company. When we filed a notification of a crime, attaching e-mails and transcripts of recorded conversations with the above mentioned fraudsters, where you can hear the whole process of cheating and exposing us to high costs of imposed penalties, the District Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw refused to initiate proceedings, imputing different facts than we presented. It looked as the prosecutor hadn’t read all the materials. We received an answer to our complaint and to the attention of the prosecutor to the omissions and specific articles of the Criminal Code and the highly probable danger of deceiving other people: “The complaint is an Unacceptable polemic with the content of the decision”. The false accountants finally confessed and paid the penalties, and the office in the UK restored our company. Damn you all!
Imagine how Mariola Miklaszewska, Vice President of EKO-UNII, reacted to the information that the alleged accountants had deceived us: “I will report you to every Revenue Office in Poland…”. At one point I started to describe my story privately to various journalists in Poland and at the same time EKO-UNIA paid a part of my work and copyrights. Some of the invoices were simply omitted, and Weronika, who organized twice as many debates as EKO-UNIA, as the only one of the whole project, has not paid anything so far.
WERA: Lawyers from Poznań, allegedly green-sensitive, who didn’t pay to run our case in court, dragged, dragged and then just left us and gave us bad advice. Of course, after paying for the alleged service. They did not even issue invoices. Maybe they identified themselves more with EKO-UNIA, for example?
Friends from outside the green environment didn’t hide their embarrassment. JACEK: When you read your entire history of correspondence with EKO-UNIA, you can see clearly the growing dominating feeling of financial takeover.
I was relieved that we didn’t get crazy. WERA: When they once again tried to accuse us of incompetence and once again cut our salaries by hiding behind the “Assessment of the project’s implementation by WWF”, I asked the already mentioned WWF director for support in recovering the money they had earned, I heard that he “does not think EKO-UNIA is a cancer in a green environment. Well, isn’t that “too easy” to say? A better green … in the hand, than what? Another green diplomacy? I wonder how EKO-UNIA will account for the money we’ve earned, BTW.
Michal Tarka (Polish Government Energy Advisor): That (Human Energy) movie and meeting in Poznań were inspirations to talk and act around applications of legal solutions for prosumers active in groups and RES coops 2.0. What I know Ministry of Development working on it.
Adam Dzienis: If it’s such an inspiration why won’t you release the film in TVP (Public TV), help deliver message to all people? After all, we were on the same energy congresses, seminaries, we wrote mails to you… No reaction.
Twitter adresses belong to: Michał Kurtyka – Minister of Climete, Ireneusz Zyska – ViceMinister of Climate, Jadwiga Emilewicz – Minister of Development
NO REACTION!
Our film Human Energy has contributed to the amendment of the law on RES cooperatives in Poland. After the debates, candidates from the Green Party entered the Polish Parliament for the first time in history, and after the screening of the film, the first functioning RES cooperative, i.e. Krakow Social Power Plant, was established in Cracow. From the Green Phoenix Foundation I received the distinction “For Merits in Supporting and Disseminating Eco-Energy” and finally we were interested in some media. Is there any normal, not green lawyer in Poland with whom I will be able to go to THE COURT in this case? I’m sure, you know what I mean.
Cracow Social Energy Plant Members Meeting 2019
To Be Continued…
In the next chapter: about Johnatan Ramsey film “It’s OK to panic” sociotechnique, Prof Szymon Malinowski pronuclear manipulation
