Correspondence between CULT Committee and Polish Minister of Education and Science
On 18 May 2021, the Polish Minister of Education and Science, Mr P. Czarnek, commented on Radio Wroclaw on the need for changing Polish school curricula. In this context, he also called the EU an “entity that is no longer based on the rule of law”. In reaction to these utterances, CULT decided to repudiate this misrepresentation of the EU in a letter sent on 17 June 2021, in which the Committee also recalled the need to abstain from any instrumentalization of history for political purposes.
In his response dated 21 July 2021 (Annex 2), the Minister fell short of providing the amplifications CULT had asked for, and rather provided an extensive outline of the Polish view on the Second World War and the hardships faced by the Polish people in particular, which the CULT Committee had never disputed nor belittled in any way.
CULT therefore decided to send a reply (Annex 3), in which the Committee reiterated the points made in the letter from 17 June and its longstanding overall position when it comes to dealing with history, which requires the highest possible standards.
Given that the Minister's response has been published on the Ministry's website, yet not CULT's original letter, the Committee decided to make the entire correspondence with the Minister publicly available for the sake of transparency and in order to allow citizens to form an independent opinion.
- ANNEX 1 Letter from CULT Committee to Minister of 17 June 2021 (including courtesy translation in Polish) (PDF - 262 KB)
- ANNEX 2 Letter from Minister to CULT Committee of 21 July 2021 (including courtesy translation in English) (PDF - 445 KB)
- ANNEX 3 Letter from CULT Committee to Minister of 14 October 2021 (including courtesy translation in Polish) (PDF - 411 KB)
- Radio Wroclaw
- Ministry’s website