Tusk wants to return properties

By the end of this year the government wants to do justice to millions of Poles, whose properties were taken by Nazi Germany and communist government. New bill of reprivatization will transfer not less than 20% of the value of the deorived property.

The opportunity to announce the government’s plans will be Donald Tusk’s visit in Israel, which is planned for 8th of April since Polish citizens of Jewish descent account for one fifth of all people who were devoid of their property.

Yehuda Evron, the chairman of the American Holocaust Restitution Committee, is convince that right now it is most important to put the bill to the vote as fast as possible because the owners are getting older and older. The government took also into consideration the example of Tadeusz Kossa, who recently, after 14 years of lawsuits, had his plot on Military Parade Square in Warsaw (Plac Defilad) returned, which was worth millions of dollars.

As  finance undersecretary said, the bill is going to be ready by the end of June, then it is going to be put into vote in Seym before the end of the year. Compensation is to be higher than 20% of the property value. Poland is the last country in Middle Europe, which so far has not passed a reprivatization bill, although, since 1989 governments were making an attempt to do that. Tentative government estimation shows that the total value of the lost properties exceeded 16 billion euros. This estimation does not include the properties in Warsaw, and the grounds which were lost after war in aid of the Soviet Union. Most probable the return of property in capitol will be regulated by separate bill.