The article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) is entitled "A Romantic in the Ministry" and makes much of the fact that the current culture minister is the great grandson of Nobel-Prize-winning author Henryk Sienkiewicz.
In the current culture war in Poland this lineage is full of irony: Henryk Sienkiewicz has been perceived as an icon of the "right" both by Law and Justice supporters and critics.
FAZ also details Bartłomiej's anti-communist activity as a student in Kraków.
However, the German outlet also recounts a less proud moment in Sienkiewicz's career - the "tape scandal" of 2014, when Sienkiewicz was recorded "horse-trading" and using profanity in "private" conversations with the then central bank chief Marek Belka.
The German article does not mention that Belka and Sienkiewicz were not only criticised for vulgar language but for violating the constitutional independence of the NBP: the recorded conversations bartered payments from the NBP to support the government (in 2014 headed by Donald Tusk) in return for sacking finance minister Jacek Rostowski and amending the Act on the NBP.
Sources: FAZ, PAP, money.pl, Gazeta Wrocławska
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