The Centre Agreement (Polish: Porozumienie Centrum, PC) was a Christian democratic political party in Poland. It was established in 1990 and had its roots in the Solidarity trade union and its political arm, the Solidarity Citizens' Committee. Its main leader was Jarosław Kaczyński. The party was initially the party of choice of Polish president Lech Wałęsa and heavily cooperated with him and his environment between 1990 and 1992, leading the first post-communist governments. In 1991, Jan Olszewski from Centre Agreement gained the support of Wałęsa for his candidacy for Prime Minister, forming a PC-led government. However, the government was mired in internal conflicts in 1992 and fell to a vote of no confidence. Afterwards, the party was increasingly marginalized and became a part of Solidarity Electoral Action in 1997. In 1999, the bigger faction of the party left for the newly created Polish Christian Democratic Agreement; further, in 2001, its leadership dissolved the party to found Law and Justice, the direct successor of the PC. The PC was then formally dissolved in 2002.
In its programme, the PC opposed socialism and was strongly anti-communist. It was a centrist party that declared its commitment to the principles of Christian democracy but distanced itself from Catholic nationalism. On cultural issues, the Centre Agreement adhered to Catholic principles, although it stressed that while it supports expanding the role of the Catholic Church in the Polish state, Poland must also accommodate non-believers. The party stood out through its economic program as it supported social market economy and was unique in the post-Solidarity front in its negative approach towards the neoliberal Balcerowicz Plan. The PC argued that market economy created 'distortions' which citizens should be protected from, and stated that the main goal of the Polish economy should be "preventing the impoverishment of families in need". The party was critical of privatization, seeing it as a reform that made a few people rich at the expense of the general population. Through this, the Centre Agreement represented voters who were anti-communist but nevertheless critical of liberal capitalism.
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History
In the 1991 parliamentary election, the PC was part of the Centre Civic Alliance, which obtained 8.7% of the vote. Subsequently, it joined the government led by Jan Krzysztof Bielecki of the Liberal Democratic Congress and, in December 1991, PC's Jan Olszewski formed a government that lasted until 1992. In the 1993 parliamentary election, the PC was reduced to 4.4% and failed to elect any MPs. The party was subsequently abandoned by many activists, who founded parties such as the Centre Agreement – Integrative Initiative, Movement for the Republic, Movement for Reconstruction of Poland and Polish Union.
During the first period of its existence, the Centre Agreement was not a homogeneous formation. It comprised, among others, the free-market "Gdańsk Liberals", several minor groupings with a Christian Democratic profile (the Christian Democratic Labour Party, the Young Christian Democrats), or the peasants from the Polish People's Party (Mikołajczykowskie). These ideologically diverse entities were united by their critical assessment of the policies of Tadeusz Mazowiecki's government, hence Lech Wałęsa became their natural ally, who in turn also gave his support to the newly established party on 11 June 1990. This alliance was accompanied by slogans on the dynamisation of the systemic changes, with demands for the fastest possible free elections, both parliamentary and presidential, as well as the reconstruction of the economy, by which they meant privatisation and demonopolisation.
The creation of the Agreement of the Centre coincided with the beginning of the so-called "war on the top" amongst Wałęsa and the rest of the post-Solidarity cabinet. The day after the conference at which the establishment of the party was announced, Lech Wałęsa expressed his approval for the existence of differentiation in the milieu of the former opposition. After the parliamentary elections of 27 October 1991, party-presidential disputes over the candidate for the post of Prime Minister began, which lasted for almost two months. Shortly after the parliamentary elections, Lech Wałęsa proposed four options for forming a new government.
In three of them, the President was also to serve as Chairman of the Council of Ministers. Taking this possibility into account, Wałęsa proposed the portfolio of Deputy Prime Minister to Jacek Kuroń. Among the party establishment of the Democratic Union, this idea did not gain support. Other parties reacted similarly to Wałęsa's proposal to combine the office of president and prime minister. Consequently, at the end of October 1991, Wałęsa encouraged Prime Minister Bielecki not to resign and to continue with his government. The President did not rule out the possibility of reconstructing the Cabinet and continuing it despite the change in the balance of power in parliament.
Ideology
The Centre Agreement advocated radical decommunization and accelerated reforms. In 1991, the PC split, as several constituent parties left the party, such as the Liberal Democratic Congress (KLD), the "Mikołajczykowskie" PSL, the "Solidarity" PSL and others. The Citizens' Movement for Democratic Action (ROAD), on the other hand, was the response of centrist circles to the establishment of the PC. The Forum of Democratic Right (FPD) emphasised the importance of conservative ideology.
The party was not considered a conservative party, and did not identify with conservatism. Polish political scientist lists Centre Agreement amongst post-Solidarność parties that were not conservative, writing: "However, it would be difficult to classify these groupings as conservative parties, due to the fact that they did not strictly identify themselves with conservatism in their names (Porozumienie Centrum, Zjednoczenie Chrześcijańsko-Narodowe), and in their programme documents they mainly exposed Catholic-national concepts (Zjednoczenie Chrześcijańsko-Narodowe) or Christian-democratic concepts (Porozumienie Centrum), rather than conservative ones."
In the cultural sphere, the Centre Agreement sought to maintain a distance from both the Democratic Union, in which strong influences from the Solidarity left were perceived, and the Christian National Union, seen as anachronistic. This is evidenced by the words spoken by the leader of the PC, Jarosław Kaczyński, in an interview given in 1993 to Michał Bichniewicz and Piotr M. Rudnicki: "I am not in favour of what the conservatives from ZChN are proposing, i.e. a return to the traditional-patriarchal family (...) This is not a model possible to propose to contemporary society". Regarding ZChN and Catholic nationalism represented by this party, Kaczyński remarked: "The Catholicism proposed by ZChN manifests itself in a specific form, as a demand for a Catholic state. I do not accept this type of political Catholicism (...) I once said of ZChN that it is the shortest road to the de-Christianisation of Poland. I fully uphold this opinion (...)'."
In his public statements, Kaczyński also stated that the Centre Agreement is a Christian-democratic party but is not a confessional one. He argued that the Centre Agreement is not an inherently nationalist or a Catholic party. He stated: "ZChN is a grouping that refers to the tradition of organised Polish nationalism. We firmly reject this tradition. Secondly, it is a grouping of fundamentalist Catholic, which we also reject. We are a Christian grouping, but we are open, you can be a member of the PC and a non-believer. We are not a parish party and they [ZChN] have recently convened parish committees that will form a party."