Polish Round Table Agreement - Sessions

Sessions

The sessions were divided into three main work groups:

• Political reform workgroup
• Union pluralism and party pluralism workgroup
• Economy and social issues workgroup

Specific issues were handled by these work groups. The meetings often ground to a halt. This was caused by a mutual distrust of the factions and an obvious unwillingness of the government faction to relinquish power. The most controversial questions were:

• Pay raises and indexation
• Future pluralist elections
• The limit of the future president's competence
• The limit of competence for the future Sejm and Senate
• The access to mass communication media by opposition forces

A number of (radical) opposition organisations were quite opposed to the talks. They did not believe in the good intentions of the sitting government. Despite their fears a number of important documents were signed on April 5, at the conclusion of the sessions. These documents became known as the Round Table Agreement.