"Gazeta Wyborcza" reported on 2 September that a business plan for creating an independent radio station to broadcast to Belarus from Poland is to be ready by mid-September. According to the Warsaw-based daily, Poland will ask Brussels to sponsor broadcasting to Belarus from the sum of some 2 million euros ($2.5 million) that the European Commission has recently allocated to support democracy in Belarus. In August, Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka decided to earmark 950,000 zlotys ($290,000) for the Polish nongovernmental organizations planning to create an independent Belarusian-language radio.

"Nobody wants to remove [Belarusian President Alyaksandr] Lukashenka by force. The attitude to him will depend on the attitude of Belarusians to him. But with its policy the EU -- and it is Poland's aim -- should stimulate a positive change inside the Belarusian nation," Polish Foreign Minister Adam Rotfeld said before an informal conference of EU foreign ministers in Newport, Wales, on 1 September.