Bankers can do little but wait and hope for payment
"If you get into anybody far enough," said failed-then-jailed Texas Wheeler-Dealer Billie Sol Estes two decades ago, "you've got yourself a partner." By that reasoning, Poland should have more partners than a square dancer on a Saturday night. So it does. Poland is in debt to world governments and banks by about $28 billion, but its external debt crisis has become an agonizing waiting game controlled largely by the debtor, Bank Handlowy, the foreign trade bank.
Next week, for example, $240 million in already overdue 1981 interest payments is supposed to go to a group of 501 banks in Europe, the U.S., Japan and Canada. They are owed a total of $7.5 billion by Poland. Said Zbigniew Karcz, director of the foreign department of Poland's Ministry of Finance, last week: "We are continuing to negotiate with banks, and we really hope to conclude an agreement in late February to reschedule payments of principal that were due in 1981." The Poles are expected to get the money to make the payment by somehow rustling up enough foreign exchange credits-from slightly improved coal exports, for example.
That payment will be late, but the financiers are likely to take the money and be happy. They will also be showing Poland far more lenience than that given to a laid-off Detroit auto worker if he missed a few payments on his wife's washing machine. That is because the Western bankers know that if they demand too much too soon and declare Poland in default, they will stand hardly any chance of receiving even part of what is owed to them.
Western governments do not want the Poles to be forced into default any more than the bankers. At a Senate subcommittee hearing last week on the Polish debt issue, Marc Leland, Assistant Treasury Secretary for International Affairs, said: "What good would a default do? It would tend to reduce pressure on Poland to pay, just like when debts are discharged in bankruptcy."
Finally, the Soviets do not want default, because they would then find themselves with the burden of being Poland's only friend. The Soviets, in fact, are making it a little easier for the Poles to meet their interest payments by shipping large quantities of oil, iron ore, food and cotton, thus freeing some precious Polish hard currency to go toward the payment.
So while the ingredients for a Polish financial disaster are present, they are not likely to be combined. Three weeks ago, Western bankers had their first direct communication with Polish officials since the declaration of martial law in December. Hans Friderichs, chairman of Dresdner Bank, made a one-day visit to Warsaw, representing a 20-bank task force that negotiates for the 501 creditor banks. That was followed the same week by another meeting between Western bankers and Polish officials in Vienna, then a telex from the Poles to all creditors later in the month promising that next week's interest payment would be made.