Rostowski Is Contender for Polish Finance Minister, People Say

Donald Tusk, who is working to form a coalition government after winning the Oct. 21 general election, probably will select economics professor Jacek Rostowski as finance minister, said people with knowledge of the selection process.

Rostowski, who favors fast euro adoption, would succeed Zyta Gilowska, said three officials close to the leadership of Tusk's Citizens' Platform party. The party's leaders met on Oct. 27 to discuss candidacies for ministers dealing with the economy and plan to offer the 57-year-old Rostowski the job, newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza also reported today, citing no one.

Waldemar Pawlak, head of the Polish Peasants' Party that is in coalition talks with Platform, would be economy minister while Zbigniew Chlebowski, who is in charge of economic issues in Tusk's party, would be treasury minister, Gazeta said.

Rostowski, a member of the supervisory council of the Warsaw-based Center for Social and Economic Research and an economics professor at the Central European University in Budapest, has spoken in favor of cutting the budget deficit and meeting terms for euro adoption ``the faster the better.''

Rostowski said he has not received ``any official proposal'' from the Citizens' Platform and declined to elaborate when contacted by telephone on Oct. 26.

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