29 March 2017

Political Critique: Poland: Sleepwalking In the EU

But when looking at his actions abroad, one can easily have quite an opposite impression. On the international level, Kaczyński and his party almost without any exception ally with unreliable partners, while they simultaneously disregard potentially natural cohorts. This attitude prompts resentment from all sides. Furthermore, the skillfulness that characterizes Law and Justice (PiS) in domestic politics is absent in the external context – seeing its leaders act either strangely or vulgarly. As many commentators claim, the problem here is two fold. Kaczyński neither likes nor understands Europe. Much indicates that he is not intending to change that attitude in the future, which creates rather a greater problem for the European political mainstream as it would mean that one of the EU largest countries will simply continue to turn its back on the Community. [...]

It is quite possible that Polish government will not have to block or distance itself from anything, as much points to the fact that the leading EU Member States will detach themselves from Poland. This is what was read in the fact that Poland was not invited to join Germany, France, Italy and Spain at the recent meeting organized in Versaille. But what may come as a surprise is that the Polish government has an actual coherent plan regarding what to do in the next months. It entails building local alliances against Germany and lining up with all who will desire “Europe of two speeds”. The volunteers joining them, however, may be not too many, as the strategy is absolutely surrealistic – it is the same establishment that leans towards closer integration and wants to resist populism, and that Kaczyński himself holds in contempt assuming it responsible for the destruction of the EU. He said it directly himself: it is Merkel and Tusk, who devastate the Union. In parallel, the fixed ideas presented by Poland – such as enhancing the weight of the national votes and weakening the position of the European Commission by the occasion of the next Treaty reform can only take place if there is a broad consensus behind them. This is, in essence, the very same consensus that Poland rejects. In that context even the most obvious mechanisms – that politicians of EPP would support an EPP candidate – are taken by Kaczyński as effects of conspiring, international plotting and dirty lobbyism. Hereafter Poland becomes a hostage of a certain paradox, which is a nationalistic diplomacy. At the same time it insists that each country should be entitled to ruthlessly defend its respective interests, and it is disenchanted and furious, when it discovers when others do precisely that.

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